Manager tip: the power of preparation
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by Rick Joi Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries. |
If you’re a manager, then your employees believing you care about them as people is important to your team working at its full potential.
How do you show you care? Prepare!
You can ask about your employees’ preferences and then use those preferences to tailor what you do on their work anniversary.
I also discussed capturing employee preferences as part of HR’s onboarding process in Tip #2 of the Work Anniversary Zero blog post, but it falls to you if HR doesn’t do it.
What should you ask?
The idea is to learn what employees like in a way that will support your doing something small and thoughtful on their work anniversary. Here are some examples of what you can find out from them, but feel free to think up your own:
Favorite restaurant near the office (to take them out to lunch on their work anniversary — check out the work anniversary team lunches blog post)
Favorite delivery lunch order near their home (for remote workers)
Favorite nice restaurant (to get them a gift card)
Favorite candy or snack (to drop off the morning of their work anniversary)
Favorite cake or baked good (if you celebrate at a team meeting — check out the work anniversary baked goods blog post)
Favorite color (if you decorate their desk — check out the fun committees and work anniversaries blog post)
When and how should you ask?
For managers it makes the most sense to do this in a conversation rather than with a form, like might be used as part of an HR onboarding process.
Working these questions into one of your weekly one-on-ones is best. Using one-on-ones as a way to get to know your employees better is a good practice to get into.
You’ll be surprised at how much you learn about the person, especially if you ask for the backstory on how any of these things became their favorites.
Don’t forget to write the preferences down
Managers are busy and have a lot on their mind.
And so, it’s important: make sure you write down the answers.
This idea is going to backfire if the employee remembers telling you something, but then you forget.
If you don’t have another system for keeping information about your employees, then a convenient place to record employee preferences is on their work anniversary reminder in your calendar or wherever else you set up the reminders.
Then you’ll be reminded both of upcoming work anniversaries and what to do, all in the same place!
Using the preferences
This last step might be obvious, but here are some parting tips:
Don’t forget anyone’s work anniversary
Don’t show favoritism, that is, use the employee preferences to customize what you do, not to do something way nicer for some employees than others
Have fun! Employees will pick up whether you’re enjoying the interaction or find it a chore