Practice Makes Perfect at Meet Hospitality
When training for the Olympics, one knows that practice becomes a full-time job. But oftentimes, in our actual full-time jobs, we forget to practice, train, and set new limits in order to truly allow employees to perform at their peak. Studies show that one major aspect of employee satisfaction is the effort you, as an employer, puts into the relationship.
As the world reconvenes and gets back to a new normal, we all have a new opportunity to start fresh and sift through best practices to allow our gold-medal employees to shine through.
Based on a Harvard Business School review, there are a few great tips (or “Promising Practices” )that are important to remember as we face new challenges for talent acquisition, employee engagement, and learning and development.
- Connect on a human level: “No leadership behavior has a more positive impact on employee engagement than personal connection and accessibility. In fact, every leader we spoke with described this as a priority or was described by colleagues as having this priority. Is it a skill? A natural inclination? We believe it is a set of simple practices that anyone can adopt. The first step is to recognize how much it matters to the employee experience.” Meet Hospitality has long believed that a shared meal can change everything. With some of New York City’s most famed eateries as our Meet Eats catering menu, the options are endless for gourmand exploration and genuine human interaction during your offsite meeting or corporate retreat.
- Create meaningful collaborations: “Don’t jump in and solve issues for people. Give advice and tools and make room for them to share their ideas with each other to develop solutions.” — Jennifer Pachus, Associate Vice President- University Development Office at Harvard University. The flexible and inspirational meeting and event spaces at Meet Hospitality offer plenty of opportunities to collaborate in a new and inviting environment.
- Recognize & reward: “All the leaders we spoke with use a wide range of techniques, formal and informal, to recognize and appreciate people. Their actions are consistent with research from Gallup that suggests that rewards and recognition, with its low cost and high impact, might be one of the most underutilized tools that managers have for boosting engagement—and it yields other organizational benefits, as well.”
- Communicate: It is important to communicate at all times, but often it is most important to communicate during difficult times or about disappointing results. For example: “Several of the leaders we spoke with observed that their commitment to boosting engagement got stronger in response to disappointing results on previous employee engagement surveys. Their instinct to share those disappointing results and enlist their employees’ help with understanding and improving them illustrates the power of transparent communication to build trust.”
Selfie Portraits with Meet Hospitality
- Have Fun: “All of the high engagement groups we spoke with incorporate recreational downtime into their workplace culture. “Having Fun” is not among the 12 factors that Gallup has identified as most predictive of employee and workgroup performance. Yet, unstructured social interactions are essential to making friends and feeling cared for at work (two factors that do appear on the Gallup list).” From midtown Manhattan outdoor terraces for events, puppy parties, baby pig petting, and selfie (art) stations, finding unique ways to interact, let loose, and have fun are all on the Meet Enhancements
