Key Strategies For Leaders to Celebrate Team Members’ Appreciation
The turnover rate at companies nationwide has spiked. This creates a workplace climate where many team members are willing to leave their jobs if they don’t feel valued—and team members’ appreciation presents an opportunity for employers to ensure their teams feel heard and appreciated at a time when team morale is more important than ever.
Research shows a clear correlation between team members’ appreciation and retention. A recent survey found that a lack of company recognition and engagement contributed to 44% of team members changing jobs. Today’s team members yearn for a work environment centered with empathetic leaders and celebrating team members’ appreciation is one powerful way for leaders to begin this empathetic journey.
Here are successful ideas for leaders to celebrate their teams in meaningful and salient ways:
Invest time in creating handwritten thank you notes
Write a handwritten note for each of your team members that expresses the unique value they bring to your company. Being able to highlight specific, personalized details of their performance and positive attributes—or simply expressing the genuine gratitude you have for them—can instantly demonstrate your level of care. Be sure to make each note personalized.
Give unique, thoughtful gifts
It’s important to care about your team members’ professional lives, but it’s equally, if not more important, to care about their personal lives. Your team members’ personal lives can directly impact their professional lives, and as a leader the onus is on you to take inventory of the relationships, situations, milestones, and celebratory moments that happen within your team—even beyond the walls of your company.
Some of your team members could be newly engaged or celebrating the addition of a newborn. Others could be single, but close with their parents. Some of your team members could have purchased a new home, and some could have relocated for their job and as a result may not have many friendships in the area. By understanding the dynamics of your team members outside of the office, you can gift appropriately.
Thoughtful gifts that show your genuine care for your team could include housewarming presents, a restaurant gift card for a newly engaged couple, or tickets to a local festival. The size or monetary value of the gift isn’t what matters, it’s the care you’ve put into identifying a gesture that truly benefits each team member’s situation and resonates with them. Be creative!
Support a charitable cause that matters to your team members
One way to boost team members’ engagement is by practicing social responsibility and community involvement. You can tap into this by listening to your team members about what matters most to them, and then making a donation in their honor. This action signals that your company cares not only about its community involvement, but about the interests of its team members.
Curate an inspirational experience for your team
Consider creating an experience for your team. Hosting an inspirational event can go a long way toward showing your team members that you value them.
One avenue to explore is hiring an inspirational speaker to uplift the morale of your team. Team members will walk away equipped with strategies to better navigate their personal and team leadership journeys. Overall, the event will leave the team feeling that their leader cares about their individual growth and wellbeing.
Offer bonus paid time off
A recent study found that 77% of team members have experienced burnout from their current jobs. Additionally, the survey revealed that 51% of those respondents reported this has happened more than once.
The most surefire way to combat burnout is by giving your teams a break. Offering time to rest so they can come back to work truly refreshed. By providing your team members with additional paid time off, you’ll allow them to remove themselves from the stressors of work and fully regroup. This is an excellent strategy for extending appreciation to your virtual or in-person team.
The Takeaway
No matter how you choose to do it, celebrating Team Members’ appreciation is necessary for leaders looking to demonstrate how much they value their teams.
My professional goal as a Leader and Business Consultant is to create Difference Maker Leaders: leaders who understand how to manage the duality of personal and team leadership by following a positive set of ideas. One of the key Difference Maker Leader tenets is practicing empathy in the workplace—vital because the success of corporations rarely relies upon a singular effort, but rather on a collective team effort. Simply put, if your team does not feel appreciated, their work will reflect it or they could resign. Appreciating what your team members do is an ideal time to demonstrate empathy to your team.
