According to Gartner, managers’ ability to reward and recognize achievement effectively can increase employees’ discretionary effort by more than 20%, and increase their desire to stay by more than 30%.
At Gilbane, we encourage our managers and peers to regularly recognize people and reward success when it is well deserved. In addition to the day-to-day appreciation of our employees, we also take a week out of each year to dedicate to employee appreciation, held this week from September 16-20.
Our theme for Employee Appreciation Week 2019 is “Celebrating the Gilbane Family Across the World.” This means that our 45+ office locations around the world will participate in events spanning from a team breakfast to a boat tour of Washington DC.
You don’t have to spend a lot of money to have a successful Employee Appreciation Week. We encourage people to do things like play a game of Pictionary or charades, encourage folks to come together and eat lunch as a team or have a team “bake off” where people bring in their favorite recipe for everyone to try and judge the winner.
To be effective, employee recognition must be sincere and heartfelt. Employees will sense if their efforts are acknowledged only out of duty or if comments are lacking in sincerity. Acknowledgement of effort and accomplishments should also be timely. The following are some informal employee recognition ideas for managers:
- Say a sincere thank you for a job well done. Do this often and be specific.
- Tell your employee about positive comments from others.
- Acknowledge individuals or teams at a team meeting. This is meaningful for the recipient and can be a source of inspiration.
- Have a team lunch.
What does your company do to show their appreciation of their employees?
