Nobody loves to be unappreciated. In fact, one of the reasons for low employee retention is a lack of appreciation.
Fortunately, you can make a difference in your company by regularly appreciating your employees. This encourages employees, increases productivity, and ensures fewer employees resign.
If you don’t know how to begin, this article will help. We will cover 16 employee appreciation ideas to show you value staff output and hard work.
Now, let’s begin.
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1. Generous Paid Vacations
A paid vacation for top employees is one of the best ways to recognize employees and boost morale. Regardless of your earnings, a free vacation works wonders.
Can you imagine the feeling of a friend covering the cost of a trip to any destination of your choice? Amazing right?
Well, a paid vacation has the same effect on employees. Many people, including your employees, have locations they would have loved to visit. However, they are unable to because of limited revenue.
So, if it is within your budget, pick an exotic location and cover the expenses. Better still, you can request that the employee decide where they want to go, and you cover the cost.
This can help employees get the needed rest and feel valued in the company. Those who feel this way will remain loyal and hardly ever want to leave.
What’s more, a refreshing vacation can help rejuvenate employees, thus increasing their performance when they return to work.
2. Employee Recognition Program
Most employees will feel proud when you publicly recognize their achievements. This type of publicity makes them feel you appreciate and value their contributions.
You can do this in different ways, including:
- Mentioning the employees’ accomplishments in meetings or company-wide newsletters
- Appreciating teammates by sharing “Thank you” cards
- Mention the name of high-performing team members during staff forums and board conferences
- Dedicating a page in promotional company magazines to appreciate the employee
- Giving online shoutouts on company social media platforms like Instagram, company website, or Facebook.
Regardless of your chosen employee recognition strategy, the impact is the same: It helps improve employee engagement and boost morale.
3. Employee Appreciation Day
The US national Employee Appreciation Day is on the first day of March every year.
It is set aside to recognize and show gratitude to employees for their contributions and hard work. While you can appreciate your high-performing employees on this day, why not create your own, too?
Host a similar occasion any time of the year and honor your employees. You can keep employees engaged with different activities on this day, including:
- Playing fun games at work
- Sharing rewards and gifts
- Having a picnic for team members
- Encouraging employees to exchange gifts
Creating a day for showing appreciation can help make team members feel valued. It is also a great way to boost employee morale, which translates to higher productivity.
4. Allow Remote Work
Many larger companies have started to see the benefits of remote work. However, it has not been fully implemented in some. There are many advantages of working remotely, including saving the cost of commuting and increased comfort.
Moreover, it is a great way to change scenery, which can help improve productivity and job satisfaction.
So, why not give high-performing staff a few days to work from home? This will prove that you care about your employees’ well-being and comfort. It will also help motivate other team members to work towards becoming remote employees.
5. Free Food / Snacks
Freebies never fail, and this applies to meals, too. Giving free snacks or meals to employees during breaks is another excellent employee appreciation strategy.
You can choose specific days of the week when staff can get free breakfast or lunch at a nearby restaurant. Better still, you can surprise them with pizza boxes and other treats when they are back from a lunch break.
Ideally, you’ll want to give employees snacks they enjoy, or the process will be pointless. You can get this information beforehand through random surveys or during the onboarding process. Also, note any allergies, especially with food like milk and nuts.
6. Additional Leave Time
Everyone needs time off to relax and engage in personal activities. This is where fully paid leave days come in. While your company probably has a specific number of leave days, adding more can help show appreciation.
If an employee has consistently helped the company meet targets and progress, giving them a few more days to relax won’t do harm. Instead, it can prevent burnout and ensure they can keep performing exceptionally.
The free pay they get during this period is only an added benefit, making the entire process worthwhile.
7. Work with a Mentor
Most employees have someone they respect in the industry and want to emulate. This could range from supervisors to senior managers – many of whom they can’t access themselves.
Making connections and giving employees time to work with these individuals can help boost morale. Speak to senior managers or supervisors and get them to act as mentors to the employees.
Let them work together for a while, where they can interact directly with and learn from the mentor.
For this to bring results, you must assign employees to a mentor they genuinely respect and look forward to working with. This means you’ll want to get them involved in the process so it is a success.
8. Involvement In Key Decisions
Understandably, most decisions are made by the company with the involvement of key stakeholders. However, involving a high-performing staff in the process is a great employee morale booster.
It shows you value their insights and appreciate everything they bring to the company.
Obviously, these don’t have to be major decisions relating to investments or company direction. But you can choose areas where their contributions will be beneficial to the company.
While it may not seem like it, team members who are not in management have important insights. These are insights that top management may be unable to access because of their positions.
9. Have a Family Day
Another cost-effective way to show appreciation is to have a day when everyone, including the virtual team, brings their family to work. You can organize a picnic with games where employees interact with each other’s families.
If you want to take things further, you can show gratitude to employees at this point. Having their families witness this day can boost the effect and make them feel more valued.
Moreover, as employees’ families mingle, it strengthens the connection, making them feel like a larger family. This can also translate into a positive work environment—where everyone genuinely cares and respects themselves.
10. Host a Kids’ Playdate
Another alternative to Family Day is hosting kids’ playdates. Working a full-time job and caring for kids can be exhausting. While they can easily curb this by hiring a babysitter, not everyone has the budget for it.
So, hosting a day where parents can come drop off their kids to have fun with one another is an excellent way to show appreciation.
This way, kids can connect with one another while parents take a break and enjoy their free time. You can host this event in a children-friendly environment like an amusement park. Make sure you add fun activities to ensure engagement.
Note that you may have to provide babysitters to watch the kids. You can also ask parents to volunteer to help with the kids on that day.
11. Send a Thank You Note
“Thank you” is a powerful word that many hard-working employees don’t hear enough. Sending a Thank-you note is a budget-friendly employee appreciation strategy. These notes are easy to prepare and only require you to share your feelings in writing.
Here are great examples of Thank-you notes to use:
- Thank you for taking the initiative to solve the problem when an order was stuck.
- The management appreciates how hard you worked towards getting the new leads this year
- The company is proud to have a hard-working team player like you. Thank you.
- We are grateful you stepped up when the manager was away.
Thank-you notes only have an impact if they come from a place of honesty. Make sure you note the actions you are thankful for and include only things you genuinely feel.
12. Public Wall of Fame
The Wall of Fame is common in supermarkets and other establishments with lots of foot traffic. But this does not mean you can’t leverage it in regular organizations too.
It is basically a wall where you showcase team members with the best performance. This is also a budget-friendly employee appreciation strategy that only requires a portrait and some encouraging words.
Aside from being an excellent way for teammates to get social recognition as high performers, it can also motivate other employees.
To make it even more appealing, you might want to add some perks for those who make it up the wall, such as free parking at an easily accessible location or an increased allowance budget.
Going digital is also an option if you don’t have a wall. Have the top-performing employees as screensavers on monitors in the lounge and around the company. This way, it will be the first thing anyone who visits will see.
13. Shorter Work Hours
Allowing employees to work less is another great way to make them happy. They get more time to relax or engage in activities they’ve been unable to because of time constraints.
You can do this by giving an earlier closing time, making lunch breaks longer, or resuming late. If you prefer, you can give a longer weekend by letting everyone take the Friday off work.
Ensure that these do not affect your company values and workflow. Make arrangements for how to keep things running smoothly during this period.
14. Organize a Pets at Workday
Pets are important and serve different purposes to many people. For some, they are basically kids which they can’t bear to lose. Therefore, encouraging employees to bring their pets to work is one of the best employee appreciation ideas.
Pet lovers will also be happy to have their pets nearby when they work.
- To make the day fun, incorporate the following activities:
- Take pets on a walk together
- Feed the pets
- Play games with pets at the park
- Host a pet talent show
The list is endless when it comes to making a pet workday fun. However, you’ll want to create some boundaries so things don’t get out of hand. For instance, owners should clean up after pets, or there should be an allocation for cleaning.
What’s more, encourage everyone to leash pets to avoid bites or uncontrolled activities.
15. Don’t Neglect Overall Wellbeing
It is very easy to work constantly while ignoring your general health. Many employees unknowingly do this to pay their bills. Therefore, one of the best employee appreciation ideas is to organize well-being events for staff who can’t do it themselves.
For instance, organizing a therapy or massage session. These can be therapeutic and useful for team bonding. They also come with the added benefit of improved work performance.
You can also organize a group gym session where they work out together, especially for those who’ve never had the time. If you prefer, let the employees pick the activity that appeals to them.
16. Upgrade Office Equipment
While this might seem surprising, helping your employees upgrade their workspace can be very rewarding. You can overhaul the entire workspace or provide tools to help them add a personal touch.
For instance, some team members would love to add plants or portraits of their loved ones to brighten their day.
You can also upgrade office equipment like printers and computers to more recent versions. Better still, replace outdated software or faulty chairs to create an appreciative atmosphere. These make work easier while keeping your staff happy.
Conclusion
Employee appreciation is an important part of every organization. Without it, employees may not feel connected to the company and lose interest in the job. Ultimately, this can result in low performance, which translates to low returns for your business.
We’ve done the hard work for you and listed 16 employee appreciation ideas to boost morale. These ideas can also ensure a loyal workforce and satisfied customers, which are essential to every business.
Use any of the employee engagement strategies above to appreciate your employees today, and you’ll be glad you did.