3 simple employee appreciation ideas

3 simple employee appreciation ideas

It’s never been more evident just how crucial recognition is in the workplace. Recognising and appreciating your employees boosts morale, drives engagement, improves retention, and more. We say it time and time again (it’s part of our ethos) – it’s all about the people. So, how do you start incorporating acts of recognition into your company’s daily routine to give your people a boost? Here are three great ways to get started.

Remember and acknowledge personal milestones

Your employees are highly likely to reach a number of personal milestones while working with you, so a good way to show them that they’re appreciated is to acknowledge these events when they do happen. From birthdays, work anniversaries and engagements, to moving house, getting married and having children, there are a number of life events worth acknowledging in the workplace.

You can identify the key milestones/events that deserve acknowledgement for yourself, the point is that you do so. Taking the time to recognise these things demonstrates to your employees that you care about them as a human being. You don’t even have to organise a grand gesture; a straightforward verbal or written acknowledgement is a step in the right direction and will make a huge difference because your employees will feel like a valued individual within your business.

Say “thank you” in the moment

It seems obvious, but it’s often easy to forget the simple act of saying “thank you” when someone does a good job. Taking the time to recognise the efforts of individuals is important and builds up a culture whereby recognition and appreciation are part of everyday life. It starts with individual acts of recognition in the moment.

Managers should lead by example here. Being openly appreciative of colleagues’ actions and behaviour, will encourage other people in the business to adopt the same behaviour and pass it forward to their peers. Whether it’s a face-to-face “thank you”, a personal email or a message in a group chat, a small act of recognition really does go a long way.

Why not say “thanks” to one of your colleagues today?

Invite your team’s feedback

It’s a natural human desire to want to be seen, heard and respected. That’s why giving your team regular opportunities to use their voices and shared thoughts, ideas and feedback is a great way for your business to show its appreciation of employees.

You could organise regular surveys and focus groups to give individuals the chance to provide their personal views on different areas of the business. You could update the structure of your Managers’ check-ins with their team to incorporate focusing on individual feedback. There are plenty of ways to create a two-way channel of communication in your business.

Doing this empowers employees to use their voices and demonstrates that they have a stake in how the business operates. The key is using this feedback in a constructive way and ensuring that your business demonstrates how it’s being used to develop things in a positive way.

How to build a strong culture of appreciation

These three key tips are an excellent starting point, but a strong embedded culture of recognition is far more powerful and will have a long-lasting impact on your workforce. That’s why implementing a reward and recognition programme is so valuable – you can incorporate different elements of recognition into one platform, aligned to your business’ mission, purpose and values. Whether it’s recognising Birthdays, service milestones, everyday achievements or specific targets, a unified programme and platform will make saying “thank you” easy for your business.

Find out more about how we help UK businesses create a culture of appreciation here.