Recognition is Appreciated…Appreciation is Priceless Working an extra hour to meet the deadline - $100 Logging in at home to address a client’s request - $1000 Role playing a pitch in to your kids on the weekend - $1,000,000 Receiving a movie voucher from your team - Priceless
When a team is fortunate enough to have an excellent team member, they will be blessed with someone who delivers above expectations. It is known that the best employees will do the discretionary effort with little thought. They will do it to reinforce (mainly to themselves) that they are doing a good job, going above and beyond, adding value to the organisation. They take pride in their work and derive a feeling of being valued by performing a role to the best of their ability. These are the employees who rarely complain, get on with their jobs and work hard. They have a can-do attitude and are often the busiest people in the department, they can answer all the questions and know the best way to get anything completed in the workplace. Because of their friendly and helpful attitude, it is easy to take them for granted and pile even more work on them when, in fact, we should be saying thank you and recognising them in a way that they will appreciate. An employee recognition program will not in itself create a supportive culture; however, it is a tool that can be utilised to support developing a culture of recognition and appreciation. A potential downfall of an employee recognition program is that it can miss the vital point of ensuring that the recognition is delivered in a way the individual will appreciate. The best recognition programs allow latitude in the reward and the delivery of the reward. Some employees will love a morning tea in their honour where they are the centre of attention whereas another employee would prefer simply being passed a card with a note and voucher to a ‘discretionary day off’. Reported in their book, 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, Gary Chapman and Paul White conducted research with training participants which revealed that managers need to lead by example, modelling actions of encouragement to their team, as well as providing the training and resources for co-workers to learn how to effectively communicate genuine appreciation. Specifically, they learned: 1. Individuals at any level of an organisation could have significant impact by showing appreciation and encouragement to those with whom they work 2. Supervisors trying to take on the sole responsibility to communicate appreciation to those whom you supervise will not be as effective as teaching your team members how to encourage one another. When a workplace culture exists where everyone is working together to support an environment of appreciation and employees have their contribution recognised, they will continue to support each other. As a result, the team will work together to give the discretionary effort. Recognition is appreciated but a culture of appreciation is priceless.
If you can recognise that you could benefit from slowing down, why not join me on the adventure of a lifetime? We have three spaces left on our Nepal trip this November...I guarantee you will have a reduction in your heart rate, slow down and partake in a phenomenal life changing experience.
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