When you are dealing with poor performance or difficult staff members, it’s easy to assume they don’t value hard work and don’t believe in the value of doing a job well. But in most cases, people want to feel they are making a contribution that’s recognised and appreciated. That’s where gratitude comes in.
Global research consistently finds cash bonuses and high incomes don’t produce loyal, productive staff. In fact, the research suggests performance-related pay can be detrimental to performance because it removes the simple pleasure of completing a task well.
Instead, regularly praising staff for a job well done and giving highly personalised tokens of appreciation are far more impressive. Research recently conducted in the US found 66% of all workers would leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated and 77% of workers in their 20s said they would walk out on an ungrateful employer.
If you are managing performance issues, it becomes critically important to identify the improvements an employee is making (no matter how small) and congratulate them on their efforts. This approach is more likely to generate change than the offer of monetary incentives or a strong focus on the areas still requiring improvement.
Gratitude and appreciate come in many forms
For smaller business owners, the best facet of showing gratitude and appreciation to staff is that it doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. It could be as simple as:
- Internally sharing an email of thanks or a customer testimonial about a particular employee
- Having an employee of the month or similar recognition scheme announced over a company-sponsored morning tea
- Hand written thank you notes commending an individual’s contribution to a project
- Thank you gift vouchers, movie tickets or similar to a staff member can share the recognition with a partner, family member or close friend
- Company celebrations shared with partners when goals have been achieved
- Becoming involved in causes that are important to your employees by holding fundraising sausage sizzles at lunchtime, allowing staff to take time off work to donate time to a worthy cause or matching their fundraising efforts with your own contributions