Is your business anniversary on the horizon? It’s time to celebrate! Especially if you’ve made it past the five-year mark.
Hitting the 5-year anniversary means you’ve made it past the set-up phase and the dreaded chicken-and-the-egg phase, where growth constantly outstrips resources. You’re now safely on the other side with a fully functioning team, and things are (hopefully) ticking along nicely. So, by all means, bust out a birthday cake and pat yourselves on the back, but could your anniversary be a chance for more than that…?
This could be a great time to reflect on any major achievements and think about the direction you want to move in now – as well as how to push the business forward by investing in your people.
You could use your anniversary as an opportunity to:
- Refocus your teams on your renewed mission statement and core values.
- Celebrate your team’s success.
- Reward your staff.
- Renew and define your team’s strengths.
Seeing as our company anniversary is this month (yay!), here are our suggestions for using your anniversary to fill your team with renewed energy and a refreshed sense of direction in a unique and deeply rewarding way that celebrates everything your company is: your staff!
Renewing Your Mission and Core Value Statements
Take this opportunity to breathe and look at your statements as they stand now. Do they fully align with your current mission and values? Do they still suit your ethos as a business leader, or do they need to be deepened now that you have more field experience?
A strong mission and value statements are a huge part of defining your company culture. Clear culture leads to embedded values and a recruitment process that attracts like-minded individuals. Teams feel like they’re part of something they believe in, which leads to employee loyalty and low attrition. Teams understand the ‘character’ of the company and will work with that in mind, so, essentially, a strong company culture ensures everyone is moving in the same direction with the same goals and the same ethos, creating a great sense of cohesion and a clear sense of company identity.
Redefining your mission statement and/or core values could ruffle some feathers. As much as it may re-energise and excite some team members, some may feel left behind if they are heavily invested in a previous mindset. Your job is to take everyone along for the ride. Include them in the process and invite their input along the way.
Once you’re happy with your new statements, it’s vital that you and your C-Level team live and breathe the new values. As long as your teams feel invested in and empowered by your new sense of direction, they should be refreshed by the change.
You can read more about values and company culture in our blog: Business Values & Company Culture: Why Have Them and How to Define Them.
Your Teams Are Your Business
Your company may produce the best product or service in the world but without your teams selling it, supporting your customers, designing, building and innovating to move with changing needs etc, it’s completely worthless.
So, you need to support and understand your team to have any chance of success. Investing in talented individuals and encouraging them to be the best that they can be can only have positive impacts on the business. They’ll feel appreciated and seen- which could be the difference between losing them and keeping them.
We can’t recommend using CliftonStrengths (previously known as Gallup StrengthsFinder) enough. By taking a brilliantly designed 45 min questionnaire, individuals are provided with a profile of their Top 34 CliftonStrengths, highlighting their talents and uncovering the areas where they may struggle. Follow that up with a 1:1 meeting with one of our certified CliftonStrengths coaches, and then then you’re really onto something.
They’ll be able to see how their teams fit together like a puzzle. Where one person may have a weakness, another may be right next to them, ready to fill that gap with their top skill. With this level of knowledge, you can create a formidable team- add on some 1:1 business coaching with our experienced, qualified coaches, and you can set yourself up for serious success.
CliftonStrengths forms a part of all our development programs which can be the perfect solution for optimising your management team and reaping the trickle-down effect as their amazing leadership pushes their teams to new levels.
The assessment is followed by at least one coaching session which focuses on the individual’s unique management style and how to leverage their strengths from this moment on. The coach will guide your manager through their top 10 strengths, explaining how these can be utilised from a management and leadership perspective. Our coach will also give your manager an idea of the team’s perspective if these strengths were to be underutilised.
Rewarding Your People
Obviously, your staff are paid for their time and efforts via their salaries but for the teams that truly go above and beyond, are you going equally above and beyond to reward and recognise their endeavours
Take your anniversary as an opportunity to reflect on your team’s achievements and show your appreciation. Shout about what they’ve done and make sure they know their efforts are appreciated, but you can go one step further by investing in their development and continued progression- that’s what really matters to most employees.
As we discussed in our recent blog, How to Spot and Develop Talent, there are some surprising statistics out there that show just how much weight is carried by investment in professional development. In Sitel Group’s report, Future of Work and Employee Learning, 37% of employees said they would leave their current job/employer if they were not offered training to learn new skills. By not developing talent appropriately, you run the risk of losing the employee along with their current skills, knowledge and abilities.
”As business leaders, we all know that replacing individuals in the business is pricey. Not only do you have the recruitment costs (including time spent on the task), but you also have the cost of a scaling productivity curve of your new starter as well as the impact on colleagues and the business during this time.
Now think about the added impact you might face if the leaver was key talent in the Organisation. Not only do they perform at a significantly higher rate than others, but their potential to grow in the Organisation is also high. You’re then incurring the costs for hiring for senior vacancies that this individual may have been perfect for. You also risk the chances of internal development and promotions actually working, as the loss of key talent sends a message to everyone in the business- including other key talents.
Luke ToddMadeYou Co-Founder
We offer various talent, management, leadership and development programs and workshops designed to bolster your teams and their managers.
Or maybe a Team Building Day is more for your style? Team days provide an excellent opportunity to field new ideas and align the team’s goals with the company’s values. The best way to get the most out of your team on the day is to have fun! Our Team Days allow your entire team, from the manager to new hires, to talk to one another openly in a relaxed environment. By creating a channel for safe communication, everyone can address issues and plan constructive ways forward.
You could opt for our Team Building Days with Strengths session. Not the usual day spent looking at flip charts and a magnolia conference room. The approach here is rather different. By working team building activities around a foundation of CliftonStrengths techniques, we avoid the expected norms.
The effect of using individual CliftonStrengths reports when coming together as a team is pretty simple to understand. Confident, informed individuals led by confident, informed managers, coming together to understand each other’s natural strengths leads to a harmonious, happy and productive team environment.
And for the more creative brains in your organisation, invest in them (and your business) by bringing them together for a Think Tank session. Lasting most of the day, we take the creatives from your organisation and release the restrictions in their minds so they can be truly innovative- bringing uploads of free-flowing ideas through our whacky activities. At the end of the session, there will be some amazing business ideas ranging from optimisation to pure innovation.
Renew Your Understanding Of Your Team’s Strengths To Build A True Empire
Now is a great time to give something back to your teams and renew your understanding of the individuals that are the driving force of your business. People change so much over time- even if your staff have been with you since day one, who knows what they’ve picked up, read up on or experienced since then?
Our 360° Feedback Program can realign your staff and bring your teams closer together while giving them the tools to improve on their strengths in relation to others. Well-informed teams thrive.
Your anniversary may mean it’s performance review time, an arduous task for some and a scary prospect for others. With true Calibration in place, the process becomes completely objective. Standardised ranking across all areas and levels of the company provides a fairer experience for staff and a clearer picture of overall performance for you.
You’ll be able to see where there are training or coaching needs and be able to rest easy in the knowledge that the right people are in the right roles. You’ll also keep your staff motivated and invested, safe in the understanding that they’re being treated fairly and in line with management staff.
You’ve worked hard to get your business to the point you can celebrate your successes on your Anniversary, so go ahead; throw a party and open up the drink’s fridge! But we hope our thoughts here have opened your eyes to the opportunity an anniversary can give you to reset your business too. MadeYou are ready to help, converting your investment in your people into amazing productivity and a profit boost.
Fill in the form below for a free consultation and to start your development journey with MadeYou.
