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As an employer, you have a duty of care to your employees. But what exactly does this mean?

‍It’s basically ensuring that the mental and physical health & wellbeing of your employees are being protected. And with one in five people experiencing mental health issues or illnesses a year, it’s no surprise that employee wellbeing has been the focus of attention for many employers.

This duty of care also applies to your lone workers. According to employment law, you’re required to carefully consider and address any areas thought of as a ‘risk’ to their health, safety, and wellbeing.

Although this duty is a legal obligation, you shouldn’t think of it that way. As well as meeting the legal requirements, it can also bring with it major benefits to your business and workers. When the wellbeing of your staff is looked after, they’re happier, motivated and more productive. And for your business, happier employees mean better engagement, increased retention and improved brand reputation.

‍In this piece, we’ll explain who lone workers are and highlight your legal obligation to them.

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Who do we consider "lone workers"?

It’s anyone that works in isolation and with limited supervision. With changes to the traditional way of working (9-5) and the increased availability of the internet, employers must be able to adapt in order to attract the best talent. One of such changes in the introduction of lone working.

Depending on the organization, a lone worker could be anything from a community nurse making home visits to an electric company employee carrying out maintenance on meters.

Other examples or lone/remote workers include:

• Estate agents
• Salespeople
• Site workers
• Postal staff
• Self-employed
• Utilities employees (meter readers, maintenance staff)
• Construction workers (surveyors, site workers, inspectors)
• Mobile workers (drivers, care/social workers, probation officers, service engineers, etc.)
• People working outside of the normal working hours (security guards, cleaners, etc.)

Your responsibilities for lone workers

The first duty you have to your employees is to access the risks of working alone and take reasonable steps to avoid or control them.

The process involves:

• Talking with your employees about the potential risks of working alone. You’ll then create a plan to control any identified issues. It’s worth noting, by law you’re required to consult all staff members on health and safety matters that concern them.
• Implementing procedures to ensure that risks are removed and control measures are in place.
• Training, instructing and supervising the employee on lone working procedures.
• Reviewing risk assessments regularly or after major changes to work practices.

While there are many benefits of lone working, it also comes with some risks to you and your employees.

In order to reduce risks, consider the following measures:

• Training employees on the risks involved with certain work activities and lone working as a whole.
• An appropriate supervision process.
• Adequate emergency and evacuation procedures.
• An effective communication routine between supervisor and lone worker.

Remember, the health and safety process you have in place for your off-site employees will be different from the one in place for your staff based in the office. But it’s also worth noting, you shouldn’t put your lone workers at more risk than you would your office workers.

Training for lone workers

You could consider training as it’s important for these types of workers. This is especially the case for those with little to no supervision. You should also consider training that teaches them to cope with unexpected circumstances and manage issues effectively.

Because your lone workers don’t have immediate access to their supervisors or other more experienced co-workers, providing them with extra training can come in handy to understand the risks involved in their work.

It’s also a good idea to put a lone working policy in place. The policy sets out what can and can’t be done while working alone. You should ensure your employees fully understand and follow the policy and procedures.

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Conclusion

Your duty of care as an employer is an ongoing issue and not just a one-off event.

Remember to review your lone worker policy often and update to account for any changes to employee duties, legislation and business trends.

Finally, remember to carry out regular reviews of risk assessments. This is especially important after any significant changes to the employee’s work environment.

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Interested in learning how an employee recognition and rewards program can keep your lone employees engaged?

Book a Demo with Qarrot today!

Motivate employees to do their best work has benefits for both the company and its workforce. For the organization the benefits are obvious, higher revenue, lower turnover, improved product quality, and so on. For the employee, the benefits are less quantifiable but we know that motivated employees feel valued, and employees who feel valued are more engaged with their work.

What motivates an employee to go the "extra mile?"

That seems to be a question that often perplexes business owners, management and stakeholders. A survey conducted on key trends impacting the workplace asked that very question. “What motivates you to excel and go the extra mile at your organization?” The survey involved over 200,000 employees in more than 500 organizations.

What did they determine to be the top motivators? Camaraderie, peer motivation, inherent desire to do a good job, and feeling encouraged and recognized. While, of course, money and benefits are important, this suggests that working in a particular environment has greater impact.

So what can we do that can make a huge impact on motivating your employees?

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Reduce workplace stress

Stress on the job and unhealthy work environments are not conducive to anybody’s desire to do a better job. It is essential for employers to recognize the connection between employee well-being and overall organizational performance. You can lower stress in your workplace a number of ways, including setting clear goals and roles, encouraging a culture of wellbeing, and through clear, candid communication.

Give them time off

Giving employees extra time off is a small gesture that goes a long way. According to Entrepreneur, it is the secret to increased productivity. Why? Good employees will simply “run out of juice” and require a little R&R from time to time. Giving them the time they need to recharge their batteries will have them operating at their best in no time.

Give them feedback

Most employees want to be recognized, to achieve this recognition they need feedback. Effective feedback motivates the employee to improve their job performance. It’s suggested to offer feedback regularly and not just at annual performance reviews. Annual conversations about past activities are not sufficient enough to motivate future productivity.

Host a company event

A corporate event is one way you can motivate employees. Company events are much more than just a chance for employees to gather. They are a great way to show them you appreciate their hard work. Whether you have an awards ceremony, a dinner, a summer picnic, or a holiday party, it doesn’t matter. Your corporate event can improve company culture, boost company morale and award your employees for a job well done.

Celebrate milestones and recognize achievements

Celebrating Milestones, such as work anniversaries and birthdays, and recognizing achievements help employees feel appreciated. Whether with cupcakes, balloons and banners or a more formalized rewards program, recognizing employees on milestone dates or for their achievements strengthens workplace culture helping to make your business a better place to work.

If you’re a business owner, manager or supervisor, you know how important it is to have a workforce that is motivated. Research shows that motivated employees tend to be far more productive than those who are not.

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At Qarrot, we understand Motivation

Motivate your team, company, or department to perform with full-circle employee recognition. With the help of our software, we can assist you in building a culture of thank you, improve morale, bring employees together and strengthen workplace culture.

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If you want to learn more about how Qarrot can work for you, book a demo! We’ll show you how to engage and motivate your workforce to go “above and beyond".

Engaged and motivated employees help customers, take pride in your organization, and improve sales as a result. They are connected to your overall business goals, embody the culture you encourage and become excellent ambassadors for the future success of your company.

So, what makes an employee motivated and engaged? Hiring the right employees is a great start, but once you’ve got people working on your team you’ll need to make the right efforts to create a positive motivating environment for them to work in. To do this you have to understand what motivates employees, and what employee engagement really is.

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Here are the top workplace motivators according to the Harvard Business Review

Role design

Every company is different, and there is no set formula for determining the appropriate design for your organization. Better designed roles help employers make the best use of top talent but also clarifies responsibilities to workers. Less confusion leads to higher performance.

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Organizational identity

This is all about your company culture and business objectives. A full-time employee working 40 hours a week will spend about 30% of their waking hours at work. Who wants to spend that amount of time at a place that is tiresome, or worse, toxic?

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Career ladders

We’re not surprised that opportunities for advancement made it so high on the list. As noted previously, why would an employee want to spend so much time at a job that had no opportunity for promotion?

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Community

Even without redesigning business processes, managers can help the overall motivation of their employees by encouraging better peer-to-peer, and manager-to-employee relationships.  Building trust amongst employees, providing opportunities for feedback, explaining the “why” behind the work of employees, are all ways in which community can grow.

When these top workplace motivators are working together, you’re much more likely to have a highly engaged and performant workforce.

According to a Gallup study, the businesses with engaged employees were 17% more productive and 21% more profitable than the businesses in the study with disengaged employees.

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How recognition can further turbo-charge employee engagement

In a recent survey conducted by Interac and their 1000+ employees, it was discovered that their number one complaint, regarding motivation, came down to a lack of appreciation from their managers. Not the job, or the hours they worked, not even the pay that they received for their performance, but the simple lack of recognition for a job well done discouraged them from doing their best work. The same study goes on to show that when managers recognized employees’ contributions, their engagement level increases by 60%.

Employee recognition programs have forever been on the radar of large corporations as a tool to foster employee engagement, but what about small businesses? Can they benefit from recognition programs and encourage motivation and engagement to increase productivity and profitability as well?

Of course, they can!

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Here are 3 way in which a small business can use recognition to motivate and engage their workforce

Character Awards

My son’s school uses monthly character awards to reward children who embody character traits of value in the school’s code of conduct. Small businesses can adopt this concept by choosing character traits that promote behaviors that foster a better company culture. This is similar to the Employee of the Month concept, but goes one step further. Not only will you encourage better behavior through recognition of positive behavioral traits, but if you include a peer voting system you could promote better business relationships as well.  Taking the opportunity to reinforce your company’s core values by tying a monthly recognition award is a win-win for everybody.

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Gamification

This concept sounds way more complicated than it is. Gamification of business processes, specifically routine tasks, can help motivate through friendly competition and boost the idea of community amongst your employees. Think of this as a real-life game where people receive rewards for hitting milestones. The milestones people achieve, as well as the rewards themselves, can be anything you want. Consider awarding badges (buttons, metals, stickers) for hitting sales quotas that employees can turn in at the end of the month for a prize! Or award trophies to top performers at the end of each week who are recognized at a luncheon or ceremony at the end of the month. The sky’s the limit here, but understanding the core motivators above can help you design games that will not only motivate and engage but also encourage performance.

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Express Gratitude

A simple thank you can go a long way to motivating people to do their best work. When we focusing on “why” in gratitude we can also help connect employees’ achievements to the overall organizational success. For example, after a good sales month, a company may host a gratitude meeting where management, not only thanks the workforce for their job well done, but includes the reason why they are thankful. It’s possible that by increasing sales that month they were able to meet a higher objective, or expand opportunities. By expressing gratitude to the employees, and linking their achievement to the goals achieved, it allows the employees to understand the value that their performance brought to the company as a whole. Everybody wants to feel that what they are doing offers value. Gratitude is the quickest, and simplest way to show that.

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In conclusion

When you understand how to motivate your employees and the reasons why recognition is so important for better employee engagement you have the tools necessary to make real decisions on the design of your rewards and recognition programs moving forward. Use these ideas provided, or come up with your own! Rewards and recognition are as unique as your business is, and the people in it.

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Let us help you promote a culture of thank you, a culture of appreciation, and encourage company success through gamification with our recognition software.  Motivate your team to perform with Qarrot. Book your demo today.

What is the one thing that would make most managers better? The ability to provide effective feedback to their employees.

We know employee feedback is important, but there is a proper way to provide feedback that will produce better business results. First, ask yourself a couple of questions:

1. Does the phrase "performance review" put your stomach in knots?
2. Are there particular employees you know will be more difficult to provide feedback to than others?
3. Do you dread offering criticism?

Honestly, if you answered YES to any of the above questions, you’re already in the wrong frame of mind for providing feedback that will actually offer value to your employees. Accurate feedback is the key to engaging people and keeping them on track. Feedback, when done right, with the right intentions, can lead to better business results by helping motivate employees to meet professional goals. Business success is the result of aligning professional goals with the overall goals of the organization.

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‍So, what’s the trick to providing effective feedback? Here are a few tips to consider:

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Remain constructive

Criticism isn’t always easy to take, let alone deliver, but if done appropriately, with enough thought, and the best intentions behind it, the benefit is that it should help to increase the productivity of the worker receiving the feedback. The constructive part of “constructive criticism” is in the plan to do better. It gives an employee an objective to work for. Non-constructive criticism, or griping if you will, will have the immediate and opposite effect. Nobody likes to be criticized but if it leads to growth it’s easier to handle and easier to convey.

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Be specific

Focused attention on particular feedback will have greater results than when combined with other issues. If the feedback you are giving to an employee is negative you may be tempted to start with a compliment, thinking it will help soften the blow of the criticism. This just muddies the waters of your message. If your intention is to provide feedback with the objective of changing a particular behavior or motivating for better performance, then the focus should be placed solely on that topic in your discussion, and on that topic alone. The same goes for a compliment. Praise goes a lot further and provides more value when not combined with any other motives.

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Don't wait

Quarterly and annual reviews are great! They can provide valuable insight as to how an employee is performing and meeting business objectives. They can provide areas to work on moving forward to the next quarter, or year, and offer benchmark data for overall employee performance. However, feedback that provides the best results is offered in the immediate. Issues need to be dealt with as they arise. Wins need to be celebrated as they occur!

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Know your audience

Depending on the type of feedback your managers are offering, and the personality type of the employee, you must be mindful that there’s a time and a place for everything. Never criticize publicly. Studies have suggested that public disapproval, or putting someone on the spot with negative feedback, can alienate and embarrass the employee. This will only lower their ability to process the feedback constructively. Subsequently, caution should be exercised in sharing positive feedback publicly too. Congratulations and acknowledgment for a job well done in a public setting is something to be left to your discretion. Some employees LOVE public acknowledgment when some loathe being the center of attention.

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Stick to performance

This is one of the hardest things to keep in mind when providing feedback to employees. We discussed remaining constructive, but more than that, stick to words that don’t discuss the personality traits of the employee. Focus on discussing “things they do,” rather than, “who they are.” The best way to help an employee acknowledge and be responsible for their habits or behavior is to discuss them, openly and without personal judgment. As soon as you start discussing overall personality you’ll lose their attention and worse, they could become resentful. Example, instead of saying “You’re a lazy team member, you’re always late!” try, “Your being late hurts our team performance.”

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Observe peer recognition

Do you have employees who are loved by their co-workers? Let them know it! Morale and engagement levels in any workplace strongly depend on how well people get along. It’s true that one bad apple can spoil the bunch. Praising positive team spirit can encourage staff to share that behavior and affect your overall company culture.

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Can you think of any other tips to help managers provide better feedback to their employees?

Employee recognition software can be a valuable tool for managers when providing feedback. Using software like Qarrot, employees can recognize one another and be awarded points for meeting or exceeding sales quotas, goals and objectives. These peer-to-peer and manager recognitions are immediate and favorable to the employee. Employees can turn in points as they earn them for gift cards or other prizes set by the company.

More than that though, managers can view, in real-time, as employees engage with each other. In the company feed managers can see as employers reward points, as well as comment on the achievements of others as they are earned in the system.

Managers can also quickly export reports to see who earned, or rewarded, points for a selected time period. The nature, and frequency, of an employee’s engagement with company programs, such as Qarrot, is a strong indicator of the overall engagement an employee has with their team, to their goals, and to their job overall. Nothing can better indicate a need for feedback, and coaching, than disengagement. Just remember to use the tips we provided above!

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Curious how Qarrot can help you provide better feedback for your employees? Book a Demo, we’d be happy to give you a look around our product and show you how it works!

When you work in a department with a fixed budget for people processes it can be difficult to get granted more of what you need without a good argument. Recently we were speaking with a client who, in part, said: “…originally we had thought we didn’t have the budget for our employee recognition program, but after careful consideration, we realized we couldn’t afford NOT to have the program in place.”

What exactly did he mean by this? This got us here at Qarrot thinking, what are the reasons it makes more financial sense to have a program for employee recognition? Are rewards not enough?

Employee recognition when done well can have an extremely positive return on investment. Here are 5 areas of your business that can be negatively affected without recognition.

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Engagement

Employee engagement, or the commitment your employees have to your organizational goals is the biggest area of concern. The topic of employee engagement gets a lot of attention in HR departments, with team leaders and management in general. When employees become disengaged, their productivity lowers, meaning they don’t invest as much effort into their work. This can have a costly impact on revenue generation, customer satisfaction, and loyalty. When you focus on recognizing employees for their contributions and accomplishments, you boost morale and motivate better work creating a healthier overall work environment for employees.

Retention

Your ability to retain good employees is critical. Not only is recruiting and onboarding expensive, but high turnover impacts the morale of the remaining employees, causes lost productivity and organizational knowledge. If employees don’t receive regular recognition, chances are they will feel underappreciated. An unappreciated employee could feel they don’t offer value to their organization and eventually move on to somewhere they are recognized for their efforts. Manager recognition and peer-to-peer recognition should be an ongoing practice. Similarly, if an employee doesn’t receive regular constructive feedback from their manager, they may think their time and effort isn’t appreciated, or worse, worth it. Employee recognition fosters appreciation and can go a long way to retaining the employees you have.

Recruiting

Recognition programs do more than just recognize the value an employee offers through their work, they also reinforce how an employee lives the values established by your company culture. This creates a sense of loyalty amongst your employees and makes them more likely to respond favorably when opportunities for advancement are offered. This works well with your succession plan. What’s more is that when you encourage a culture of appreciation, the importance of behavioral recruiting becomes evident. Hiring the best candidate based on both performance and culture-fit helps ensure they will enjoy working with your company longer.

Motivation

Lack of recognition can dampen motivation and is a factor in employees becoming disengaged. Employees who have been recognized for their positive behavior are more likely to exhibit those behaviors again. Incentivizing achievement through recognition can go a long way in motivating an employee to bring their best efforts to work each day. Employees appreciate when their efforts are recognized. This open dialogue also encourages communication, inspiring employees to offer their ideas and suggestions. Innovative and collaborative cultures are breeding grounds for enthusiasm. Enthusiastic employees are highly motivated to set and achieve goals, both for themselves and the company as a whole.

Sales

Employee recognition programs with leaderboards play directly to the competitive nature of the sales environment. Offering incentives such as prizes or rewards to motivate sales teams is a common practice in many organizations but fiduciary recognition isn’t the only motivator in a sales department. Anyone can sell some of the time, but successful sales departments have to perform consistently. One bad month can kill overall company profits and send your shareholders into a tailspin. Recognizing sales achievements and employees that meet or exceed their goals is the best motivator there is.

In short, not recognizing your employees’ milestones can affect an organization's bottom line in a variety of ways. Disengaged, unmotivated, uncommitted employees who do not feel valued will never give you their best work no matter how much you reward them. While rewards can certainly provide short-term motivation, they do not generally drive long-term engagement.

Your best option is to develop a recognition program that combines both rewards and recognition. Ready to see how our Qarrot can help boost your organizational success?‍

Book a demo or download our Guide to Launching Your First Employee Recognition Program.

Recruiting, onboarding and training is an expensive endeavor for all those involved. Some studies predict that the cost of employee turnover can be as high as twice the annual salary of the employee, depending on their role. When you lose an employee, you lose their knowledge and talent, plus your organizations' productivity can suffer from the loss. So how do you reduce turnover? By developing and implementing an employee retention strategy.

Building A Retention Strategy

An employee retention strategy will never entirely stop employees from leaving your company as a certain percentage of turnover should always be expected. What an employee retention strategy can do is prevent, or control, employees from leaving in an untimely manor due to disengagement, monotony, or out of sheer frustration.

A good retention strategy includes all aspects of your hiring process, your compensation plan, and your engagement strategy which includes your employee recognition programs and encouraging better manager-employee relationships.

Here are a few areas to look at when building your retention strategy:

Recruiting

Many companies treat their retention strategy as an afterthought to recruiting, but thoughtful hiring will prevent resentments about the job from starting in the first place. Qualifying candidates on more than job experience alone can better ensure the right candidate is hired. Career paths and development for long-term growth with the company is also a factor. Many candidates will leave a position once they realize there are no options for advancement.

Employment agency software can greatly aid in this process by streamlining the recruitment workflow, ensuring that all candidates are evaluated against a comprehensive set of criteria beyond just their job experience. With the right tools, companies can attract top talent and foster a more engaging and supportive environment for new hires, reducing turnover rates and promoting long-term career growth within the organization.

Compensation‍

It's true that compensation is a factor in retention, but it is also important to note that it is not the most important one. A good compensation strategy includes everything your company offers as payment in a total rewards package: benefits, bonuses, rewards, career advancement, and training opportunities. Being paid in line with what is competitive with your industry standard is also an important influence in employee retention.

Engagement

‍Ultimately employees stay at a job they enjoy. Work environment contributes to this, but so does company culture. Consider cultivating a culture of inclusiveness, transparency, and offering opportunities to build relationships amongst employees. Good onboarding and training practices can also encourage engagement. Employees who don't have a good understanding of their responsibilities, or job expectations, can easily become frustrated and confused and will ultimately disengage with their duties and leave.

Recognition

‍Recognition programs are more important than ever. The millennial workforce is particularly sensitive to feeling invisible. Build a culture of “Thank You” and appreciation for your workforce while giving considerate thought to providing ongoing feedback. Show employees how to contribute to the overall goals of your organization and communicate that they are part of a bigger whole. This big-picture perspective can increase retention of your employees when they realize the value their part has on company success.

Management‍

Management plays a big role in retention. Managers should emphasize acknowledgement, and offer rewards to employees for a job well done. This too aligns with a good recognition strategy, but more importantly, it’s about ensuring managers are well within reach of your workforce. Balance between visibility and mentorship opportunities will ensure good manager-employee relationships are developed. Steer clear of micromanagement. Telling employees what to do and when prevents them from engaging with their role. This often breeds contention and can lower overall workplace morale.

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Promoting Your Retention Strategy

It’s important to disclose your intentions to your management team and employees. Successfully rolling out any new employee retention initiative takes good communication as to why the program is being implemented and what employees can do to participate. Awareness campaigns and training can spread the word of your new strategy. Employees need to be aware of the benefits for it to make the biggest impact.

Internal marketing can only go so far, it’s just as important to measure the impact these strategies are having on your company. Disclosing these statistics to your employees to reinforce the importance of these strategies and can become the catalyst for a good reputation. Never underestimate the value word-of-mouth has on recruiting and retention. Simply giving an employee something to boast about can be the very reason qualified candidates want to work with you, or good employees want to stay.

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Qarrot to the rescue!

A good rewards and recognition program should work with your retention strategy aligning company culture and workplace engagement. With Qarrot, reward points can be earned for a completion of tasks, meeting goals or simply be awarded for a job well done. These points can be redeemed for gift cards incentivizing employees with the promise of additional compensation.

Employee engagement is encouraged with performance and opportunities for meeting objectives, aligning your company goal strategy with tangible milestones employees can readily meet.

Managers play a huge role in rewarding employees as well as offering feedback to their employees over our social feed. Coworkers can instantly see these acknowledgements and offer additional encouragement.

Qarrot is fun, easy to implement and cost-effective for companies to use. Plus, it’ll give your employees something special to talk about! So what are you waiting for?

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To learn more about Qarrot and how it can work with your overall employee retention strategy, book a demo!

When we discuss transparency in the workplace, what we're really talking about is trust. Just as consumers expect a level of transparency about the products they purchase, employees also expect transparency from the companies they work for. Lack of trust between employees and business leaders can influence an employee’s decision to leave their position or to seek out alternative employment.

Embracing a culture of transparency and building trusting relationships by showing appreciation, giving constructive feedback and showing mutual respect for one another goes a long way in boosting morale and can foster overall job satisfaction.

In 2018, The Work and Well-Being Survey found that 89% of respondents who said they trusted their employer reported being satisfied with their job and were motivated to do their best work. (This compared to a mere 46% who said they didn’t trust their employers.)

‍So how can we build trust in the workplace and foster a culture of transparency?

By constructing a proper business strategy around recognition that encourages Communication, Feedback, and Achievement.

Building trust with communication

Employers can help build transparency and trust with open, honest, continuous, two-way communication. A program, like Qarrot, can provide the medium in which we build these lines of communication with an open social feed to recognize employees and encourage an open dialogue. This transparent approach to feedback allows managers to comment on the achievements of their staff where everyone can see it. It also offers the opportunity for peer-to-peer feedback and support. When given this opportunity, employees are more likely to foster positive feelings towards their work, and the work of their coworkers resulting in higher levels of performance.

Help employees thrive with continuous feedback

Younger employees have accelerated this demand for continuous feedback. They expect an ongoing relationship with their supervisors, and they demand responses to every inquiry. It’s true! When you think about the fact that this generation has been brought up in a digital age, with extreme connectedness through the use of mobile devices and social media, it’s no surprise that they have these expectations for work as well. For years business owners and management have ignored the requests of these employees. For years we’ve been reading about the 20/20 workforce, and how the millennial workers will surpass existing workplace populations, but here’s a newsflash for you: That day has come and gone. That’s right! The youngest of the supposed, “Millennials” in June of 2019 will be graduating from a 3-year University program, many of which have already finished college, and those that didn’t attend post-secondary education have been in the workforce for a few years already. If you haven’t already given consideration to their requests in the past, it may be time to discuss a new strategy to engage younger employees. Collaborative social feeds and feedback mediums are an excellent place to start.

Give employees goals to meet

People feel comfortable when they know what is expected of them and when they can see what others are working on with an obvious measurement of their performance. By creating goal-based award campaigns for employees and their teams to participate in, you encourage motivation through friendly competition. When people can see the goals others in their office are meeting, and are given the opportunity to support them along their journey, it motivates them to participate and meet their goals as well. An awards program can offer an excellent opportunity to reward employees for these achievements. Making the entire process come full circle in a continuous support loop.

Make it simple for people to participate

If leaders want people to engage with their rewards platform they have to be given a flexible and supportive environment in which to do that. Modern rewards and recognition programs are no longer considered "perks" they are essential elements to encouraging a transparent and trusting workplace.
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Discover how Qarrot can support your culture of transparency - Book a Demo today!

By most accounts, around 3 years ago we crossed the Rubicon. Millennials, who had been rising up the leadership hierarchy and already knocking on the door, started taking over the corner office, sometimes even at very large organizations.

For a Gen-Y CEO to be at the helm when millennials are entering the workplace in record numbers is only appropriate. However, the current moment is also a major transition, with significant members of Gen-X still part of the workforce, and often in senior positions. This brings about unique challenges for a Gen-Y CEO and helping organizations navigate this transition successfully, while empowering leaders of the future, will be critical to the success of an organization going forward.

With a lot of existing management literature on managing performance being made obsolete in the current scenario, and not many experienced CEO’s of the same cohort to draw on for advice, it becomes incumbent to chart one’s own course by following these simple employee engagement and performance strategies based on first principles:

1. Move away from a view of performance review or appraisal as something done sporadically, in fixed mediums, and in a one-size-fits-all format. The same ease that millennials have in communicating across social media and blogging platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, etc.) when building a personal brand, needs to be put in service of being the organization’s principal spokesperson across all relevant channels. This includes not only regular feedback on work, open conversations on career goals, standard updates on achievements, company performance, etc., but giving the world a closer look at the culture and identity of the company itself. Recognition that brings a personal perspective to things, lauding employee efforts in a genuine way, sharing photos and write-ups about team outings, all serve this broader goal.
2. Bring empathy into every interaction with millennial employees who will look up to you as their guiding light, as they themselves navigate a critical early phase in their careers where they are looking at personal fulfillment as well. The broad objectives of the organization, with a mission bigger than your individual goals, that drives you, needs to be shared honestly and transparently. You are in the best position to communicate why what someone does matters, and you must, incessantly and obsessively. This can be done at all-hands, in team meetings or even a casual walk-in at someone’s desk spontaneously - all you need is a genuine desire to make sure everyone is on-board with you as you chase your lofty goals.
3. Experience is not a taboo word, and don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater when dealing with Gen-X employees. Just like millennials, this moment is a challenging one for Gen-Xers. A lot of the paradigms they grew up with are now obsolete (including, but not limited to, a standard career trajectory), and they are having to learn new things just to keep up. Encourage learning and up-skilling, and be a partner with them as they adjust to this new world, but also value what they bring to the table. This includes a culture of discipline, rigor, and in general, a long-term view of customers and other stakeholders that are an asset to you.
4. Encourage and embrace non-traditional career paths for employees. One of the hallmarks of Gen-Y, sometimes viewed negatively, is a perceived impatience in search for an entrepreneurial career that is aligned with their own personal narrative. As a leader building the organization of the future, your goal is to match a fluidity in role definitions, while making sure the organization is driving towards its long term goals. A developer with a talent for writing and communication who wants to make the leap to product marketing, or a QA specialist who wants to make the leap to a developer? Make it work, and make sure processes don’t stand in the way.
5. Practice and develop a culture of employee assessment, as you want to be assessed yourself - as the creator of long-term value, going beyond only a quarter-on-quarter incessant focus on numbers and deliverables. This ties into point 2 above, where an employee's holistic contribution to the broader vision and their part in shaping the culture holds as much value as traditional metrics. You need to realize that one of the things you are selling is a narrative, an extremely critical intangible, and people who help drive your message by action or otherwise are assets you need to empower and help grow. The product manager who went out of the way to create a fun hackathon for high-schoolers around your platform ‘gets it’, and so should you.

Take Away

Finally, it all boils down to bringing the whole of yourself as a person to work, and recognizing and encouraging the same in others. The old narratives that were successful in the past, driven by rigid hierarchies and a long list of taboos, have crumbled. In its place, there is an opportunity to create a workplace that mirrors a good life - healthy and focused on long-term personal growth.

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Strengthen workplace culture while driving better engagement and performance - book a demo with Qarrot today!  

The face of the modern workplace has changed dramatically over the years, primarily where the pursuit of work-life balance is considered. A healthy quality of life is dependent on balancing career, family, health, and wellness. Flexible schedules and the ability to work remotely are 2 ways in which companies are providing these opportunities for their employees.

Recently Gallup published an article that stated, the results of a study they conducted on "benefits and perks" they found that 37% of employees would switch to a job that allows them to work off-site at least part-time.

‍Now before you get the idea that working from home is just a perk that benefits the employee, consider that studies have found financial benefits to the company as well. Global Workplace Analytics released their State of Telecommunicating in the US Employee Workforce findings in 2017 and found that employers saved over $11,000 annually, per employee, who worked remotely part of the time. Savings were found mostly in the areas of real estate, absenteeism, and turnover.

‍Advances in technology have made much of what an employee can do at the office available for them to do anywhere they like; whether it’s at home, at the cottage, or at a local coffee shop. Things like cell phone plans, high-speed availability and cloud-based software have led this revolution, but it's still the desire of the employee that is driving this trend upwards.

Telecommuting amongst full-time employees has increased 140% in a little over a decade! Though this has mostly been the case for companies with more than 500 employees, many small and medium-sized companies are starting to offer this as an option.

‍As if engaging our workforce wasn't difficult enough, engaging a remote, or dispersed, workforce poses its own set of challenges. What we’ve discovered in conversation with business leaders is that they can struggle with employees that may not be as strongly driven by the company's vision, and are more difficult to motivate than others.

If you currently have employees who sometimes work off-site, or are considering offering remote and/or flexi-hours to your workforce, it is critical to think more strategically on how to involve your workforce in engaging activities that make them still feel connected to the organization.

How do we engage our remote workforces? Here are a few suggestions:

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Set up a medium for regular communication

Providing tools in which managers and team members can regularly communicate with each other is key to cultivating a culture of collaboration. We know that a collaborative environment supports employee engagement, and engaged employees provide their best work, no matter where they are located.

Let them create their own schedule

Giving control back to employees to manage their own work schedules lets them fit in the things that matter the most to them. Employees with children, for example, may struggle with pick-up and drop-off schedules for school and sports. Flexible schedules give them the opportunity to balance family and work so they can continue to provide meaningful contributions to the organization.

Recognize their efforts… Publicly!

It's been previously stated that a genuine THANK YOU can go a long way to showing an employee that they are a valued part of the team, but a common problem with employees who aren’t in the office, either regularly, or at all, is their feeling of not “being connected” to their colleagues. This can make recognition difficult or seemingly less effective since there is nobody there to witness it. A modern rewards and recognition program, like Qarrot, can provide the ability to engage and interact with an employee, publicly recognize their efforts, and offer peer-to-peer recognition that is visible in a social feed. This can foster a sense of belonging and create a greater feeling of working together.

Continue to provide learning opportunities

Quite often, simply offering professional training and development can increase an employee’s feeling of importance to a company. When an organization is willing to build the skills and qualifications of their workforce it shows the employee that you truly value their contributions. Modern learning initiatives give management the ability to track what learning content their employees are engaging in, and keeps track of what they accomplish when they are not in the office.

Simplify the process

Qarrot is the all-in-one software solution that makes employee engagement easy, fun and effective with peer-to-peer, milestone, and goal-based recognition. When you use a rewards and recognition program that is visible, transparent, and inclusive, you’ll simplify the process of motivating and engaging your employees, no matter where they are.If you have an established team of telecommuting employees, or are considering offering flexi-schedules, or even if you have a full team of dispersed, remote employees, Qarrot can help eliminate some of the employee engagement challenges.

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Recognize and reward your people on your own terms with Qarrot - book a demo today!