Last year when I was teaching a Connection Culture workshop in Amsterdam, Carmina Glazenborg from Bentley Systems in Amstelveen, The Netherlands, shared with the group her experience working as an intern at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Listen to Ms. Glazenborg’s story by clicking on the video below.
Making your people feel valued meets their human needs for respect, recognition and belonging. It also helps to increase employee engagement, strategic alignment, cooperation, collaboration and communication.
Here are a few ways you can make the people you are responsible for leading feel valued.
- Take your direct reports out for a meal or coffee. Make sure they do most of the talking. Ask questions such as: “What are your interests outside of work?,” “What are your career aspirations?,” and “Is there anything I can do to help support you or your work?” Listen, take notes and follow up as appropriate.
- As you discover people’s career aspirations, help them to achieve those aspirations by sending them to a relevant training program or pairing them with a mentor who can help them develop the areas needed to achieve their aspirations.
- When you see someone doing good work or producing positive results, write them a handwritten note saying how much you appreciate them and the excellence of their work.
For additional ideas about ways to make your people feel valued, download the 100 Ways to Connect e-book and review the items under the “Value” section. By regularly making your people feel valued, like the Disney World leaders did when Ms. Glazenborg interned at Disney, you will be more likely to attract, engage and retain a great team.
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Michael Lee Stallard, president and cofounder of Connection Culture Group, speaks, teaches and consults on leadership, organizational culture and employee engagement. He is the author of Connection Culture and Fired Up or Burned Out. Follow him on his blog, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn.
