By Henry Brown

Hey entrepreneur! We see you. We see you putting in all those hours to make sure your business succeeds. We see you putting in the effort to create products that your customers love and constantly refining them to add greater value. We see the passion and determination that you bring to your business every day. We see the savvy with which you have crafted your brand, backed by hours of market research. The way you’ve built up your business and charted a path to success is acknowledged and appreciated. Still, even a worthy entrepreneur like yourself knows that you can’t accomplish all of this alone.

Your team work tirelessly to enact your vision and bring it to life. Each and every one of them plays a part in making sure your customers remain delighted with you, your business operates smoothly and that you live up to the set of promises inherent in your branding and your mission statement. And if they don’t feel valued, recognized or appreciated, they’re much less likely to feel engaged with their work.

In fact, 69% of employees said they would work harder if they only felt that their employers appreciated their efforts. If you’re not showing them that they’re valued, it’s likely that you’re going to grapple with employee productivity later on down the line. Here are some essential ways to help employees feel more valued…

Create a formal system of employee recognition

Incentives are great… recognition is better! There are many businesses that offer their workforces cash bonuses for meeting team or individual targets. And while this can be a very effective driver of performance, it can send a mixed message. It can show them that you value them only in terms of what they can do for you rather than how you can help one another.

With employee recognition programs, however, can use social platforms that are tailored to the workplace to share and celebrate employee achievement in more diverse ways than simply targets met. These platforms, like Facebook’s Workplace, can be used for managers and peers alike to nominate team members for awards and recognize a broad spectrum of achievements and endeavors.

Protect their health

Nothing shows employees that they’re valued more than the steps you take to safeguard their health. Sure, healthier employees tend to be more productive employees but since your team spends more waking hours with you than their own families you have a responsibility to keep them healthy and happy at work.

There is a wide range of ways in which you can protect their health from choosing a great Group Health Insurance Quote that gives them the cover they need at a reasonable price to giving them more healthy options to eat and drink while they work. Even something as simple as ensuring that each workspace is ergonomically adjustable can make a big difference to keeping employees healthy, comfortable and happy while they work. Speaking of workspaces, make sure that your employees get out of theirs for at least a few minutes every hour. Studies show that the longer we spend sitting down in our day to day lives the more at risk we are from a range of health issues including poor digestive health, diabetes, heart disease and even some forms of cancer.

Even a quick walk to the water cooler once an hour can go a long way towards offsetting the potential health risks of spending the whole day seated.

When it comes to employee health one of the most insidious threats businesses face is stress. Chronic stress is arguably one of the most dangerous health conditions among the working populace that is why it’s so vital that employers try and safeguard their team members from it as much as possible. Which brings us to…

Find ways to give them freedom and flexibility

Flexibility is extremely important for employees. After all, they all have lives and commitments outside of work and employers risk their team members feeling much less engaged at work when they fail to acknowledge this.

Giving your employees freedom and flexibility is actually easier to implement than you may think and can be surprisingly cost effective. If, for example, you’re prepared to let some of your team members work remotely this can be a great help in achieving the work / life balance they desire while also reducing your overhead costs. Even something as easy as allowing employees with kids to come in a little earlier so they can drop their kids off at school without arriving at their desks in a state of panic can make a huge difference.

Make your success theirs

You can’t expect your employees to feel totally engaged with their work if they constantly toil for laughably low pay yet see their managers roll up to work in a brand new BMW. A profit sharing scheme, however, can make a tangible difference to your employees. They not only give them a little extra money in their pockets, they also make a bold statement to your workforce on your behalf. They say “these aren’t my profits… they’re our profits!”.

And that can help them feel not only more engaged in their work but more enthusiastic about your brand.

Don’t let their skills stagnate

Finally, one of the most important things you can do for your workers is to carry on developing them past the point of onboarding. Invest in training them and building their skills rather than expecting them to pick it all up on the job.

When employees feel like their skills are at risk of stagnating, they’re far less likely to be engaged and also unlikely to want to remain with an employer who’s looking increasingly likely to bottleneck their career.

Your employees are amazing… the moment you take them for granted is the moment you risk losing them

Employees who feel valued are not only likely to be more productive; they’re also more likely to be loyal. Whatever it costs to enact the suggestions above is likely to be much less than what you’d pay to recruit and train new employees to replace the ones who have become disillusioned with you.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.