However, for employers, these Christmas Parties come with their fair share of risks, and it falls on HR to comprehend and address them. From employees indulging a bit too much and making regrettable decisions to unauthorized plus ones and allegations of inappropriate behaviour between colleagues.  the potential pitfalls can make HR departments and employers understandably uneasy. But don’t worry, with the right set of policies and some clear communication, managing these events can be a smoother experience.

Why Do You Need Christmas Party Policies?

Without a suitable set of policies in place, behaviour at the office Christmas party can have some pretty major repercussions. According to UK law, employers have responsibility for their employees’ actions and safety outside the usual working environment and hours. Essentially, any social event organised by the employer is considered an ‘extension of the workplace,’ treating it akin to a regular workday. Hence, having a clear policy framework becomes crucial.

What Your Employees Need To Know

Before the Christmas party starts, you need to ensure you’ve communicated your expectations with your employees. Even if you don’t have a formal policy to refer to, an email with the ground rules surrounding expected behaviour will go a long way. This communication should cover 5 key areas:

• Employee Obligations: Employees are not obligated to attend your annual Christmas party, and you should make it known that their presence is completely voluntary. There will be people who don’t want to go, or who won’t participate for religious reasons. Those who choose to participate have a duty to take reasonable care of their own and others’ health and safety, especially in a festive setting where alcohol is involved.
• Consumption of Alcohol: Speaking of alcohol, you should remind your employees and their guests that alcohol should be consumed in moderation. We all know that Christmas can be seen as a time of excess but make it clear that just because the company is providing alcohol, it is not a reason or license to drink excessively on company time.
• Unacceptable Behaviour: We all hope our employees will be on their best behaviour during the work Christmas party, but sadly that won’t always be the case. So, you need to state specifically that any unacceptable behaviour or improper conduct will not be tolerated, and what the repercussions could be if anything should happen. Make it crystal clear that any issues arising during a Christmas party will be treated as a serious disciplinary matter, and this includes any actions towards co-workers, guests, or venue staff. A few examples of unacceptable behaviour we have helped businesses deal with in the past include:
  • Excessive drunkenness
  • The use of illegal drugs or substances
  • Unlawful or inappropriate discrimination or harassment
  • Violence, like fighting or aggressive behaviour, verbal abuse or inappropriate language.

• Getting Home: Remind all employees that drink-driving will not be tolerated, so if they are planning to drink, they need to have a safe way to get home at the end of the event. If your party is being held at a hotel, you may opt to provide rooms for your team overnight or provide a discounted rate. If not, you might prefer organising group transport or giving out the details of the local taxi company.
• The Day After: If your Christmas party happens to be on a weekday (some are), then you should remind your employees that they are expected to be in work the next day, in a condition to do their normal duties. Hangovers are not an acceptable reason to take a sick day, especially after a work event. Remind employees that all of the normal policies and procedures of the workplace still apply to the event, including absence procedures.

A Note To Employers

Finally, once the party itself is done, employers may have some aftermath to deal with. In an ideal World there would be none, but there is always the chance that someone, either an employee, a guest or even the venue, makes a complaint. If this does happen, you mustn’t ignore it. All complaints need to be taken seriously, and if you need to, seek advice from an HR professional who can support you. Luckily, at Karen HRM we do just that! So if you’re not sure where to turn, you can always give us a call.

But it’s important to remember to balance your approach. A lot of businesses who have never thrown a company Christmas Party before will go very ‘safe’ and try to control every single element and that can end up sucking the fun out of the party entirely. As an employer it is simply your job to remind employees of these rules and follow up with any issues – not to micro-manage each employee’s behaviour during the party. Finding the balance between relaxing and having fun, and ensuring you meet your obligations as an employer can take time, but it is doable. If you’re not sure where to start, or you just want some information and support planning your Christmas party communications, we would love to help. Just get in touch with the team at Karen HRM today for your free consultation.

The post Balancing Cheer and Compliance – An Employers Guide To Christmas appeared first on Karen HRM Limited.

If that wasn’t enough, the Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the attitude and priorities of the workforce in a significant way. So while monetary compensation and incentives are important, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. Which leaves business owners asking one thing – how do you motivate a modern employee?

The Roots of Motivation

A few years ago a brilliant book by Daniel Pink came out, called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Inside, he talked about the studies he had done and the things they revealed about motivation in general, but specifically at work. He found that there are generally 3 things people are motivated by, and spoiler alert – none of them are money! Instead, they were:

Autonomy: People want to have control over their work.

Mastery: People want to get better at what they do and progress.

Purpose: People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Notice that money, salary and bonuses didn’t make the cut. In fact, he suggests that money has no positive effect on increased performance at all, and leaves us with this powerful statement:

“The best use of money as a motivator is to pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.”

So, if it’s not about money, how can managers motivate their employees to improve performance?

Professional Development

One of the biggest things you will hear both employees and HR professionals talk about here is career progression. Your employees are a critical part of your business, and if you want them to stay with you long term then you need to provide them with chances to grow and develop. After all, no one wants to stay in a dead-end job forever! Invest in the development of your team at every level, continuing education and progression when you can. This provides motivation for employees and means you have a pool of highly skilled and loyal workers.

There are a lot of different ways you can do this. You could design professional development plans for each role you hire for, or you could create a general pool of resources, including a budget per person per year for personal development. That budget could cover attending training and events, online courses and any other relevant development opportunities for your field. We like the second one best, as it gives employees control and autonomy over how they want to grow their skills and progress in their career.

Recognition And Praise

Everyone loves being recognised for the hard work they put in. Not only does it give employees that warm, fuzzy feeling, but it provides a level of encouragement and positive reinforcement. People respond well to positive praise, and the more specific you can get, the better. Interestingly, how often the praise and rewards are offered is more important than its size, so you may find regular, smaller acts of recognition provide more motivation than annual, big ones. Something as simple as taking an employee out to lunch because they hit their sales target, creating an ‘employee of the month’ system of publicly thanking people can all be great motivators. Recognition can take on many forms, and it’s essentially down to your management style and skills to decide how best to do this for your team.

Pleasant Working Environments

Psychology 101 – happy employees are much more motivated than unhappy ones. So take the time to create a working environment that people enjoy spending time in. Believe us, the effort will go a long way to keeping employees happy. As well as the basic requirements like space, light, air, heat and hygiene, try and add extras into your office to make it a nice place to be. Comfortable office furniture, attractive interior décor, lush indoor plants, good meeting facilities, a breakout room full of wind-down activities and even a well-equipped kitchen all contribute towards happier, more productive employees, who don’t just watch the clock so that they can get out the door. If you’re not sure what would make your employees happy, ask them to help with an office revamp!

Control

Go right back to basics, and remember that employees want autonomy over their work, and over their working patterns. This means no micromanaging, and instead giving your employees the chance to make decisions about what they do. This could be anything from choosing their own targets and career progressions to creating a flexible working schedule to help them achieve a better work-life balance. What topics are covered in meetings, how meetings take place, what projects they take on and even what snacks are kept in the office kitchen. All of this adds up to employees who feel that their opinions matter, and that they can voice their preferences and actually control their own work life. Just don’t go overboard with this one – your employees need you to make decisions too!

At the end of the day, it’s easy to assume that just giving people more money will motivate them in the way you want. But sadly, it’s not very effective, and often only leads to short-term change before going back to the status quo. But by investing in motivational methods that are more about encouraging and supporting the people who work for you (and not their wallets), you will see long-term positive results, and find that your business becomes a popular place to work because of it. If you would like some help and support in motivating your employees or putting any of these suggestions into practice, we’d love to help. Just get in touch with us today to book your free consultation.

The post 4 Ways To Motivate Your Employees (That Aren’t About Money) appeared first on Karen HRM Limited.

Taking more responsibilities is the perfect way to grow your current skillset and even achieve goals that would usually be above your grade.  Meaning that when it’s time for promotions or bonuses you will be first in line.  After all, you will have the appropriate experience to take on a bigger role, unlike those who didn’t take up the offer of the extra responsibility at work.

How to be given increased responsibilities?

It’s all good and well knowing how beneficial additional responsibilities will aid your career, however you firstly need to be given them. It’s much easier than you may think – below we have outlined some easy tips to help get you started.

1. Don’t wait to be asked

Take the initiative!  Perhaps you can directly approach your boss and ask if there are any extra projects that you can be a part of.  Create an open dialogue and share how you’re feeling about your career, your progress, and your part in the company’s future.  More often than not, they will be happy to designate extra work to you if they feel as though you’re up for it.  Keep in mind the skills you already have that can be developed upon and ask to get more involved in those specific areas.

2. Always be reliable

Be a steady reliable figure in your team.  Create a relationship of trust – by being punctual and complete all your work to a high standard and be willing to help with extra.  If your peers are not able to keep up with their present workload you could even volunteer to help them out or offer some valuable input (without trying to take the credit for yourself!). These good deeds will show how dependable you are to everyone you work with, meaning that you’ll be a great candidate for promotion and additionally the team will respect your leadership once you reach your dream position.

3. Always be looking to learn more 

In your leisure time, select an area that nobody in your team has great expertise in, yet would be a valuable asset to the workplace.  By investing time into this topic, you will become more knowledgeable than your peers, meaning that the team will begin to rely on you for feedback or help in anything in that area, thus gaining yourself a new responsibility and making yourself an invaluable member.

4. Network! 

Having valuable connections will always lead to increased opportunities.  Every time you take on a new project you may end up working with a new, diverse array of people, all of whom will be able to contribute to your career with either new knowledge or information, or about roles that you may be able to apply for.  Having a vast professional network is crucial to going up the ranks in a company, and these new people may be able to designate extra responsibilities to you too.

But how can these responsibilities convert into opportunity? 

Having more responsibilities inevitably means spending more time with your boss, especially if you’re working on projects crucial to them. Being around them in meetings, briefings or consulting them about your progress will allow you to learn from their experience, making yourself even more capable, and build a better bond with them. When this happens, it should be no problem for you to ask for the promotion you want as you’ve adeptly proven how you can handle all your current tasks and are ready for more. Ultimately, you have nothing to lose!  It’s better to go for it than wallow in what-ifs and later regret that your career hasn’t developed the way that you wanted.

Submit an enquiry via our online form today to find out how we can help your business, or call 07771 642 182 to book a 30 minute consultation with Karen directly.

The post Ways to turn increased responsibilities at work into an opportunity for yourself appeared first on Karen HRM Limited.

Thankfully, this is easy to change!  No matter how nice and desirable gifts or expensive employee programs are, most people are actually just looking for a productive yet enjoyable workplace where they don’t feel as though their efforts are going unseen. We will show you some easy solutions on how to better celebrate successes in your workplace (because everybody, no matter their position, likes to be appreciated).

How can I recognise my colleagues in a way that they’d appreciate?

Below, we have listed the top five ways in which employees were recognised that they found the most memorable, as found by a Gallup workplace study.

• Public recognition or acknowledgment
• Private recognition from a boss, peer, or customer
• Receiving or obtaining a high level of achievement through evaluations or reviews
• Promotion or increase in scope and responsibility
• Monetary awards pay increase, trips, etc.

You may have noticed that the top two on the list don’t include any monetary value, making it very evident that no matter the financial budget of your company, appreciating your employees properly and cultivating a workplace culture that celebrates achievements is still possible.

Public recognition in particular is an excellent way to celebrate any successes that have a wider impact on the business or other employees. Not only does it deeply validate that individual or team on their good work, it is a grand display of how valuable work is, and informs the other workers the benefits of performing in such a way. Seeing other people be publicly praised may motivate your other employees to also do better, in the hopes of the same level of recognition.

On the other hand, private recognition can be more tailored to the individual, and focus directly on their performance or development. Showing recognition to growing employees can often produce positive outcomes, by giving them motivation and support in the workplace.  Especially with the rise in popularity of group projects and open plan, collaborative work spaces, it’s valuable to build a culture of positive peer feedback.

Gifts will always be appreciated. Whilst a handwritten thank you is sufficient for something smaller, larger tasks (such as creating a new product, for example) may be deserving of something bigger.  Some common gift ideas include going out for a meal to celebrate the achievement together, a gift card or perhaps even an extra day off.

When should I recognise them? 

You can appreciate your employees whenever it feels most appropriate to you – it can be valuable to put an almost equal emphasis on both large and small successes, as after all even the biggest projects are just compilations of small wins. Recognition should usually be given after the completion of the task and can focus on the skills used for the job and company values.

The more immediate the recognition, the more effective, as it shows just how much you truly value their work.  Even if an official celebration has to be delayed, there’s no reason to not give a simple thank you and acknowledgement of the achievement as soon as the job is done.

How do you provide meaningful recognition?

The acronym C.O.I.N can help with that – it provides a framework on how to give impactful, constructive and positive feedback.

• Context
  Identify the behaviour that you want to recognise, ensuring you have a specific example that you want to celebrate.
• Observation
  Outline in detail the exact skills that you want to reward – don’t be vague.
• Impact
  Allow all your colleagues to understand why you’re commenting on this behaviour by describing its impact on you, and everyone else in the workplace.
• Next
  Give positive feedback to allow your employee to keep up the good work.

Submit an enquiry via our online form today to find out how we can help your business, or call 07771 642 182 to book a 30 minute consultation with Karen directly.

The post How to recognise and celebrate success at work appeared first on Karen HRM Limited.