Easy Ways for Leaders to Recognize Employees 👏🫶

Employee appreciation is not a buzz word. It's a business imperative.

As a corporate communicator, managers ask, “What am I supposed to do to show appreciation to employees?” Some leaders even argue employee recognition is the HR department's job.

Many organizations around the world use the first Friday in March to recognize their staff members on Employee Appreciation Day, which poses some challenges:

• Employee Appreciation Day is not universally celebrated at every company around the globe.
• Funding or lack of budgets may prevent leaders from showing employee appreciation.
• Some leaders don't feel comfortable showing their appreciation to staff members.
• Some leaders report they feel ill-prepared in expressing appreciation to employees. Others want formal communication training.

I’ve shared some cost-effective solutions to front-line leaders on how they can show their appreciation and gratitude to their staff members.

💡Freebies

Employee appreciation doesn't have to cost a manager an arm and a leg. In fact, there are some free ways to do this:

• 💬 Shout-outs. These are impromptu or informal remarks about an employee doing good work shared in a group setting and/or on a social page. They can be as simple as "You've worked for our team for one year!" to "The CEO really loved your contribution to this project." It also opens the door for others to chime in.
• 🗣️Hold a one-on-one conversation to share your thoughts with an employee. Facetime is valued by employees!
• ♟️Spend five minutes each month during a team meeting to share your gratitude and feedback about an employee’s contribution.
• 💌Write a personal card to your employee. This takes a few minutes of extra time. If you’re fully remote, you’ll need to invest in postage, but you’ll deliver some unexpected joy to your employee’s life. Employees tend to hold onto these thank you cards, too!
• 📝Publish a vlog or blog to showcase someone’s exceptional performance. Sometimes managers want their internal customers and partners to know how much an employee is contributing to the business. A short blog or vlog that encourages others to comment can be a great way to thank an employee. Thanks to artificial intelligence, a leader can get idea starters or even help writing and producing the content!
• 📛Create a team badge.  Employees love games and competitions. Create a badge specific to your business or department. Employees can collect them – and at the end of the year, you can display a leaderboard of the top earners.  If budget permits, you can reward the top three with a special ‘prize' based on your budgetary requirements.

🧾Limited-Budget Ideas

Some organizations have dedicated budgets to support employee appreciation and/or recognition events. Consult your local HR organization for guidance.

• 🛍️Use existing company swag. Managers who want to give their employees a nominal gift but don’t have a big budget should look within the company’s existing inventory of branded materials. Sometimes companies have leftover swag from recruiting, trade shows or other events. If you just need one or two items, you may be in luck.  Ask around, someone may be able to help you. Employees love to collect company swag, too!
• 🆕Launch your own appreciation program. In a previous role, one innovator leader created a fun departmental program featuring a team mascot--a garden gnome statue! Each month the vice president would identify a team member whose work was exceptional. That employee would receive the gnome to sit on his/her desk to symbolize excellence. Rumor has it, the vice president also included some of her favorite candy in the package when shipping the gnome to the honoree. Over time, the employees enhanced the tradition – they’d take the gnome with them to key company events we managed (press conferences, trade shows, town hall meetings, roundtable discussions, etc.). The employee would take a digital selfie with the travel gnome further showing all the places and lengths employees go to do a great job.  The traveling gnome pictures had a bit of a cult following in my former organization. Total budget: $10.00 for the gnome statue – and some monthly shipping fees to get the traveling trophy from one employee to another.   At the end of the year, the vice president would raffle a gift card to one of the 12 winners for a special prize.
• 💼Talk to your HR department. Sometimes companies have programs in place to reward employees doing good work. They may not be widely advertised because of budgetary limits but sometimes departments like HR, Marketing, Sales, Business Development have some limited goodies that can be used by leaders to show appreciation.  Some examples I’ve seen during my career: beverage card ($5 coffee or tea drink), discounted or free movie/event tickets (especially if the company is a sponsor at a stadium or sports team) and even discounts to use at the company store where company swag is sold. Ask around, I even had an executive vice president offer a one-on-one lunch with him (in the headquarters' executive dining room) each quarter to a lucky top performer.
• 🏆Submit your team’s work for an industry award/accolade. I’ve led employees during my career. There are a ton of industry award competition programs that recognize outstanding work. Always consult with Legal and/or Security before submitting to an external third-party competition. Security, privacy and intellectual property rules may exclude you from submitting work in an external competition. If Legal or Security green lights you, keep in mind an application fee is likely involved, plus the time it takes to submit the portfolio sample.  We submitted several articles written by my employees –and when we had someone receive an award, which ranged from plaques, Lucite, metal and even artistic sculptures. Employees felt special when they saw their work was recognized by industry peers. Need inspiration? Check your industry association for ideas.  As a communicator, I’ve earned awards from Public Relations Society of America and the International Association of Business Communicators, both organizations have a ton of chapters with their own competition programs.  These awards build confidence and self-esteem, too!

💰Dedicated Budget Ideas

Many companies today believe employee recognition and appreciation is part of the business culture. As such, they have dedicated budgets and programs to recognize and appreciate employees. Each company has its own guidelines, so talk to an HR business partner or senior leader to get more details.

• There are probably limits on how many awards can be used or how often an employee can be recognized during a performance cycle.
• Some companies celebrate their employees on an anniversary or founding day, which may be different than the March Appreciation Day celebrations.
• Companies may even have specific programs to help nurture and grow key talent. Leaders may have influence or the ability to nominate top performers to participate in corporate training or accelerated learning programs.

🎯Words Matter

Employees want to feel valued, appreciated and heard today. Depending on your company guideposts, budgets and internal appreciation programs there ARE ways leaders can show employees their work and contributions matter.

🚀Tell me about an employee recognition program you benefited from -- and why it mattered to you. ⬇️Drop your comments below -- or share an idea with us so we can all benefit.

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💥💥 Susan L. Martin, MA is a people connector, message translator, bridge builder and corporate storyteller. My practice of communication has largely focused on employee and executive communication with an emphasis on change management. Susan directly supported C-Suite Leaders in some of the most admired companies including Allstate, Prudential Financial and Lockheed Martin. 💥💥

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