How Can You Optimize Your Employee Appreciation Efforts?

Leaders. Managers. Supervisors. Take a moment. Clear your mind. Then look at the next three words.

“Employee Appreciation Day.”

What image pops into your head first? 

Coffee, doughnuts, and bagels in the breakroom? A pizza party at lunch? Electronic gift cards with a note of thanks from the CEO?

There’s a reason these images might come to mind early. They’re all tried and true. And in truth, any sincere action you take for Employee Appreciation Day (March 7 this year) will be appreciated. 

Even so, certain aspects of employee appreciation, especially recognition, have their potential pitfalls along with their upsides.

Often, the danger is in taking a one-size-fits-all approach to recognition. For every extrovert who thrives on being acknowledged in front of the team or the whole company, there’s an introvert who would rather hug a porcupine than be singled out for public praise.

Considering the pitfalls, free food and gift cards are safe options. But why not take things up a notch and optimize your employee appreciation, starting this year?

What Does Optimized Employee Appreciation Look Like?

Optimized employee appreciation has three key characteristics:

1. It’s specific and personalized.

Obviously, this means that as a leader, manager or supervisor, you have to know the people who work under you on more than a superficial level. You don’t have to be best friends, but you should know their personality styles, what they value at work, and what they do to help advance your company’s mission.

Convey appreciation for specific accomplishments, rather than giving generic praise for effort. This lets your employees know that someone is paying attention to their individual contributions. 

In a smaller company, it’s possible for senior leadership to have that sort of information at hand. In bigger organizations, that will likely fall to those at the department or team level, with more standardized appreciation shown by top leaders.

However, execs in larger companies shouldn’t leave the personalized appreciation entirely to managers and supervisors. When a specific, personalized message of appreciation comes from a senior leader, it sends the message that people are speaking well of an employee at the highest level.

2. It recognizes potential as well as performance.

Investing in your employee’s future is just as important in showing appreciation as recognizing past accomplishments. This tells your workers that not only do you appreciate them for what they’ve done, you appreciate their potential enough to help them develop it.

This might include drawing from past performance to identify possible career trajectories for each employee. Again, this requires two-way conversations (regular ones, not only during annual performance reviews) to make sure that development happens on an ongoing basis.

For more on leadership and management, check out Excelling as a Manager or Supervisor

It definitely includes training beyond that required for job performance or regulatory compliance. Find out where your employee wants to upskill and give them the time and resources to do that.

Don’t forget training for “soft skills” such as communication, time management, and emotional intelligence. One group of researchers has found that less than 25 percent of surveyed workers believe they’ve received sufficient training in these areas.

3. It’s not confined to the calendar.

Yes, it’s important to recognize Employee Appreciation Day. But if that’s the only time you’re intentionally appreciating your employees, then they’re less likely to see that appreciation as genuine (even if it is).

That said, don’t go to the other extreme and gush over your employees all day, every day. Save genuine appreciation for when it’s warranted. But give it right then, in the moment. That links the good feeling of recognition (whether that’s public or private) to the specific accomplishment.

Don’t forget soft skills here, either. Someone defuses a conflict with tact and diplomacy? Take them aside and let them know you noticed. Someone deftly handles questions, concerns and potential objections during a presentation? Thank them for doing so. 

And by all means, appreciate them with a raise or bonus as a performance incentive. A monetary investment of this nature is a signal that their work is essential to the company’s success.

The more people feel that you really appreciate them and what they do, the more connected they’ll be to your company in terms of effort, retention, and morale. It takes work to provide optimized appreciation, but that work will be worth it.