The Value of Thanking Employees
“Highly engaged employees make the customer experience. Disengaged employees break it.”
Timothy R. Clark,
• According to Globoforce Mood Tracker, 78% of people would work harder in their jobs if they were recognized
• According to Gallup, 65% of working Americans say they receive no praise or recognition on the job
According to McKinsey Global Survey employees are motivated by:
• 67% praise from manager
• 63% attention from leaders
• 62% opportunities to lead
• 60% cash bonus
• 52% increase in pay
• 35% stock/options
According to Bersin and Associates companies with an ineffective recognition program experience 46% more turnovers.
Strategic Recognition Drives Engagement
Say “thank you” to your employees and watch them thrive. A recent poll by Partners In Leadership confirms that when employees are happier at work, 85% say they take more initiative; 73% say they are better collaborators; and 48% care more about their work. Effective leaders who understand the correlation between higher levels of engagement, happiness, and productivity facilitate movement in the right direction--and have people feel good about it.
According to Bersin & Associates
Organizations where recognition occurs have a 14% better employee engagement, productivity and customer service than those without.
Lack of Recognition Drives Turnover
Ignore your employees and watch them walk out the door in fact 46% more turnover in companies with ineffective recognition programs.
According to Gretchen Rubin author of The Happiness Project
Happy employees are more productive. It results in less employee absenteeism, burnout and stress. When employees are happy, they are less preoccupied with themselves, more focused on their work and are willing to take on new challenges.
Happy employees are better leaders. They become more resilient, less risk adverse and can more easily bounce back from failures.
Happy employees are more creative. They are less worried about the day to day tasks and can dream of new possibilities.
Happy employees are better team players. They are more likely to help others and tackle the big issues confronting them at work.
So how do business owners encourage happiness in their employees? Here are Gretchen's seven secrets.
1. Recognize when employees are making progress. Pause and highlight milestones that people hit or challenges they have overcome. Ensure that people feel their contributions are rewarded by simply saying "thank you."
2. Make employees feel like they belong. To be happy at work, it’s important to feel like “you have a friend.” This gets challenging especially when the company gets busy. People need to feel like they know each other and so time like this yields positive results.
3. Take an interest in who employees actually are. One of the key questions that always gets asked in employee surveys is "Do you feel like your boss cares about you and is trying to give you the tools to succeed?” This will lead to employees that are much more engaged at work.
4. Make it fun. Organizations that feel “light” where people can joke around occasionally with each other have stronger cultures. When mistakes happen, people can see the funny side and are not just focused solely on the downside. These provide additional moments of connection as discussed in point No. 2.
5. Let your employees disengage sometimes. Many employees feel like they are always working because they have "a cubicle in their pocket” that they can never turn it off. This makes employees feel tremendously harassed and stressed. Encourage times when employees are completely disengaged so they can focus on their family and set their own personal priorities.
6. Encourage exercise and sleep. Enough of both of these does great things for employees’ focus, attention, creativity, energy and mood. In the long run, consistently doing "all nighters" are counterproductive.
7. Stop calculating everything. As a business owner, stop keeping score every time an action is taken. Don’t always be thinking, "If I did this for an employee, they should do that.” Do what is right and don’t calculate.
Additional Reading
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Point of Reflection
"There is little success where there is little laughter."
Andrew Carnegie