What Employees Crave

To feel important.

• Why do your friends forward chain emails?
• Why do parents brag about their children's accomplishments?
• Why do your Facebook friends announce every-little-dang-thing about themselves?

It's to get that feeling that says:

1. I'm important.
2. I have a high status.
3. I am loved.

How do you make your team feel important?

Celebrate them.

Organizations that do any celebration things tend to do them seldomly:

• "We celebrate once at the end of the year."
• "We give them gifts during the winter holidays."
• "We publicly thank them once a year."

Remember when you got that big-frickin expensive gift?

1. It wowed you at first.
2. But, the crazy happiness dissipated within 48 hours.

Now, think about those tiny gifts you received in bunches spread out over time; each and every one of them got you a similarly happy feeling as the one big one.

• One big gift: 1 happiness.
• 250 little gifts: 250 happiness-es. BAM.

Instead of throwing one big celebration per year, throw 250 mini-ones that last 5 minutes each; for instance:

1. Celebrate the most productive accomplishments for the day.
2. Print little cheese-tastic awards using Microsoft Word Templates on recycled paper.
3. Publicize accomplishments on your company's wiki/intranet/website.
4. Etc.

Now, here's the caveat:

1. You can't make everyone feel important doing X.
2. But, you can make each and everyone of them feel important where they excel.
3. Celebrate their Tiger Woods.

Make important.

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