While staff appreciation is often used as a buzz term by organizations, experts suggest that staff appreciation isn’t just a fad – it’s necessary in order to keep employees happy and dedicated to their jobs.
According to Gallup:
Workplace recognition motivates, provides a sense of accomplishment and makes employees feel valued for their work. Recognition not only boosts individual employee engagement, but it also has been found to increase productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to higher retention.
Beyond communicating appreciation and providing motivation to the recognized employee, the act of recognition also sends messages to other employees about what success looks like. In this way, recognition is both a tool for personal reward and an opportunity to reinforce the desired culture of the organization to other employees.
If you like the idea of providing staff appreciation but don’t know how to begin in your organization, below we detail how staff appreciation can be as easy as ABC.
A – Authenticity: First and foremost, it’s imperative that your staff appreciation program be authentic. Make sure you’re not just saying “good job” for the sake of saying it. Recognition should be given when staff go above and beyond the duties associated with their job. Also, when providing positive feedback, be as specific as possible by commenting on effort, technique or growth. By doing so, staff members are more likely to repeat the behavior mentioned or strive to do even better.
B – Be Flexible: With any new program, it’s important to cognizant of how it’s going and to make changes as needed. Understand that every program requires some tweaking in order to make it work for everyone. Be sure to provide opportunities for staff to give feedback, as they may have amazing ideas that you didn’t originally consider. Remember, it will take the entire team to make the program successful!
C – Celebrate: Taking the time to recognize staff efforts often gets placed at the bottom of a very long to-do list. Ensure that this doesn’t happen in your organization by intentionally planning to celebrate. There are multiple ways to celebrate both individuals and your team as a whole:
Create a WOW! Board to showcase specific ways staff are going above and beyond. Hang this in a space where staff will be able to see it often, and have plenty of paper and pens available for staff to write down their kudos to others. After a while, staff members can remove their note to keep in their office.- Create a WOW! Notebook. When staff members receive the notebook, they should read the recognition message that someone else wrote for them. They, in turn, write an appreciation or recognition note to another staff member and pass it on.
- Allow time during staff meetings to give shout outs or engage in celebrations. This can be for staff to recognize others or celebrate their own accomplishments.
Do you want even more ideas? Check out these fun, engaging activities to use with your staff.
By creating a program and implementing the steps above and various activities, you’re sure to notice a difference in the overall well-being of your staff. We hope you have a fantastic year full of staff appreciation and recognition!
We realize that now can be a tough time to implement a new staff appreciation program, especially with many organizations conducting business at home. Here are some great tips for meaningful virtual staff appreciation that may work for you!