Employee Appreciation is the Key Player in Employee Retention

Appreciate More To Get More

Published in

ProofHub Blog

9 min readJul 24, 2019

Every employee dreams of working in an organization that promotes honest conversations, respects employees, and believes in them. These three are the elements of a vibrant workplace. Moreover, a little appreciation is all that employees need to push their limits and give their best.

I have a story to tell….

Only a few of us are lucky to have a smooth career start and Swati wasn’t one of them, unfortunately. She joined a startup. Starting a new job and learning the ropes involves a lot of effort. She was struggling with acclimating the work strategies, even the basic things became challenging. But with time, she gained a pace of the work.

She was trying to give her best at work. Also, she chose to work even beyond working hours to meet the deadlines of the projects. Nobody was acknowledging her hard work and the efforts she was putting to take the work to the next level.

How was she affected by all this?

Gradually, she was disappointed by no good words from her manager for abiding by the project deadlines and no appreciation for handling an adamant client. It started affecting her throughput, behavior, and self-esteem.

What happened next?

The manager scheduled a meeting with her after noticing a downfall in her performance. She spoke her heart and put forward the need for some pleasing words after doing good work. She explained how a simple “good job” by the team lead can boost an employee’s motivation level. This was an eye-opener for the manager and he appreciated her for such honest feedback.

The Outcome…

Now, every employee of that company is honored and appreciated for all the good tasks performed. The organization has various employee recognition programs such as “employee of the month,” “customized post on social media,” and many more.

Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. — Stephen R. Covey

I’d like to ask you a question, what do you think motivates your staff? Compensation? Job Security? Growth opportunities?

George Mason University conducted a survey which found that out of the ten things that managers think motivates employees, appreciation comes near the bottom of the list. But it is not the case. The employees said that apart from having the freedom to define our approach, it is the applaud and appreciation that keeps us going. This is the difference between the perspective of a manager and team members.

Why Is Employee Appreciation A Matter Of Concern?

Employees are the most valuable asset of an organization. You need to maintain them by timely appreciating them along with offering incentives. It is not just a matter of one day of a year like we have Employee Appreciation Day celebrated on every first Friday of March, it is far more than that. It is the key to unlocking employee loyalty and performance.

Do I need to focus on employee appreciation for my company? If this question is in your mind, this article will help you solve it. Read the following questions, get their answers and you will get to know the scenario of your workplace.

Aren’t you getting the intended results from your employees?
Is a lack of workforce productivity the biggest liability of your company?
Are you losing your employees more often despite a good workplace culture?
Is employee retention a headache for you?

If you answered yes to the above questions, then you need to pause, check and change the way you treat your employees. Here are some reasons why you should appreciate your employees more often. Let’s get started.

Employee Retention Is The Key

How will you respond if I say that half of your employees are quitting tomorrow? You’ll stand stunned, right? But some of you might think “No worries, I will recruit more employees soon.” Allow me to remind you of the time and money you invested to groom and make employees ready for the work. There are significant business costs to replace an employee. It costs around 21% of their salaries.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. — Benjamin Franklin

Appreciation Makes Them Feel Valued

Recognizing the employees for the hard work they do every day boosts their morale and helps to drive more workplace engagement. In the current era, employees, especially millennials, consider timely work recognition and appreciation as the parameter to measure their success. It will not only increase employee loyalty but also sow the seeds of job satisfaction in them. Moreover, they will be motivated to work harder.

At ProofHub, we celebrate work anniversaries, birthdays of the employees, and appreciate them throughout. Many times, we simply put announcements regarding special events or occasions or appreciate a job well done where everyone contributes their wishes collectively. It also makes them feel excited as it grabs the attention of one and all.

“Plan, collaborate, organize and deliver projects on time with ProofHub. Try Now!”

Timely Appreciation Increases Trust Levels

Trust is the foundation of every relationship. It is important at the professional level for employees to trust their seniors and bosses. Employers who care about their employees and timely appreciate them are more successful than others.

Also, in this tech-oriented era where a large number of companies work remotely and rarely have face-to-face interactions with their employees can stimulate trust by appreciating the work done by the team.

Employee Happiness Is Connected To Admiration

For a more successful workplace, happiness has to fit in this result-oriented and bottom-line business world. Happier the employees, higher is the productivity. It is said by the professionals of the University of Warwick in a recent study, unhappy employees are 10% less productive, whereas, there was a rise in the productivity levels of happy and motivated workers by 12%. This means that keeping an employee happy at the workplace pays off. Google also tested this by investing more in employee support. As a result, employee satisfaction has risen. For Google, it rose by 37% and it explained that under scientific controlled conditions, making workers happier really pays off.

“When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute.” — Simon Sinek

Appreciation Acts A Therapy

A “Thank You for XYZ reasons,” can sometimes motivate an employee and boost motivation in them. Suppose an employee has a tough time both at the personal and professional level, people are not being kind to him/her, office work is getting piled up, he/she is suffering from lack of concentration. If someone would show trust in them, pat their backs for the good work done so far, it can change the entire picture for them. Employees respond to appreciation expressed through recognition of the valiant efforts they put in their work.

A leader should put efforts to make the team members feel appreciated.

Appreciation Stimulates Ripple Effect

Why some managers avoid giving praise to their employees? It is because it requires some extra effort to get involved in employee recognition. Also, employee recognition has a huge communication element. But employee recognition and appreciation involve the ripple effect. It incites an inspiring surge of energy. An appreciated employee is a happy and motivated employee. A happy employee will pass on the appreciation and impact others. Society is built on appreciation. You just need to be a catalyst.

“Use a dedicated space to appreciate your employees with ProofHub. Try now for FREE!”

What Else?

We all know that we have Employee Appreciation Day (celebrated the first Friday in March). The man behind it was Bob Nelson, Ph.D., president of Nelson Motivation Inc. He is the author of 1501 Ways to Reward Employees. He had helped to serve the purpose of raising awareness about the importance of employee recognition and appreciation.

It is the ‘duty’ of a manager to appreciate the good work of employees regularly. It is more important to make employee recognition an ongoing practice at work rather than making it a yearly activity. Here are some of the situations where you can find time to praise your teammates.

When Should You Appreciate Your Employees?

Workplace appreciation and recognition are universally expected by employees across generations. It is a fundamental human need. Here are the situations in which your employees would expect appreciation.

Meeting the project deadlines: Abiding by the deadlines of every project is important. Not all employees are able to show consistent productivity at the workplace. If you have employees who go the extra mile to complete the project within the deadline should be appreciated. Those employees who have a tunnel vision and who run a sleepless marathon to finish the work having tight deadlines hold the right to be distinguished from the crowd (which is your duty to do).
Exceptional client handling: Sometimes it becomes hard to verify and clarify the client’s expectations. But there are some employees who don’t cower down to such situations and handles clients even in difficult times. They communicate effectively to mutually solve the issues, work toward conflict resolution and stay calm in that situation. Don’t you think you owe some nice words to your employees?

“Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” — Sam Walton

3. Being patient in tough times: It is not a very common quality. Losing patience not only hurts the person, but also others around. Not everyone has trained their mind to be calm and persistence under pressure. If you have built a team where the team members have mastered the art of staying serene and quiet even during intense work pressure, you have hit the jackpot.

The Final Say

Employee Appreciation is a lot more than free food and bean bags. It is not that difficult. Your employers are not going to expect over-the-top-perks. All they want is consistent verbal support, etc. Employee recognition has become an obvious thing in the era where retaining talent is toilsome. Brainstorm on different ideas you can use to praise your worthy employees. No employee wants to be treated as replaceable robots. Keep employee appreciation at the top of your to-do list, leave the confines of the workspace if you want to retain them for long. Your team members will operate differently with you and appreciate you for showing your other side.

Author Bio: Vartika Kashyap is the Marketing Manager at ProofHub and has been one of the LinkedIn Top Voices in 2018. Her articles are inspired by office situations and work-related events. She likes to write about productivity, team building, work culture, leadership, entrepreneurship among others and contributing to a better workplace is what makes her click.