5 Fun Ways to Celebrate Managers for Boss Day
Managers are employees too, but are often under-appreciated for the work they do. It’s #BossDay so let’s show the managers they are valued! Here are 5 fun ideas you can use to show appreciation for your managers.
Talk about high expectations.
Managers and supervisors are often tasked with being engagement ambassadors, yet, strangely, they’re also likely be the most under-appreciated members of staff. They’re always copping a hard time from above for productivity, milestone completions, and poor employee engagement.
Managers, too need to be engaged in their workplace.
They too need to feel like they’ve met their employer soul mate.
They too need to feel appreciated for the work they do.
“With great power comes great responsibility.”
– Uncle Ben
A happy and engaged manager is likely to mean a happy and engaged team.
By extension, a happy and engaged manager is more likely to model the organisational values and behaviours you promote and expect of your workforce during recruitment and onboarding. And we all know that engaged employees lead to better job performance, increased productivity, and lower turnover.
So, although we can sometimes give managers stick for their uninspired employee onboarding skills, we know that managers are people too. Important people. People who lead your organisation to success.
So, dust off those champagne flutes and dig out that old bottle of bubbles that’s been sitting in the veggie crisper since the Christmas Party five years ago. It’s time to recognise, reward, and thank.
We’re celebrating National Boss’ Day because it gives employees (and employers) the opportunity to thank their managers and supervisors for their support, guidance, and trust. It encourages them to share the love and warm those steely managerial hearts.
In addition to sending the obvious company-wide email acknowledging the day, here are a few ways you can promote National Boss’ Day today amongst your teams:
#1: Ignite peer-to-peer recognition
Encourage employees to use peer to peer recognition to personally acknowledge their manager’s contribution. This can be super easy if you have an online employee recognition platform, but you can also encourage the team to send digital Thank You cards, credit their employee account with a gift card, or donate money towards their nominated charity.
#2: Send a 3pm munchie care package
This is particularly applicable if you followed best practice when setting up your initial onboarding workflow, and you asked the manager (when they were still a new hire) what their favourite treat or guilty pleasure was. If not, no biggie, you can always find out with an employee survey.
Armed with these valuable insights, you can give them a meaningful gift that you know will delight them, rather than taking stabs in the dark and hoping that you haven’t just given a $20 hamper of biscuits to a gluten-intolerant manager.
#3: Give them an early mark
It’s common to see managers be the first to arrive and the last to leave – so surprise them with an early finish this afternoon! Pass their torch to a senior member of the team and boost their confidence, skills, and morale while you’re at it.
#4: Tee up a team tea time
Between this tip and #2, are you noticing a pattern here? Everyone loves food. Arrange a tray of cupcakes for each team and invite them to enjoy a slow moment of downtime. Give them permission to have fun.
Combining team celebrations encourages employee networking, collaboration, and bonding / engagement. Further, you’re giving teams a chance to interact with their managers in a relaxed and informal setting, opening up conversations, feedback, and potentially even ‘humanising’ managers making them more approachable.
#5: Achievement unlocked!
Give appreciation a glamorous spin, and watch both the manager and the team’s morale soar. Host an informal awards ceremony for your managers where you share broader organisational achievements, like securing a big client, delivering a high-tech solution on time, or having the most engaged team, as well as some fun ones like, best dressed, best puns, biggest coffee drinker.
You can take this as far as you want – it’s not unheard of to have trophies made up for these programs, prizes like experience vouchers, or you can go for the personal touch with a sincere hand-written thank you card.
Wanna help your bosses be a better Boss for their people?
Gallup found that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. So, if your managers are stressed, disengaged, overworked, under-appreciated, and miserable, and you still expect them to provide a joyous and stimulating employee experience without any support or #gratitude – you’re asking too much.
If you really want to reward your managers on National Boss’ Day, invest in systems that lighten their manual load, empower them to engage with new hires during onboarding, and free them up to be better bosses for their people.