Can you remember the last time someone told you what a great job you have done?
A successful business leader knows employees are the lifeblood of an organization. When employees are dissatisfied, they close the arteries of your business operations. Keeping your staff engaged and happy can help your business functions flow smoothly. One of the crucial aspects that can make your workers pleased is to praise them for the job they are doing.
Appreciation motivates people to keep up with the excellent work. Positive reinforcement sets as an example for each employee in your company, showing them the kind of work you value the most. The good news is- the heart of staff appreciation is economical and straightforward to roll out and impacts employee retention, absenteeism, and revenue.
Here we present some great employee appreciation ideas from where you can pick.
Table of Contents
1. Surprise Colleagues on their Birthdays
One of the simplest ways to appreciate your employees is to celebrate their birthdays. Get a birthday cake, candles, and balloons and decorate the place where the person sits. Let everyone take part in the organization. Collectively buy a gift and a birthday card and get it signed by fellow teammates. Allow them to take a break from mundane tasks or give them a day off.
2. Go for Outdoor Lunches
When an employee has done great work, why not increase their lunch hour for a day? Take them out during lunchtime with the team, or if the employee is a private person, then opt for lunch with just the two of you. This will promote one on one conversation and give space to talk and share in person how much you loved their hard work.
3. Give Awards
Who is not fond of rewards and trophies? Instead of company-wide appreciation events, create individual staff achievements like “Best Employee of the Month” or “Exceeded Sales Target in the Year 2021”. Additionally, you can assign awards to the ones who have already surpassed their goals and take on additional responsibilities. This will prove that you are noticing the hard work of your employees and will give them more reasons to continue.
4. Provide Free Tickets to an Event
By providing your team members, free tickets to a good event are a great way to show them that your organization cares. As such, events are not related to work, it is a more authentic way to show gratitude as your organization is not acquiring anything from it. Help your employees to enjoy themselves simply because you care.
5. Plan for Team Games
Playing team games is a great way to spend staff appreciation day. This is an easy way to encourage healthy competition in a friendly environment to get your people working together. Also, remember that these games can be a learning experience at the same time. The group dynamics and communication skills your employees develop through the games can be used in the long run when they need to work in collaborative projects.
6. Say, “Thank You!”
When was the last time you said “Thanks”?
Some leaders take employees for granted and think that they are there to do the work because it is expected out of them. A simple “thank you” can bring a visible attitude difference between employees whose manager genuinely thanks them compared to the one where the employees never hear it. In this thankless world, acknowledging employees by making them understand that you know and appreciate their hard work can make them feel positive.
7. Cheer for Your Peers
Make it simple for your employees to show appreciation for each other. Your peers are aware of more than you may think during the regular activities. Hence, give them a chance to call out the good things people are doing, so they come to your notice as well as other’s attention.
8. Throw a Party at the End of the Year
Christmas party is constant for most business enterprises. However, you can show appreciation to your workers by throwing a party at the end of the financial year. This way, you can also thank everyone who has helped you to achieve business profits.
9. Shout Out Loud on Social Media
Use social media platforms to highlight the great job that is being done by your fellow workers. By leveraging social media to show appreciation to your staff has two significant advantages. In the first case, your staff will feel recognized and appreciated. Secondly, your followers can see that you value your team significantly.
10. Give Treats During Month End
Who does not love a meal? Providing complimentary snacks, beverages, and food to your staff at the end of each month is an easy way to show appreciation for the hard work they have done.
11. Initiate a Mentoring Program
Some workers want to grow within your organization but may lack the confidence to move forward. Hence, you must initiate a mentoring program in order to guide your trainees and junior employees to enhance training skills and communication.
12. Remember Work Anniversaries
As per the Harvard Business Review, workers usually quit jobs after working in an organization for more than a year. Appreciate employees who have decided to stay with your business. Acknowledge their hard work and how it has positively impacted your overall business.
13. Health is Wealth
You can appreciate employees and go further than only identifying their professional accomplishments. Offer them incentives that benefit overall organizational culture and the lives of individuals. You can also offer healthy snacks, fresh fruits and help them to attend fitness clubs that are easy to participate in. All such options make it clear that you want your workers to take care of their health in and out of the office.
14. Enable Flexible Timings
Instead of making staff appreciation an occasion that takes place once a year, you can deploy this as a part of your mission. Implementing this into your normal routine will make sure that your staff feels understood and heard every time. You can offer the flexible timings, leave, and vacation in order to demonstrate this concept.
So, avoid grilling down on your people to be on time for forty hours every week, you can act more leniently and enable them to work according to their own timings, as long as their job meets the deadline. It should not bother you whether the work is getting done on a Friday late night or on the couch on a lazy Saturday morning. Moreover, your staff will give a better output when they do not feel confined to their work all the time.
15. The Magic of Handwritten Letter
Mostly your workers get accustomed to receiving communications electronically. So, it will be a great idea and surprise when you take the initiative to write a thank you letter by hand. Your note must include all the details what the employee has acquired and how it has made a difference to your organization.
16. Remote Working Day
Everyone loves to grab a chance to do work from home, and there is no other better and affordable way to show appreciation to your employees by allowing them to put the same productive hours from their couch. One extra day spent with their family or pets could make them rejuvenated for their next day at the workplace.
17. Ask for Their Help
This is one of the less conventional appreciation iworkdeas. Asking for help may not feel as tangible as a reward that recognizes staff achievement. But this does not indicate that it is unable to make workers feel appreciated. When you reach out for employees, you are sending a strong message that you value their expertise.
18. Encourage Education
It is often overlooked by employers. When you show your workers that you are willing to invest money and time into their continuous education, you involuntarily communicate that their role is crucial to the organization and is worth nurturing.
When you are not sure how to encourage professional development in your workplace, here are a few suggestions.
- Encourage employees to attend educational conferences.
- Make in-house educational materials and give them to your employees.
- Participate in educational events.
These are just some points, but you can get tons of other ways to encourage education in your workplace.
19. Volunteer
At the time of planning for meetings, treats, events, or some other fun activity, make your employees share new ideas. Taking help from employees in planning an office event may feel like a reward in itself, and they will be more eager to prepare for the next one as well. It is not a complicated process. You can collect feedback from your staff, or just ask an employee to volunteer in order to help plan an event.
20. Field Trips
Another good employee appreciation activity is by taking your team out for a field trip. Stepping out of the office makes them feel comfortable to socialize. As they are no longer restricted to the office setting, it is a great way for them to bond.
The Takeaway
Appreciating employees is the foundation of growing a meaningful and robust workplace culture. This should not be reserved for a single day, but it must be a significant part of your business culture and be an all-around attitude that management accepts.
Yet, many companies still show more concern in maintaining their equipment rather than letting your employees feel that they are appreciated and valued. Understanding and appreciating your staff can reduce employee turnover rates and enhance a positive experience.
Author Bio:
Charles Harden is a freelance content writer at SutiHR, who frequently writes articles on Cloud Computing/SaaS, HR, Business and ERP trends.
