Tips for Employee Appreciation

All employees like to feel appreciated but not all managers know how to show gratitude. When employees feel valued, their levels of productivity and happiness increase. Here are some tips that will help you to appreciate your employees:

Notice Daily Contributions

You should not wait for the annual general meeting to tell your staff how much you appreciate their contributions. You can make them feel your gratitude on every day of the week. If possible, you should say thank you to each person that works for you daily.

If this is not possible, you can hold a weekly meeting and thank your employees at the end of it. Staff members can also raise their hands to shout out the coworkers who helped them. Love is contagious and fostering it at your workplace will create a better working environment.

You can even give out small, non-monetary rewards, that reflect team-spirit, hard work, endurance and persistence. Description sounds familiar? Well, the army has already found a very sentimental way to express this gratification using challenge coins. You can find more information about them here.

Invest in Them

You can acknowledge outstanding work by giving your employees a bonus or raise. On the other hand, if you want to recognize a specific contribution, you should give spot bonuses. Moreover, you can reward the staff by offering development opportunities. This refers to opportunities for learning new skills, presenting their work at large team meetings, or taking the lead on big projects.

If you pick employees as a way of acknowledging their contributions, you should tell them why you chose them. This will help them to reinforce what they are doing and increase the efficiency at your workplace.

Be Specific

It is important that you give recognition to your employees in a way that is clear and significant about why it matters to the company. Instead of telling an employee that you like his work, you should consider delving deeper into what you liked about his work. When you are specific about what you like, you will encourage them to keep doing the right thing instead of leaving them wondering.

Ask What They Prefer

Managers usually make the mistake of showing appreciation in the way that they would like to be appreciated. If you do the same, you will have a recipe for disaster on your hands. Instead of making assumptions about people, you should ask them how they want you to be shown appreciation.

Giving shout outs during a company meeting might work for some employees but others might find it embarrassing. Some people prefer text messages to verbal thank yous or small bonuses to vacation days. Each person is different, which means that making assumptions is not right.

Offer Flexibility

You should make it obvious that you want to keep your top employees by giving them the best job arrangements. For instance, if you want to appreciate an employee who is also a mom, you can help her to find the right daycare or giving her a flexible work schedule that works for her. If possible, you should consider allowing your best employees to work remotely for several days a week.

If you track their time using software such as Clockspot, you will know how to assign extra time for rest and relaxation.

Surprise Them

You can choose to surprise your employees with a shortened workday or unexpected treats. You should also opt for activities that benefit the company and its employees: team building activities and fully paid education courses.

Encourage Their Feedback

You should give your employees a survey that allows them to provide anonymous feedback. Ask questions about teamwork, career growth, and leadership to measure movement on all directions.

Appreciating your employees goes a long way towards fostering a good working environment. Moreover, you will notice an improvement in the levels of productivity at your company.