Last week we discussed the importance of recognizing and appreciating employees for their contributions to the organization. Not only do employees like to be acknowledged and thanked, the benefits to the company far outweigh the investment required.
Even though you may understand the importance of employee recognition, it can easily fall to the bottom of the list when things get busy.
The best way to be sure you are prioritizing this important task is to create systems for doing it so that it becomes routine. Here are some ways this might look.
Schedule it. Designate a regular and recurring time each week to identify one person to appreciate. Compose an email or, even better, a handwritten note, thanking them for their contributions to the organization.
It doesn’t need to be a lengthy essay, but it does need to be thoughtful. The more specific you can be the better.
Send the message.
Rinse and repeat the following week with a different employee. Use the company roster to help you identify who to appreciate and be sure that you are spreading the love.
Keep a supply of note cards on hand for this purpose.
This should take no more than 10 minutes each week. How easy is that?
Meeting it. Make recognition and appreciation a regular part of meetings with staff.
Highlight individuals who went above and beyond that week or who are under a particularly heavy workload.
Make recognition and gratitude a standard agenda item in your one on one meetings.
Encourage it. Company leaders aren’t the only ones who can show appreciation.
Make it an expectation that managers adopt their own system for appreciating their team members.
Create a physical or virtual place where employees can post kudos about their co-workers.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. You can create other programs, like having an Employee of the Month Award or an recognition banquet once a year. If you need to keep it simple, it might be a quarterly team lunch that focuses on the progress that is being made and allows team members to cheer each other on.
The possibilities are endless and with a little creativity you can design a program that fits your company’s culture and resonates with your employees.
It may take a while for a culture of appreciation to become fully integrated in the company which is why it’s ok to start simple, set the example and create systems that support the practice (That way you don’t need to read a blog to remind you to do it!)
Remember that you don’t need to wait for something exceptional to happen. Even if people are doing what is expected of them you have only good will to gain with a simple, “Thank you, I appreciate you”.
It’s the sound track that inspires stellar performances.
Photo by Hayley Murray on Unsplash