Recognition is something that we ALL crave as individuals.

But we often aren’t sure, as leaders, what is working for our employees. We don’t have honest conversations with them to get a better picture of what they believe is rewarded within the company. Then, we guess at how to reward employees.

The first place to start is assessing how you recognize your team members to see if it is creating the impact you want. These simple steps help you make a bigger impact with the simplest steps of gratitude.

• Be timely and specific with your recognition.

  • Be specific when you reinforce an individual's behavior. Don't use generalizations, such as "You do such a great job," rather focus on specifics, such as "Thanks for doing such an excellent job on the assignment and getting it in on time.” 

• Be sure you are reinforcing the right things.

  • Make sure the message fits what is most important to you. If you compliment someone for going above and beyond by describing their success as “long nights and weekends, skipped vacations, and missed family time,” your team will believe that that is how to achieve. Reinforce attitude, performance to goals, collaborating within the team, thinking creatively, etc. What you reward gets repeated.

• Reiterate your company values by using the same words in your recognition.

  • If integrity and accountable are part of your company’s value, ensure that you use those same exact words when issuing praise. This reinforces the behavior and also organically incorporates your values into daily conversation.

There are a variety of low cost and no cost ways you can show your appreciation to your employees:

• Hand-written, personalized thank you notes with specific language on why you’re thankful and what you appreciate

• Thank you emails or group emails with a shout out to a specific employee for their hard work and dedication

• Spotlights or bios on the company website

• “Coffee on Me” small gift cards

• Invest in a personalized gift platform where employees don’t need to know the price but can pick something out they would enjoy

• When you onboard employees, have them fill out a “getting to know you” form so in the future you know what their favorite candy is or how much they may hate golf. Personalization tells employees you value them and are willing to take the time to make their experience unique.

By continuing to tell your team what matters and that they matter, you are sparking motivation into your team and your employees.

Increased motivation increases the acceleration of the business goals.

Because when talent is elevated, business goals accelerate and employees thrive!