Why should you go out of your way to make your team feel important? Because they are important! Too many managers in too many companies don’t look at their team members as an important part of the process. What they don’t realize is that there is probably somebody above them thinking the same thing about them.
Treating your team members as if they are important goes far beyond than simply complimenting them on their work but requires actually being interested in their lives both in and outside of work. Start with work, that’s the easiest, find out what they like about their job, what they don’t like. Also find out what they would like to do more than what they are doing now. Take the time to share with them victories and let them know how their work contributed to it.
Work environments where employees feel expendable tend not to have the best productivity and performance. Workers in those environment like this don’t believe that what they do really matters. This creates a worker that is unwilling to give 100% of themselves to the task, and instead spend their time doing just enough to get by.
Workers feel most important when they understand how what they do helps the company become more successful. They feel important when those above them take time out of their day to get to know them. They feel important when they know that you value them as a worker.
If you can convince your workers that they–not just what they do–are important, then you’ll find that you have higher loyalty, higher productivity, and workers willing to stick with you for the long-term.