Employee appreciation is defined as the act of recognizing and rewarding employee contributions to the workplace either through formal or informal channels.

Without appreciation, employees are likely to become demotivated and lose interest in their jobs. This makes year-long employee appreciation critical. Read our primer to know what the six types of employee appreciation are, the best strategies for your workplace, and the tools you can use to show your appreciation to your employees.

In the last 15 years, the practice of recognizing employees has stayed relatively flat. Way back in 2002, 84% of companies formally appreciated their employees in 2019, this number stood at 87%, indicating only a slight uptick.

Where do you stand on employee appreciation? Do you have what it takes to build an engaged, motivated workforce? Let’s delve deeper.

Table of Contents

• What Is Employee Appreciation and What Are Its Types?
• Ideas and Strategies to Encourage Employee Appreciation in the Workplace
• 4 Technology Platforms That Enable Appreciation
• Is Appreciation and Recognition the Same?

What Is Employee Appreciation and What Are Its Types?

Employee appreciation is the simple act of acknowledging the contributions your employees make to the business and the culture of your workplace. Theres even an entire day dedicated to celebrating this the first Friday of March is designated as Employee Appreciation Day, but we recommend you make this a year-long practice.

Employee appreciation can be classified into six categories, based on three parameters:

Studies suggest that many companies have some type of formal recognition program in place, and a lot of them use a combination of both formal and informal approaches. Here are some key statisticsOpens a new window on employee recognition and appreciation:

• Length of service is the most recognized event at work, with 72% of companies recognizing it. This is followed by exceptional performance (62%) and spot recognitions (55%).
• The number of companies formally appreciating their employees is on the rise. In 2005, 19% had a formal program in place this increased to 23% in 2019.
• 31% of respondents to the survey feel that their recognition programs are only somewhat meeting their goals, with 4% saying that their goals aren’t really met.

These trends suggest that while appreciation through recognition is a staple in most workplaces, theres still a long way to go before we achieve a holistic culture of well-being, engagement, and motivation. Let’s now look at five strategies that can help you get there.

Ideas and Strategies to Encourage Employee Appreciation in the Workplace

You might expect managers and team members to automatically appreciate the efforts of their peers and team members. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case companies need to take a proactive stance on employee appreciation, initiating the right strategies to make appreciation a habit and a part of the company culture. Here are five ways you can start:

1. Adopting gamification to strengthen your motivation and reward structure

Gamification brings in elements of gameplay to the workplace. This means assigning points to different tasks, which are earned upon completion, encouraging healthy competition with colleagues, defining the rules of the game (or in this case, the job), and finally rewarding the winners or the employees who meet these objectives.Gamification lets you embed appreciation into the work structure, taking advantage of employees natural desire to do better than their peers.

2. Creating an environment where peer-to-peer appreciation is a daily occurrence

Peer-to-peer appreciation strengthens interpersonal relationships in the workplace and ensures that your employees get along with each other. It also highlights that an employees peers are paying attention to their work. As a result, employees are likely to perform better, seeking positive feedback not only from the manager but also from their colleagues and team members.

You can start by having senior leaders call out exceptional achievements among their ranks and urge younger professionals to do the same.

3. Acknowledging employees who go out of their way

An employee who goes beyond the call of duty to help meet a project deadline definitely deserves appreciation, followed by recognition and rewards. There must be both formal and informal channels in place to make this happen. For example, you can sponsor a gourmet lunch for employees you ask to come in on the weekends to meet that all-important deadline.

A big project win (or a similar achievement) must be acknowledged by senior leadership. Without this, employees will hesitate to go the extra mile at work, and performance is likely to slack.

4. Providing opportunities for growth

An effective way to show that you understand and appreciate an employees talent is to give them provisions for career growth. An entry-level hire who does very well in the first 12 months may deserve to be quickly pushed up the ladder.

Remember, this employee appreciation strategy requires careful thought and assessment. You should be encouraging only those who want to explore growth and not impose a change on those already satisfied.

5. Making the appreciation of achievements a social activity

Appreciation in front of a group is more likely to be effective than an employee appreciated in isolation. You can use a social recognition platform to applaud employee achievements publicly. These can even come with built-in gift cards, adding a level of financial incentivization to the appreciation system.

Now that you know about the essential strategies needed to encourage appreciation in the workplace, take a look at a few ideas for appreciating employees. Remember, employee appreciation doesn’t have to be a cost, effort, or investment-heavy process. There are small steps you can take to ensure that your employees feel valued every day. Here are four simple ideas.

1. Allocate appreciation hours

Just like we schedule meetings and breaks, why not set apart a specific time for appreciation as well? For small businesses, this could be as frequent as weekly sessions highlighting positive employee behavior. Larger companies can break this down into a team-wise model.

2. Set aside space for employee appreciation on your website

Your careers page is a great place to showcase employee achievements. This has two benefits. First, employees have a sharable asset that they can show friends and families. Second, it acts as an additional draw for job seekers, inspiring them to apply.

3. Support employee hobbies

Your workforce is good at more than just work their passions and hobbies are also a powerful outlet for their talents. Look at how Google lets employees dedicate 20% of efforts to side projects if this isnt feasible at your company, you can start by assigning a hobby day.

4. Espouse a thank you culture

At a company where employees are in the habit of showing gratitude for small contributions, employee appreciation will be more forthcoming. Look at email signatures that incorporate a thank you message. This applies to Slack and other forms of workplace communication as well.

By embracing these ideas, you can build a workplace where employees and managers regularly appreciate each other. Over time, you will see employee engagement rising slowly and the goodwill encouraged by this culture of appreciation will impact customer interactions as well.

And, if you want to strengthen the impact of these employee appreciation ideas, there are several technology platforms you could look at.

4 Technology Platforms That Enable Appreciation

It’s a proven fact that happy employees are more productive and cost lesser to retain. Thats why this is an area of extreme interest among HR technology vendors, eager to ensure employee happiness and well-being. An excellent way to make this happen is to use technology for employee appreciation here are four examples:

1. GuustoOpens a new window A digital gift-card platform

Gift cards continue to be a popular way of appreciating employees. However, it can be challenging to track who is incurring expenses, what are the popular brands, and if budgetary limits are crossed. Instead of wasting time on manual records or complex spreadsheets, you can use a platform like Guusto. Interestingly, the digitization of rewards also leads to better business outcomes.

Guusto creates a catalog of digital gift cards that can be redeemed at 50,000+ partner locations. You can also assign a specific budget to each manager, and they can choose their own rewards combinations. Guusto comes with detailed analytics on expenses, simplifying employee appreciation management. Most importantly, the platform is free of cost, with zero terms or conditions.

2. SalesScreenOpens a new window A gamification platform for sales teams

You can create a setup that contextualizes the daily responsibilities of your workforce. This is particularly true for goal-oriented verticals, such as sales teams working towards a target, contact center executives with a specific number of interactions to make, or software developers looking to complete a sprint.

For the sales function, the SalesScreen platform is a great option. SalesScreen creates a leaderboard to track performance and broadcasts customer wins onto a television, creating an atmosphere of social appreciation and recognition. There is a built-in rewards shop if you want to incentivize achievements.

3. MoOpens a new window A platform for appreciation-to-values alignment

The benefit of going digital is that you can keep track of who is appreciated, why, and how frequently. This data can be aligned with your company’s values, making sure that you have the right culture in place. Mo enables precisely this with its intuitive recognition tool.

Mo supports private, manager, and organization-wide appreciation, including financial rewards for employees who are frequently appreciated. The best part is that Mo condenses this data into a culture dashboard, linking every appreciation moment to values and behavior.

4. MotivosityOpens a new window A to address the drivers of motivation

Apart from being appreciated, your employees will also want a sense of community and regular feedback to keep them motivated. Using a 360-degree tool like Motivosity, you can create a social media-like digital community where employees can see each others profiles, appreciate others, share work highlights, and send gifts.
Just like social media analytics, Motivosity reveals key stats on appreciation patterns in your workplace. This lets you address gaps (for example, an employee who hasn’t been appreciated over a month) before it turns into a problem.

Remember to evaluate the impact of employee appreciation tools and tactics using surveys. Regular anonymized surveys to measure employee engagement can help to ascertain if your appreciation efforts are having the desired impact.

Is Appreciation and Recognition the Same?

You’ll notice that employee appreciation and employee recognition are often used interchangeably. For instance, several recognition tools also let you appreciate employee efforts thats because there is a definite overlap.Recognition is the act of rewarding an exceptional achievement at work. Employee appreciation includes this aspect and expands it to cover personal qualities like willingness to help others, honesty, flexibility, sense of humor, etc. For progressive companies, recognition is now synonymous with appreciation, and the old-school, limited definition of event-based professional recognition is on its way out.

Now that you know all about what employee appreciation is and its different types, you can come up with your own ideas for appreciating employees in the workplace. Effective appreciation hinges on in-the-moment, personalized acts. Thats why you need a thoughtful, business-specific strategy before getting started.

Do you have any tips for effective employee appreciation? Tell us on FacebookOpens a new window , LinkedInOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window . We are eager to share your insights with the world!