I write and speak often on the importance of fostering a culture of appreciation, creating a work environment in which employees want to engage. An excellent article in Kelly Service's Smart Manager recently offered “10 Ways to Create a Corporate Culture.” I’ll highlight just three key steps to creating that culture of appreciation:

Quotation

“Publicly focus on the people, not the technology. As much as innovative technology can help employees excel, many remain wary. They often become uncomfortable or even fearful that state-of-the-art technology will make their jobs and themselves expendable. By focusing on your staff and their contributions, emphasizing that technology is simply a tool to help them, most employees feel a much stronger “connection” to the company.

“Publicly recognize employee performance, milestones, birthdays, etc. Don’t wait for major accomplishments to celebrate. Acknowledge all milestones, big and small. Your staff will not only appreciate these gestures personally, but they will tell their friends and potential future employees, too.

“Install non-financial benefit items that improve corporate culture. Personal days, caring for a sick family member days, employee-of-the-week (month, quarter, and year) awards, more prestigious workplace conditions, etc. prove to generate a positive effect on corporate culture and employee loyalty.”

I plan in the new year to write a good deal more on managing company cultures, but for now, my additions to these thoughts would be to clarify that it’s important to publicly focus on the people, period. Your greatest competitive advantage is your people – their innovation, their effort, their attitude – not the latest technological enhancement. Be sure they know that. Also, acknowledge all stellar efforts, big and small. Sometimes it is the seemingly minor (but well done) contribution of a lower-level employee that makes the rest of the work a success.

What would you add to a list of how to create a positive, appreciative, engaging corporate culture?