How did you celebrate Employee Appreciation Day? It was on March 4, a feel-good celebration of workers and the workplace. If you missed out, don’t worry. Done right, workplace appreciation is not a single date on a calendar. It’s something high-performing workplaces practice year-round.

Keeping employees engaged and interested has been a major concern of corporate leaders during the Covid-19 pandemic, and especially in the wake of the Great Resignation. Business leaders whose companies are ranked in the Top Workplaces survey understand what it takes to keep their workforce connected. Some of the CEOs and other officials from these companies discuss their tactics and strategies for employee engagement.

The Covid-19 pandemic prompted people to give more of themselves to their work in the spring of 2020, but 2021 was the year workers decided to focus more on what they wanted or needed. That’s evident in employee surveys analyzed by Energage, which gathers feedback from workers nationwide, year-round.

Small businesses dominate the corporate landscape in South Carolina, and that’s a good thing. Our state in 2020 had more than 431,000 small businesses, which are defined by the U.S. Small Business Administration as companies with fewer than 500 employees. That translates to 99.4 percent of all the businesses in South Carolina.

Why do people quit? Money is sometimes a reason, but research by Energage shows it’s about more than a paycheck. Employees want to feel valued and appreciated. The best employers focus on genuine appreciation, recognition, and connection to keep workers on board.

Business people love to meet in Charleston: its chef-run eateries with fresh seafood, King Street shopping, and storied colonial history naturally make it a solid choice for visitors of any kind. And after a hiccup last fall (called the Omicron variant) on the road to restarting the conference and event business, the city is opening its doors once again.

Pinnacle Financial Partners, the No. 1 Midsize Top Workplace for South Carolina for 2022, doesn’t think of itself as just a commercial bank. It wants to be the financial partner for its clients. And to do that, bank officials say they have built a culture where associates are excited to come to work each day and they, in turn, take care of clients.

Creative Builders Inc. CEO William H. “Will” McCauley III is focused on making sure that all of CBI’s more than 80 employees know they are valued and valuable parts of the company. The first step for McCauley is recognizing those people as “coworkers,” not “employees.”

Employers have been forced to focus harder than ever to retain and attract talent amid the disruption of the business environment during the Covid pandemic. Top Workplaces celebrates the employers that are getting it right.

Mimi Striplin clearly remembers the date: June 1, 2020. That was when demand for the unique tassel jewelry she had been selling for five years took off, to the point where her website crashed. That was when she had to suddenly think about expanding her small team, of keeping more supplies on hand, of opening a brick-and-mortar storefront. That was when an online business started with $500 began the transformation into a retail force that’s now poised to exceed $1 million in annual sales.

It seemed like a simple concept – require insurers and health plans to provide coverage for mental health conditions to the same extent they cover medical conditions. But experts say that mental health parity remains elusive 14 years after Congress passed a bill calling for it, even as the need for mental health services has grown during the pandemic.

Having spent most of my life in and around rural communities, I know firsthand the challenges many rural communities have experienced. My parents, who were both educators, left their schools every day to come home and tend to our small family farm, because they loved the land, and they understood the importance of planting and watering the land to ensure it produced good crops.

For many years, South Carolina’s business owners raised concerns with state legislators about the inconsistencies and complicated processes that they experienced when obtaining business licenses from local governments around the state. Legislators put in incredibly long hours working with the business community as well as cities to remedy these persistent issues.

Our human tendency to label things has rarely served us well because it promotes separation and division, and the only place that separation through labeling seems to make sense is in the laundry hamper. I have recently been contemplating one particular example of labeling that divided our work force, and has shaped the career mindset of many generations.

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! This children’s song has been in families for years, although the original release date is undetermined. When speaking about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), I often use this song as a part of my presentation, as it is a reminder of the pure innocence of children. In daycare and kindergarten, we did not choose our friends by race, class, political party, or status.

Recipients chosen based on standout scores for employee responses