The Why and How of Employee Appreciation

Why is employee appreciation important? Just as your clients are asking “what is this company going to do for me?”, your employees (and future employees) are wondering the same thing. One of the main reasons people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. We here at JoomConnect have come up with key points to help you effectively approach employee recognition and appreciation.

• Time is of the essence! -- It’s not just an old saying! If someone is doing exemplary work, point it out when you notice it. Don’t wait until the end of the day or the end of the week - the appreciation can lose it’s luster after the fact.
• “High five for you and you, but not you” aka avoid randomness. You want the scale and volume of the appreciation to be appropriately aligned with the awarded action. Also, be sure to recognize similar tasks at similar scales. Ex: If Tom does a great job one week landing a new client and you reward him with lunch with the boss, then you should do the same when Gina does the same thing the following week.
• Be authentic, not a robot. Nothing is worse than automatic praise; it feels forced and lacks effectiveness.
• Promote peer to peer recognition. Employees actually value their peers’ opinions because those are the people doing the same tasks daily.
• Relate to your employee and their perception of value. If you feel like giving gift cards try associating to things your employees like - stores they like, gas cards, gift certificates to restaurants they like, etc. Or use any of these ideas:
  • Don’t be generic and recognize their talents - have an artsy employee? Get them a caricature made of themselves.
  • Support what they support - have an employee regularly funding a charity or who feels strongly about one? Donate to the organization in their name.

You can even use this in your marketing. Using your employee appreciation as a marketing technique puts your clients in a position of “Wow, if they treat their employees so well they probably treat their clients like gold.” What better way to let future and current clients and employees know how dedicated you are to them than to use your appreciation as a marketing technique? Post to your social media about your celebrations of success and appreciation and your customers and potential customers see it!

Employees are your first resource when it comes to your company’s success. Employees who feel appreciated will always do more and do better work. You should always treat employees as valued team members, not as numbers. Some companies have gone as far as giving employees their birthdays off as PTO after a year of employment. We like to celebrate birthdays here at JoomConnect with the employee's choice of cake or dessert treat for the entire team!

How do you show your employee appreciation? Let us know in the comments.