They say, and I believe, that “giving is better than receiving”.
Today, I was able to do this. I was lucky enough to win a competition for a prize of flowers, thanks to #RubyConnection – the reason I won was because I said this:
“I have a team of mums who are high performers and chose to work with Employee Matters because they get to do great work and also work flexibly and virtually around their family commitments. I would love to send them all flowers to show them how much we appreciate them.”
At Employee Matters, we always strive to ‘surprise and delight’ our clients; but today, we were able to do this for our fabulous team and their reaction was incredible. I sent everyone in the team a bunch of flowers with a card, telling each of them why we think that they are great and also to thank them for helping us grow Employee Matters. It was those words, specifically crafted for each individual, that had the most impact.
One of our team had this to say: “Thank you so much, Natasha. I am really quite overwhelmed. Such a lovely surprise and a beautiful message as well. I am having a little cry now because I have never received anything like this before in my working life. Your kindness & generosity is what makes you so special. Thank you so much xxxx.”
How cool is that? It really is the simple things in life, like saying “thank you”, that make such an incredible difference — but it did make me think: Why was this gesture so unusual? Three of the women thought that the flowers had been delivered to the wrong address and it was their kids that shouted with excitement, “No, Mum, they are for you — really, I promise!”
So what have I learnt from this?
- I will definitely do it again.
- Large corporates may be able to pay their employees more than me but “money isn’t everything”.
- Why don’t corporate managers ever think to send a bunch of flowers to say thanks?
- SMEs can build highly-engaged teams without spending a fortune.
- Keep it simple and personal.
So last night, I went to sleep knowing my team was feeling both happy and appreciated. It had been a very good day to be a boss!
What have you done to thank your team?
