Building stronger connections
One of the most powerful motivators at work is something that can be freely offered: recognition.
In one survey, 82% of employees said the more often they’re recognized at work, the more engaged they feel. Here at 4imprint, our team dedicates an entire week to employee appreciation, reinforcing gratitude, engagement and connection. 4imprint plans activities and chooses gifts to show employees their hard work and dedication is appreciated. Erika Wegner, with 4imprint 17 years, and Lia Cummings, with 4imprint 18 years, discuss how the appreciation event builds meaningful connections.
Q: Describe your Employee Appreciation Week celebration.
A: We dedicate an entire week to team bonding. We want to celebrate internal and external customer service, acknowledge hard work, foster connections and honor accomplishments.
Q: Why do you celebrate Employee Appreciation Week?
A: The idea is to reinforce a culture of gratitude, engagement and connection.
Q: What happens during Employee Appreciation Week?
A: We plan activities and select gifts to show employee appreciation. People participate in challenges and contests all week long.
Q: How does Employee Appreciation Week help team members better connect?
A: We have an internal social channel where employees share stories and photos of working together. This is especially great for our remote team members because it helps foster connection even though they’re not seeing each other in person every day.
Q: What was an activity that really resonated with the team this year?
A: We asked for pictures of people with their co-workers, including old photos of when everyone was in the office. That got a lot of engagement. Even work-from-home team members dressed up and took a selfie just for that activity.
Another one people really enjoyed was when we asked them to share how they collaborated with someone to solve a problem. Lots of people shared ideas and were tagging each other on our internal social channel. There were many moments of shared community.
Q: How did promotional products fit into your Employee Appreciation Week celebration?
A: To understand our promotional product selection for Employee Appreciation Week, you need to know a bit about the 4imprint compass.
The compass is a logo used internally that displays our company values. Each point of the compass represents a 4imprint value. Employees are introduced to the compass during onboarding. While many people may have promotional products with the 4imprint logo on them, only team members get promotional products bearing the compass, which reminds them they’re part of something special—the 4imprint team. One product example is the duffel bag we selected and added a compass imprint to.
For Employee Appreciation Week, we created an adventure theme to reflect curiosity. The duffel bag with compass imprint worked perfectly with our idea to create curiosity around different points of the compass throughout the week.
Field & Co.® Campster Wool 22″ Duffel Bag
Q: What advice would you give to other organizations celebrating Employee Appreciation Week or another type of recognition?
A: Find promo products most people would enjoy or use. Think about how you can imprint something special. Find brief, simple activities that encourage employees to engage with each other. And use various ways to communicate and foster connection because people have different communication styles.
Do you have an idea for a gift to show employee appreciation?
Or a promo product that would work well to help foster meaningful employee connections? Email us your idea at [email protected].
We’ll select three winners to receive $500 to put toward their 4imprint promotional products order. Let’s hear your ideas and make even more meaningful connections happen!
Looking for more information about this topic? Email [email protected] with inquiries.
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