It's the little things.

I have 7 employees. I buy them lunch every month or two. Donuts in the morning happen fairly regularly. A couple of times a year we will grill hamburgers or chicken for lunch at the office. I give out bonuses fairly regularly. 

The most excitement over the past year hasn't been bonus checks or lunch. It was this. I opened them and plopped them on the top of a filing cabinet.

A 5-pound bag of Jolly Ranchers was a bigger boost to company morale than anything I've done over the past year. They lasted about a month. 

Go figure. 

Now I need ideas. Feeding them candy all year long probably isn't the best way to go. What little thing do you appreciate that your employer does?

I think you're on the right track.  Food, drinks, and fun things during in-office time... A cooler full of sodas/drinks at the end of the day.  We do random cornhole games every couple months... just take 20 to play a quick game during work hours sort of thing.  Works well with other activities too.  

Thursday.

Thursday is what my employer does to show appreciation. That's about it.

The trick of course is that you want to avoid the "expectation", so making it a moving target is very much a good idea.

When people expect (assume) things, they de-value them, and that now becomes the new base.

Soda's and specialty coffee (e.g. not just the base stuff) are good ideas.  A variety of snacks are good also (e.g. trail mix type stuff).  Probably best to not have it setup so they dig their grubby mitts into a jar of it though....  maybe individual packs.  Costco, or other mass product retailer, is likely your friend here.

My employer regularly has BBQ's, and we all appreciate the idea and the effort, but they're not particularly well run and the food isn't usually the best.

I know what I would do is hand out restaurant, or gas gift cards on Fridays,  3-4 times a year, maybe more. Here, fill your tank, or take your kids out for a burger, that kind of thing.

It's tricky because your crews are always on the move and you're already doing a lot of the typical booster activities.

I assume you all meet at the shop in the mornings to get plans, then go your separate ways to get the job done. From the rant thread your entirely too busy for random days off. 

7 in the field, you, and the admin doesn't really make it worth doing lot of things that usually work, like food trucks or coffee trucks coming in. Maybe stop and get some good coffee on your way in. Or breakfast even, I don't know many in the trades that actually eat breakfast. 

Company fishing trip after a big big job completion maybe? 

Or, really bizarre idea, ask what they'd want or how things could get better for them.

I don't have any good ideas - it's true you get an expectation with thank you's from your employer. 

One hose shop the remote owner did nothing and the general manager quietly took the scrap, cashed it in and gave everyone a $25 Target gift card at Christmas. A nice gesture and he was working with the tools he had but it was almost detrimental.  

I think the boss randomly buying lunch is a nice gesture. 

I was just thinking about this and my last employer. Honestly all I wanted was to know that they actually cared about me. Not like gushing or anything just don't treat me like a number. For example we had tech numbers which I totally understand why but I shouldn't hear management refer to a person by their tech number instead of their name. 

Instead of candy, put one of these in the room. If your guys are on the road, buy the bags for them to fill

In reply to Toyman! :

Keep giving them huge bags of candy, and make sure to also hand them my business card!  LOL!

I buy snacks for the office, so chips, popcorn, salsa and dips.  There's usually chocolate too.  I buy lunches for the team and take them out to dinner every few months, plus an end of year bonus.

Stampie said:

I was just thinking about this and my last employer. Honestly all I wanted was to know that they actually cared about me. Not like gushing or anything just don't treat me like a number. For example we had tech numbers which I totally understand why but I shouldn't hear management refer to a person by their tech number instead of their name. 

This.

I get paid well, I have good vacation, flexible work from home when I need it.

I feel like our C.O.O. treats me like a mushroom.  My immediate supervisor likes me, likes my input.  The owner stops in and BS's whenever he is in the office.

The C.O.O.?  I 'unno.  Does the man even like me?  Does he see the miscellaneous BS I'm working on or just my goals on the tracking sheet and how often I knock something off?

My gf's last place, they'd encourage people to bring in their side hustles.  One of the guys was a farmer, the owner would pay him for veggies, buy a couple pounds of goatmilk cheese, then would distribute it amongst the office folks.  Others had other things.

It sounds like you have everything taken care of.  I'd just start recording what you're doing and how often so you can keep the moving target that was mentioned above. 

The boss buying me lunch is absolutely appreciated every single time it happens. So do that more frequently and they will very likely appreciate it.

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

Thursday.

Thursday is what my employer does to show appreciation. That's about it.

That's it by us too. We had a manager for a while that would bring in big Costco size candy assortments but he charged us for it. 

What little thing do you appreciate that your employer does?

Leave me alone. 

RevRico said:

......7 in the field, you, and the admin doesn't really make it worth doing lot of things that usually work, like food trucks or coffee trucks coming in............

My  buddy had the "In and Out burger" food  truck come by for lunch and he also invited some local customers , he has about 15 workers , 

But he also has a 4 day work week and an early start time so the workers do not have to fight the traffic.

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

What little thing do you appreciate that your employer does?

Leave me alone. 

This too,  I remember causing a E36 M3 show once when we had a mandatory group lunch. Ok so my lunch hour is unpaid time off. If you're making me attend then that's on your dime. Don't be offended if I take my unpaid hour lunch off right after that. Some of us are there to collect a paycheck for work done. Don't expect me to always want to join your feel good party. 

Stampie said:

Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) said:

What little thing do you appreciate that your employer does?

Leave me alone. 

This too,  I remember causing a E36 M3 show once when we had a mandatory group lunch. Ok so my lunch hour is unpaid time off. If you're making me attend then that's on your dime. Don't be offended if I take my unpaid hour lunch off right after that. Some of us are there to collect a paycheck for work done. Don't expect me to always want to join your feel good party. 

Ding ding ding. I don't care about pizza parties, "Gatherings," give me more compensation (especially important now the way the increasing COL is impacting everyone). If a meeting is scheduled during our lunch, I expense it, and then go take my 1 hour break after, or sign off an hour early.

I actually think this is part of the reason I was laid off from TWG years ago. I had absolutely no interest in doing after-hours/weekend "team building" events. When this started, my now ex-wife traveled nearly every week for work............and now you want me to take a Saturday/Sunday afternoon to go to a minor league baseball game? Or go bowling? Absolutely not. 

The bag of candy lasted a month?  I would have figured it would be gone in a couple days.  

The best thing the guy I worked for before retirement did was trusting his employees and leaving them alone to do their work...we'd have a 10 minute meeting on Monday morning to quickly go over what we'd be doing for that week and then we went back to our desks and got on with it.  There were donuts or rolls on a fairly regular basis along with birthday cakes, and he would take everyone out for a nice dinner once a year every January (to avoid the holiday rush at restaurants in December.)  Also, Friday afternoons we'd have a beer.

The company was generally profitable so we were paid well and there was usually a nice bonus at the end of the year that was always greatly appreciated.

Fortunately he had a disdain for 'team building' activities which everyone else shared - we didn't need any of that stuff to improve our ability to work together.

Edited to add:  it also helped that my boss was a gearhead - he still owned the Dodge Challenger he bought new in 1971, along with an MGA and an Austin Healey 3000.

My current boss pops by every now and then, and gives me a short, literal pat on the back. That;s really nice.

At Christmas, h gave every employee a $100 bill. 

The occasional "Job well done" goes a long way.

I'd rather feel valued than get a pizza or some bbq.

Once our branch of 35 people were at odds with each other.  Since I was being looked at as a potential sales manager our VP Sales made me host an ice cream party for everyone.  I had to go buy E36 M3 and serve everyone.  

Now I was a heavily commissioned sales person so time not selling hoses was money out of my pocket.  It went over well and I never got the sales manager job.

Small business is tough. It sounds like you have a good thing going and you give a E36 M3 about your people and your reputation - so you're doing a lot right already. If you have avoided frequent employee turnover - I say "well done".

I never owned a business so my advice may be way off base but using my experience as an employee - I offer the following:

There are no secrets. If there is a particularly E36 M3ty task and the same guy always gets it - spread it around. 

When overtime is necessary and guys aren't on a strong pay scale they should be considered a flight risk.

I imagine doing things like giving a day off when a X day (and challenging) job gets completed ahead of schedule - would be strongly appreciated. 

A 4-day work week would probably be welcome. A few (or more) days paid vacation after X years of company experience; or having titles that align with skills and years (akin to union titles like master, journeyman, apprentice) might offer extra incentive to stick around.

Since all your employees are seemingly working out of company trucks, you can do something to make that experience a bit more comfortable.  Getting a satellite radio subscription for the trucks, or have the trucks cleaned and detailed every once in a while would be a nice boost.   

In reply to Puddy46 :

They drive pretty nice trucks with most of the bells and whistles. The only junker i have left is a Ranger but it's the spare/shop truck. 

My bosses gave me the credit card and told me to buy whatever coffee we wanted for the office.  That was nice.

They hand out little bonuses throughout the year after particularly stressful patches, and generally a very generous bonus at the end of the year.

Back in the earlier days we kind of had a sister office, and they would plan really nice trips for the combined group, usually including an overnight in a nearby city.  Drinks, big fancy meal, maybe a comedy show.  One time we did a weekend in Manhattan as a group.  Once the offices got bigger, it got to be a bit unwieldy and hard to plan.  They asked us if we'd rather have the party or bigger bonuses, and pertty much everybodey voted for more money.