Simple tips to show employees your appreciation

Appreciate Your Employees with The Right Language

You’ve worked your socks off at work, now you’d like your efforts to be appreciated.  How would you like your hard work to be recognised?

If you’re an employer, how do you think you could best show your appreciation to your most committed staff?

Extra holiday days? Christmas bonus?  Employee of the month credit? 

When we recognise our employees’ efforts, we demonstrate our appreciation.  We tell them we value them, that they’re an important part of the team. It’s often been proven that recognition improves engagement, productivity and retention.

Many companies have reward systems in place to ensure staff feel appreciated, but, employees still report feeling unappreciated and undervalued.  A recent survey of more than 1,500 participants in the US provided information on work recognition and the results conclude that appreciation at work is vital, and that needs are not being met.

Using the Right Language

The survey looked at giving and receiving appreciation using the concept of the Five Love Languages.  This is a popular way of understanding how people experience love and appreciation.  The five languages are Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Quality Time, Physical Touch and Gifts.  The five languages were adapted to suit the context of workplace appreciation:

• Words of Affirmation – verbal recognition and written compliments
• Acts of Service – offering to help a peer with a tight deadline or cleaning the office kitchen
• Quality Time – lunches and team building
• Gifts – coffee, chocolates, flowers
• Physical Touches – high fives and handshakes

For a more detailed explanation, we recommend reading The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman and Paul White.

Appreciation in the workplace

Participants were asked to choose a primary language of appreciation for the workplace. The results showed most of the languages were equally appreciated: Gifts 33%, Words of Affirmation 32%, and Acts of Service 25%.  The anomaly was Quality Time which was only chosen by 7% of participants. 
Surprisingly Physical Touch was chosen by several respondents.  At first thought, most people might think this is out of place for a work environment but, the results of the survey indicate it does apply as a form of appreciation when used appropriately for the setting.