Your employees are the backbone of your company and one of the most important reasons for success. While hiring the best talents is essential for the growth of your organization, it’s also important to nurture the talent to get the best out of them. Often it requires an extra step other than giving them the basic salary and benefits. When it comes to motivating your workforce, a little appreciation goes a long way.
Below, we have listed ten effective ways to show your appreciation and gratitude towards the top performers in your organization. Let’s take a look
Recognize their Efforts
The best way to motivate your employees is to recognize their efforts. You can hold a small appreciation gathering, write a heartfelt ‘Thank You’ note, announce their name in a meeting, or appreciate their achievements publicly. You can also publish their names on your internal communication platform and outline their efforts and achievements.
Public recognition will make your employees feel more appreciated, and they will be motivated to work harder. It’ll also encourage their peers to perform better.
Hold an Employee Recognition Event
The best way to publicly appreciate and celebrate your employees’ success is to hold an employee recognition event. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You can even arrange it in your conference room. Organize some food and drink. List down the top performers for the quarter and get personalized awards for them. You can arrange glass trophies for individual employees with their names and achievements written on the plaques. They can preserve it and look back on the memories years later.
If you have a large organization, you can hold this event yearly and recognize all the top performers together. It’ll significantly cut the costs of arranging the event.
Promote or Give a Bonus
In this common method, you can promote your employees to a better position to appreciate and recognize their success. If you can’t promote them, give them a monetary raise by evaluating their KPI. If this is also not something you want to do now, you can always give them a fixed amount as a one-time bonus for their achievement in a particular project or task.
This practice will motivate all your employees to perform better so that they can also earn it.
Increase their Benefits
You can increase the benefits to show your appreciation if you don’t want to promote or give any monetary bonuses to your employees right now. You can decide which benefits to modify or ask your employees about their preferences. Intrinsically motivated employees will appreciate this gesture and will be motivated to work harder. You can increase their holidays or arrange a vacation for them. Alternatively, you can enter them into a wellness program, increase their medical insurance, or even offer them flextime.
Give Performance-based Incentives
Performance-based incentives are a one-off token of appreciation. You can customize this based on the preferences, roles, and career goals of your employees. It can be an entry pass to a high-profile conference, extra days off, or even gift cards. It can also be a percentage of the profits for a particular quarter. These incentives target individual employees, so they come with guaranteed employee satisfaction.
Offer Stock Options
Offering stock options or profit sharing is another way to appreciate your employee’s hard work and efforts. It makes them feel valued in the organization and increases their job satisfaction. When the employees have shares in the company, they are more involved in generating revenue and work harder to bring success to the organization. Not to mention that this also instills a sense of belongingness in them and increases employee retention.
Give Projects to Lead
Although this falls in line with promotions, sometimes letting an employee lead an important project can boost their confidence and make them feel appreciated. The experience will help them grow professionally, add to their leadership skills, and will open doors to future opportunities. And, of course, this gesture will act as a motivator and will motivate your entire workforce.
Arrange Professional Development Opportunities
Top performers usually look for more ways to improve their skills to stay ahead in the game. If you want to show your appreciation, there is no better way than to arrange a professional development opportunity for them. It’ll also benefit your company in the long run. Arrange training programs, workshops, or conferences that align with your employee’s career. These will sharpen their skills and make them better professionals.
Arrange Mentorship Programs
Mentorship is a great way to allow your employees to sharpen their skills by pairing with an experienced professional. You can ask seniors of your company to work as mentors or hire an external professional to coach your employees. They share their experiences and teach your employees various industry tips and tricks. These increase their efficiency and make them better professionals. Thus, mentorship programs are a great way to show your appreciation for their hard work and achievement.
Organize Team Achievement Celebrations
The employees of your organization are more likely to bring success if they work together as a unit. And when they do, don’t forget to celebrate their success. Organize a day out with your team members or the whole office. Include fun games and team-building activities in the event, and try to arrange small gift hampers for the employees. You can also hold the employee recognition event during the celebration. The event will bring all your employees together while giving them time to unwind and celebrate their achievements.
Hiring great employees is only the beginning of managing a workforce. Your organization will lose more employees if they don’t feel appreciated. The above-mentioned strategies are easy to apply and implemented by most organizations nowadays. You can customize them based on your company culture and dynamics.
