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    Believe it or not, Labor Day is almost here. While 2020 may not be the year to have a company-wide barbecue or another type of in-person celebration, it’s still crucial to take time out of your busy schedule to let your employees know that you’re thankful for all their hard work.

    Here are five ideas for how to celebrate your employees this Labor Day.

    1. Write out personalized thank you notes

    In the days of never-ending emails and text messages, receiving a handwritten note is really something special. To that end, one thing you can do to celebrate your employees this Labor Day is to mail them all personalized thank you notes, thanking then for all of their hard work.

    As you might have guessed, the key to an effective thank you note is to make it personal and sincere. Be sure to include specific reasons why you enjoy having each person as an employee and specific examples of times when you have most appreciated their work.

    It never hurts to include gifts with a nice note. so think about sending a small token of your appreciation along with the card. Something like flowers or candy is a safe bet, but don’t hesitate to get more specific if you know your employees well and have an idea of what they might like.

    2. Host a team appreciation call

    If you’re not much for expressing yourself through writing, think about hosting a team appreciation call instead. It’s important that the purpose of this call be specifically for thanking your employees, so be sure to leave to-do lists and deadlines for another call.

    During the call, you’ll want to take a few minutes to celebrate each of your employees in turn. One at a time, go around and acknowledge each of your employees for their achievements in the last year. Mention any particular strengths that you’ve noticed or any assistance for which you are thanful.

    Again, the key, here, is to be genuine and sincere. Your employees will be able to tell if you are phoning this in or just making something up on the spot. The more thought and preparation that you can put into this task, the better the final outcome will be.

    3. Treat your employees to lunch

    Traditionally, it’s fairly common for employers to take their employees out to a Labor Day lunch. However, even if you are still working in-person, odds are that not all of your employees will feel comfortable going out to a restaurant, particularly if the plan is to dine indoors.

    With that in mind, consider ways to make your lunch more pandemic-friendly. If you’re still working in-person, it may be possible to get away with having some individually-wrapped lunches delivered to your place of business.

    However, if you have lots of employees working remotely, it’s likely a better idea to mail each employee a gift card to a local food delivery service and to send them a note telling them to treat themselves to lunch on you.

    4. Let them start the weekend early

    At its core, Labor Day is meant the achievements of workers, specifically the unions who worked so hard to secure rights for employees. In particular, unions were known for their successful efforts to shorten the workday to eight hours and to shorten the workweek to only six days.

    To that end, time off has always been a central concept to Labor Day. While your employees will undoubtedly have Monday off, consider giving them the opportunity to start the weekend early by giving them Friday off or allowing them to leave the office early.

    If you’re in a business that has to stay up and running despite the holiday, consider giving your employees an extra day off in shifts. Give some off Friday and Monday and others off another time, so that your employees know that they are still being celebrated.

    5. Give out bonuses

    Lastly, if you can swing it, consider giving out bonuses to your employees. There’s an important business case to be made for bonuses being linked to greater achievement among employees. Essentially, the wisdom is that bonuses, especially unexpected ones, incentivize workers to keep achieving new goals.

    Keep in mind, that bonuses don’t have to be huge and they don’t always have to be strictly monetary. In light of the pandemic, many companies are having to tighten their belts, which is understandable. If you can’t afford monetary bonuses at this point, consider giving your employees some extra paid time off.

    The bottom line

    At the end of the day, anything that you can do to show acknowledgment for your employees’ hard work will be much appreciated. However, remember to keep your acknowledgement heartfelt and sincere. The more sincere your acknowledgement is, the more it will mean to your employees.

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