As a leader, showing employees that you care is a crucial part of cultivating a highly engaged workforce. When employees are engaged at work, it leads to a slew of benefits, including increased productivity and revenue and decreased employee turnover.

While there are many ways to show employees that you care about them, not all of them are long-lasting. A big party or a bonus check will surely make employees feel appreciated in the moment, but if they don’t feel respected and valued when they’re back at work, it’s not going to help your cause much.

That’s why the following five tips will instead focus on enduring strategies that center around communication and culture. By keeping employees in the know, listening to their feedback and recognizing and developing their skills, you can consistently show you employees that care, thereby creating long-lasting employee engagement.

1. Share company goals and performance

It’s never a good feeling when you realize that you’ve been left out of the loop. If you want to show employees that you care, you can’t keep them in the dark. Now that doesn’t mean they know every little detail, rather they should be aware of the big picture, in other words, the company’s vision and goals. When employees are aware of company goals, they feel more connected to the business and are more dedicated to meeting their goals, leading to higher productivity.

In addition to company goals, you should also share how the company is doing in order to create a transparent culture. Transparency is important because it promotes trust, and trust creates an environment in which people are more likely to be honest, share ideas and collaborate towards common goals.

2. Recognize the ways employees contribute to company success

Part of showing that you care is showing that you appreciate the hard work employees put in. When individuals or teams are doing a great job, make sure to recognize those efforts. On top of this, it’s essential to share the ways that teams are directly influencing business success. While some employees may be able to see their actions materialize as real results, not every employee has that insight.

Researchers have found that communicating employees’ contributions is one of the factors that separates high performing companies from low performing ones. As you can imagine, hearing how your hard work impacts the company’s success is very validating and inspires you to do even better.

3. Listen to their feedback

One of the best ways to show employees that you care is to take the time to listen to their concerns as valued members of the organization. This is even more impactful when you then act on the feedback and make positive changes to the business.

4. Trust them enough to do their jobs

Showing employees that you trust them is always a big compliment as well as a great way to make them valued. To show employees that you truly trust them and their abilities, stay away from micromanaging. Micromanagement is one of the top complaints employees have and it often leads to turnover.

These following tips will help you stay clear of micromanaging while getting the best results possible:

  • Clearly communicate responsibilities
  • Create defined goals for employees to reach
  • Check in on progress, answer questions, and hold employees accountable
  • Give employees decision-making power so they have a voice in the work they are doing
  • Give employees full ownership of their work, from start to finish, rather than assigning work out task-by-task

5. Make mentorship part of the culture

Mentorship is a great way to show employees that you care by developing their skills and helping them reach their goals. In addition, it’s a crucial part of transferring tribal knowledge to the next generation of workers.

A successful mentor program hinges on finding experienced employees who want to join. Try to create hype around the program, perhaps frame it as an exciting opportunity for them to be teachers and mentors and get to know the team. It often turns out that relationships become reciprocal, with experienced employees learning just as much as the younger ones, particularly in terms of new technology.

A Positive Culture Makes All the Difference

Showing employees that you care about them creates a positive company culture as well as enhances employee engagement and performance. At the heart of this process is communication. Put effort into keeping employees in the know and make sure they feel valued within the company.

According to a poll by Quantum Workplace, this strategy pays off, with the top employee engagement drivers being:

  • I trust our senior leaders to lead the company to future success.
  • The senior leaders of the organization value people as their most important resource.
  • If I contribute to the organization’s success, I know I will be recognized.
  • I believe this organization will be successful in the future.

Are Deskless Workers Being Left in the Dark?

Keeping employees in the know is easy when they are gathered in an office, but when you have a dispersed workforce, it can be a challenge. Learn how to connect deskless workers to the organization with technology purpose-built for them.

ABOUT Kristen Wells

Kristen is the senior manager of corporate communications at PTC and editor of Field Service Digital. She is passionate about elevating the stories of women in field service and improving communication between the field and the office. Prior to ServiceMax, Kristen held content marketing roles at startups such as Zinc and cielo24. Kristen holds a B.A. in Communication with an emphasis on Professional Writing from the University of California, Santa Barbara.