Staff to your strengths

Find the thing that excites your people. Know your folk's hobbies and interests. It's easy to think that hobbies don't have a place at work, but that's short-sighted. We had a hardcore cyclist - he talked about cycling, knew all the excellent bike paths to and from the office, and had extra tools on hand to fix his bike. How can you use that to help the team? We bought a bike pump for the office based on his recommendation and other "good tools to have on hand." Other people could use this when they had a flat, and it was nice to have an expert on hand to help the team.

The first win you get is recognizing him as a bike expert. The second win is that having an in-house expert was super handy with an office full of bike commuters. Third, for new hires, we could show them a map he made with all the easy bike paths nearby along with annotations (e.g., "traffic bad here, cross here instead"). Total win! That immediately helps him and everyone at the office who are interested in biking (or the group that wants to reduce carbon emissions).

We had another person who was an event planner in a previous career. While they were good at their current job, they were a fantastic event planner. It was not my area and not something I was good at, so finding someone who could work with just a little budget and create something magical was great. Every holiday or random event was a chance for them to shine, which gave the office a great atmosphere.