As a business leader, I often spend a lot of time thinking about the big questions: How can we move quicker? Where and how are we spending our resources? What are we doing to continue to improve the customer experience? But, while it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers and obsess over ways to iterate and improve, leaders often forget one critical question: How are we valuing our people?
I’m the co-founder and CEO of &Open, a curated gifting platform. People are at the very heart of what we do, and yet we often have to remind ourselves to take a second to pause and recognize our team. This was particularly poignant at the end of 2022 when we launched a new pay-as-you-go service, On-Demand.
Launching the new service came with a specific set of challenges—especially considering our team is spread out across the UK, US, and Ireland—but we made efforts internally to acknowledge the work being done along the way, which ultimately resulted in a successful implementation.
Reflecting on our experience, here are three tangible ways business leaders can prioritize their teams, especially during critical times like launching a new product or service.
Create a sense of community
Particularly with the rise in popularity of remote work, we needed to ensure the launch team felt a sense of connection and togetherness, whether based at our headquarters in Dublin or elsewhere overseas. We wanted the team to feel part of something bigger than just the tasks they needed to complete.
To ensure the team had open communication spaces, we organized meetings to air out challenges, troubleshoot solutions, and encourage collaboration. We also created an open Slack channel where the team could hop in and out to discuss updates or concerns. We closed the office on the Friday after the launch and held an all-hands meeting to celebrate the team for all of their hard work and dedication. We had champagne, cake, and of course, gifts. For those who could not attend in person, champagne and cake were sent to their homes, and they dialed in virtually to be part of the celebration.
We value our community and believe it’s important that leaders keep the entire team engaged, whether there’s a significant company milestone on the horizon or not. Involving our people in company decisions is a way to ensure they’re invested in the company’s success. As a recent example, before releasing a new gift pack to our customers, we gathered ideas from our team on what to include. Their input is valuable, and by having more people in big decisions, we’re creating a sense of belonging.
Show recognition throughout the project
“Actions speak louder than words” is especially true in business. Vocalizing praise is critical, but recognizing hard work through thoughtful gestures is a necessary component of making your team feel valued.
After the launch, we gave the team a €200 Spendesk card to spend on whatever they felt would help them catch up on life after an intense few weeks. Some spent it on a family meal, some on gaming console controllers, and some on new clothes. It was a small action that showed every team member, no matter their position, that they played a vital role in the success of the new offering.
We also ensure that showing recognition is threaded into our culture. When someone goes above and beyond, we send them a thank you note and a small gift the next day. It’s usually something simple but acts as a robust and tangible way of recognizing great work. For example, when winter set in, we gifted everyone a pair of wool socks to say thank you for always contributing to the company’s success. It was a fun, simple gesture as the weather got cold.
Encourage time to refresh
Launching a new product or service typically requires longer hours and involves more internal pressure. But hard work needs to be balanced with time to refresh. It’s easy for company leaders to institute paid-time-off policies, but it’s important to actually encourage your teams to take the time. We gave everyone on the launch team an extra day off whenever they needed it following the launch. This was our way of acknowledging the extra effort it took to build a new service from scratch and showing our team that their well-being and balance are important to us.
This continues to be part of our ethos and we consistently encourage our team to take time when they need it. Around the holidays, we encouraged our people to take mornings off for a winter walk. We also looked to connect folks in different neighborhoods and encouraged them to meet, wander and grab coffee together.
We believe it’s our responsibility to be proactive about making the team’s well-being a top priority. We’ve seen firsthand that when people know they matter, they’re happier and do better work. By prioritizing the very people that make up a business, companies can positively impact both their employees and their business as a whole.
Jonathan Legge is the Co-Founder and CEO of &Open. A multidisciplinary designer and entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in the consumer design industry, Jonathan earned his Master’s in Design Products from the Royal College of Art. After working with celebrated designer Ilse Crawford at her world-renowned studio, Studioilse, Jonathan partnered with his brother Mark to start online-retail-company, Makers & Brothers, a path that ultimately led them both to &Open. Jonathan now devotes all of his time to &Open, the gifting platform trusted by companies like Airbnb, Spotify, Peloton, and more.