Summary: As the holiday season approaches, so does the desire to express employee appreciation. We have 3 intranet tools that achieve this, including; sharing a company announcement, creating a concise blog post and recognizing an employee’s achievements.

‘Tis the season to express thanks and gratitude to the friends and family in your life. It’s also a time to be thankful for the hard work and accomplishments your employees have done throughout the year! Finding time during the busy holiday season to thank each employee individually can be difficult, especially if it doesn’t fall within the review period, but your intranet can assist in showing employee appreciation with the following 3 tools, ranging from broad company announcements to specific individuals:

1. Share A Company Announcement

An intranet feature that’s sure to garner attention from employees is Company News. Company News is best utilized when the information is perceived as important to a broad group such as the company, or a department. To avoid communication overload, ensure Company News is in an easy-to-absorb format (1-2 sentences or bullet points for example). With the ability to place this feature on Team/Department Sites (connecting them all to a feed on your Intranet Home Page), expressing employee appreciation can be done quickly and easily. Delegate responsibility to both department heads, towards their specific teams, and the CEO, addressing the entire company. The closer you are to a certain group of employees, the more easily you can express gratitude about the hard work they’ve done.

Some ideas for Company Announcements during this time of the year are:

• How much you were able to raise/donate towards a charitable cause
• Your gratitude towards the team or company as a whole
• Reminding of office closures so they can spend time with their family

2. Create A Concise Blog Post

An Internal Blog provides insight into what the company’s leadership is thinking and acts an outlet to acknowledge appreciation for your employees hard work. Company Blog’s are best utilized to display information about the company as a whole, so being concise is key. There are many tips to ensure your intranet’s exclusive internal blog post is seen, such as having a catchy title, being concise, turning on alerts so employees are notified when one is available to read, and enabling comments to open up employee engagement (approval processes can be set or questions can be accepted privately and anonymously). The benefits that come from an internal blog are plentiful, so use your internal blog this holiday season to motivate, engage and most of all, show employee appreciation.

Ideas for Company Blog posts this time of the year are:

• Outlining what your company is thankful for
• Relaying progress from the year
• Expressing the importance of a work/life balance

3. Recognize Employee Achievements

When an employee doesn’t feel valued for their work they tend to be disengaged and unmotivated. To counteract this, or perhaps to stay ahead of the curve, leadership and colleagues can use Employee Recognition as a boost for a job well done. It’s as simple as ‘Click & Praise’ and although it’s approaching employees on an individual level, utilizing this tool year round will assist in providing employee appreciation.

Some key reasons employees may be recognized this time of the year are:

• Planning the company holiday event
• Completing a project before the New Year
• Bringing in home-made goodies for the office to share
• Having their department successfully participate in a charity activity

The holiday season inspire people to be mindful of those around them, and to find a way to express employee appreciation. The above tools can assist in sharing cheer both now, and year round, to improve employee morale and communication. Do you utilize an intranet feature that helps you display employee appreciation? We’d like to hear form you in the comment section below.

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