Give Thanks to Your Team! 5 Ways to Show Employee Appreciation

Expressing gratitude to your accounting and finance team should be an everyday occurrence. Letting them know how much you value their contributions and results promotes feelings of respect and loyalty. This results in increased engagement, productivity, and retention.

Choose among these five ways to show you are grateful for your accounting and finance team.

1.     Thank Your Team Members

Always express appreciation for the work your staff put in each day. They likely are doing their best to finish tasks and reach objectives. Knowing your team members’ efforts are noticed provides encouragement to continue to perform at top levels.

2.     Encourage Professional Growth

Opportunities for learning, coaching, and cross-training help your team reach their career goals. This may involve participation in an industry-related seminar, conference, or networking event. Or, it could include membership in a professional organization, a role on a special committee, or job shadowing for additional career opportunities. Any chance to grow professionally likely is welcome.

3.     Share Your Team Members’ Accomplishments

Let everyone in the organization know when your employees attain something big. This may include sharing their successes with the rest of your team, senior leaders, and the rest of the company. Or, it could include mentioning the accomplishments during team meetings, in the company newsletter, and on social media platforms. Your employees should appreciate the public recognition and continue to give their all going forward.

4.     Write a LinkedIn Recommendation

Share each employee’s successes by writing recommendations on their LinkedIn page. This shows you care about your team members’ career development and want to help them grow professionally. Endorsing their skills also can lead to a greater impact on your organization down the road.

5.     Give Praise for Attaining a Goal

Whether big or small, let your employees know you appreciate their hard work and dedication to accomplishing business goals. This may involve completing a project, working for a new client, or reaching a long-awaited milestone. Be sure to point out specifically what the staff member did that you admire. Give sincere praise for taking action to attain what they set out to do.

Do You Need Accounting and Finance Talent?   

Expressing appreciation for your accounting and finance team every day leads to increased engagement, productivity, and retention. This encourages your staff to work hard, stay connected, and perform their best.

When you are looking to add skilled members to your team, turn to Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We match you with the accounting and finance professionals who can help achieve your business goals.

Top Talent Aren’t Getting Just One Offer! Here Is How You Should Approach a Counteroffer

When hiring accounting and finance professionals, your choice candidates likely will receive counteroffers from their current managers. Because employers do not want to lose their best talent, many will provide incentives for their staff to stay with their team. This is why you need to proactively address the issue with your shortlisted candidates. Providing reasons why applicants should turn down counteroffers increases the odds of having your top candidate decide to join your team.

Follow these guidelines to encourage your top accounting and finance applicants not to accept a counteroffer from their current employer.

Reinforce Each Candidate’s Reasons for Leaving

Remind your top applicants why they decided to look for a new job in the first place. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with making more money. This is why accepting a pay increase through a counteroffer likely will not retain the employee long-term. If the staff member does not get along well with their manager, they are not being challenged in their work, or there is no room for advancement, the issue is likely to remain.

Question Whether Staying Would Make Things Change

Ask each of your shortlisted candidates whether anything would improve long-term if they remained with their current employer. In most cases, the applicants began seeking new jobs because they felt restricted or unappreciated. They may have been passed over for a promotion or not given other opportunities to grow. Although the candidates may have expressed their concerns to their manager, the issues likely went unaddressed. Odds are these problems will remain even if the applicants decide to accept a counteroffer.

Point Out the Job Insecurity of Staying

Remind your best talent that once they submit their resignation, they damage the relationship with their employer. Even if your candidates accept a counteroffer, things will remain tense at work. Their manager may wonder how loyal they really are and whether they would accept an even better offer if it came along. Their employer also may begin making plans to replace the employee as soon as possible. Or, if the company wants to eliminate positions, the team member who tried to resign likely will be let go first.

Are You Looking for Top Accounting and Finance Professionals?

When adding skilled accounting and finance professionals to your team, they are likely to receive counteroffers from their current employers. One of the best ways to discourage your potential team members from accepting these offers is by pointing out why they decided to leave their jobs in the first place. You also can ask whether things truly will change by staying. Plus, you can point out how insecure the potential hires’ jobs may be once their managers know they want to leave.

When you need to add top talent to your team, get in touch with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We have the skilled professionals you need to reach your business goals.

I Quit! The Great Resignation Power Shift.

If you are unaware of the mass exodus of employees who are seeking better opportunities, you will. Countless articles have been written about The Great Resignation and, more recently, Striketober. Employees seeking more flexibility and fuller personal lives are considering changing jobs. In fact, a July 2021 Monster.com poll reveals:

  • 95 percent of employees are considering changing jobs;
  • 34 percent feel the best way for advancement is to find a job with a new employer;
  • 86 percent of workers who feel their career has stalled during the pandemic; and
  • 80 percent of workers do not think their current employer offers growth opportunities

With troubling trends in employee/employer relationships, the term “Great Resignation” was created in 2019 by Anthony Klotz, a professor of management at Mays Business School of Texas A&M University, to predict a mass, voluntary exodus.

The Old Work Environment Isn’t Working in the New Work Environment

Let’s face it. Working in an office hasn’t changed for decades. Aside from some companies offering perks like childcare, ping pong tables, and espresso machines, employers had the upper hand regarding an employee’s career path.

Millennials and Generation Z employees have been requesting better work/life balance and flexibility for more than a decade. The scales have been tipping to the employee’s favor, and the pandemic is creating the shift at an accelerating rate.

It’s an Employee’s Market

According to Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic, “the basic terms of employment are undergoing a Great Reset…we may look back to the pandemic as a crucial inflection point in something more fundamental: American’s attitudes toward work. Since early last year, many workers have had to reconsider the boundaries between boss and worker, family time and work time, home and office.”

While employers may have been unprepared for this movement of talent, all hope isn’t lost. There are ways to improve employee retention as well as attract great talent from the prospective employee pool of those who have already resigned from their former companies.

Employers Must Compete for Talent

Phillip Kane, CEO and managing partner for Grace Ocean, commented, “the Great Resignation caught so many employers flat-footed because it ran contrary to everything traditional management thought they knew about labor markets. Resignation departures we are seeing is an (employee’s) decision to no longer accept the unacceptable.”

Recent research from Harvard Business Review (HBR) revealed that resignation rates are highest among mid-career employees aged between 30 and 45 years of age. Burnout from the pandemic, high workloads, and other pressures are key trends driving resignations.

First, understand your company’s turnover rates to quantify the problem. HBR offers this formula to calculate your retention rate:

Number of Separations per Year ÷ Average Total Number of Employees = Turnover Rate

Your turnover rate will help you understand the impact resignations have on business operations and profits.

Next, talk to your employees. Find out what perks are meaningful, what challenges they have, what would improve the morale and culture, etc. Armed with this information, the company can begin to develop tailored retention and targeted recruiting programs, especially for employees at the highest risk of leaving.

Kane stated employers can “stem the tide. Employees are looking for employee-centric cultures with companies they are proud to work for. Companies that are involved in the community and stand for things that they believe matter. It’s all about caring. It’s a simple choice. One that some 11.5 million people and counting are begging for companies to make.”

We Can Help

How employers respond may make all the difference not only in more contemporary recruiting and retention practices but also in business growth.

Reach out to our team at Casey Accounting & Finance Resources. We’ve helped with recruiting and retention program ideas and look forward to assisting you.