The first Friday of March marks Employee Appreciation Day where employers are encouraged to thank their staff and acknowledge everything they do at work.
Ambitions Personnel has a 30-year history of investing in staff relations, but given Employee Appreciation Day’s growing recognition in the UK over the last few years, our Directors have decided to officially celebrate this unofficial day.
While it may be another “made up day”, our Directors felt the sentiment of this strongly reflects Ambitions’ culture and is a core attribute to the business’ success.
Mandy Watson – Managing Director and Founder
“We are only as good as our teams; therefore, we wanted to recognise this formally. I strongly feel we celebrate employee appreciation throughout the year, with our annual survey confirming that it is the number one reason people love working here.
The Ambitions’ Directors and Branch Managers regularly show appreciation to our staff in a variety of ways. From all expenses paid days out, to birthday presents, ‘above all others rewards’, length of service gifts up to the value of £500 as well as additional annual leave and sales competitions with previous prizes including a New York trip for 2 and a cash prize of £2k.
Ensuring that we show appreciation to our staff and take the time to acknowledge their excellence hugely impacts our company culture and staff retention. For a company in the recruitment industry, we have a very high length of service average.
We know that our more generous gestures are greatly appreciated by our team, but day-to-day we expect all senior staff members to show their teams appreciation through word-of-mouth and make the effort to actually speak to them or ring them to say well done or thank you. If ever we’re presenting staff with a more personal gift, either myself or one of my Co-Directors ensure we present it in person. When it comes to building relationships with your employees, personalisation matters.”
Becky Gench – Operations Director
“We have a great team that deserves to be appreciated and we wouldn’t be able to achieve the things we do without our fabulous employees. It’s fantastic to be marking National Employee Appreciation Day at Ambitions this year.
Showing staff appreciation is so crucial in our industry because recruitment goes beyond nine to five. Our employee appreciation schemes are completely unrivalled by our competitors and we make an effort to provide benefits that can include the family of our employees. Year on year, our employee satisfaction survey proves this ethos is why people love working here.
On average, our management retention is 12-years, which completely bucks the industry trend for recruitment. This, as well as the flexible benefit packages and rewards we offer massively supports us when recruiting new talent internally.
In addition to strengthening employer and employee relationships, staff appreciation is an excellent way to enhance teamwork and collaboration across your teams. As well as arranging days out to bring people who work in separate branches together, we ask our teams to decide on each other’s personal gifts and experiences.”
Claire Bishop – Managing Director
“I decided to mark Employee Appreciation Day 2020 as in addition to enforcing the message to our staff how much we value and appreciate them, it helps set a precedent to other businesses and promotes the importance of it.
Today, we have surprised every branch and treated them to lunch. We are also announcing today, that in July we’re paying for every staff member and their immediate family to attend a Company Family Day at Alton Towers.
Our staff works hard because they care about Ambitions and enjoy working here, but these kinds of benefits certainly keep appreciation and respect mutual.”