Appreciation, be it any kind, holds the potential to work wonders. Human beings strive for appreciation. From a small baby to a fully grown-up adult, a simple sentence of praise can make the day for anyone.
The working class spends most of their time at their workplaces. One can say that after school or college, half of the life is spent at the workplace working to make ends meet, and the rest half is juggled with family responsibilities. A person hardly gets time for herself.
The modern workplace is so competitive that it is quite common for people to get lost in the day-to-day and not have the time to take a moment and appreciate each other. This lack of time is where the real problem starts.
In a workplace, appreciation is the key ingredient to achieving targeted productivity. Appreciation can be in the form of some incentive, or just a few words. It can be a post-it note or an email – either way, it greatly helps increase the productivity of a company.
There are many ways in which appreciation or recognition helps enhance team productivity.
In this article, we present some of them to you:
- Boost up Morales
A workplace is often a place of great stress for a person. Not only do they people have to spend half of their day there but also have to struggle and work hard to meet the day’s goals. Working overtime is also becoming a quite common characteristic of modern work life. All of this can cause great stress and a low emotional state. In such a situation, even a small gesture of acknowledgment for the employees from the boss can work as an energizing dose. It can boost the morale of the workers and hence positively impact the company’s productivity.
- Helps Gain Trust
There is bound to be a gap between an employee and the employer. Although nowadays there has been constant work on trying to lessen the gap, as it greatly elevates team productivity, it is quite vital to keep in mind that a company is nothing without its employees.
A company would achieve the greatest heights if its employees are happy and satisfied with the management. Recognizing the potential of the workers and acknowledging them can help lessen the gap between the boss and employees. It would make the workers trust their management, which in turn makes them want to work hard and do something productive for their company. If the employees trust their upper management to rightly appreciate their work, they will work harder to achieve the praise.
- Helps Maintain a Healthy Competition
It is not wrong to create a competitive environment in the workplace. Healthy competition is good for both mental health and interpersonal relationships among colleagues.
A team consists of members of different calibers. They can have different skills. Acknowledging a team member for their effort can create a sense of competition among the employees. Everyone would want to be appreciated. For that purpose, they would work hard to achieve the goal. This seemingly small thing can be very beneficial as it could help create the following urges in the employees:
- A need to enhance self-learning.
- To work more diligently.
- Enhance creative skills
- Increase Employees Engagement
Normally, people at a workplace follow the same routine. They will go to work as always, do their work, spend time in the company and go back home. Following the same routine over and over again makes the lives of people kind of dull.
But a small token of appreciation from the upper management can add spice to the seemingly dull routine.
If the employees know that they will be appreciated for their work, they will start getting more engaged in the work of the company. They will feel happy and start their day with the notion to achieve something. As long as they are acknowledged, they will be motivated to work harder.
- Helps Reduce Stress
A workplace can be a stressful place. An employer needs to be very cautious about the psychological needs of their employees. Most problems occur when employees do not feel valued. It makes the person feel dejected and they gradually start hating the place they work. This adds to the workload and it becomes a psychological problem of stress and anxiety.
A simple and small compliment can stop things from progressing far. A few sentences in acknowledgment of your worker can help reduce the stress and make them feel happy. Compliments help develop a sense of belonging in the employees. They feel like they belong to the company and that they matter. Consequently, they start owning their workplace as well and start making efforts to make the workplace better and more productive.
- Develop Motivation
People work to fulfill their needs. But that’s just it. Their progress is halted at some point and it becomes stagnant. They work, they earn and go home. That’s it. But a little bit of motivation can make them further their progress and can increase their professional growth. This motivation comes from acknowledgment and recognition.
- Sense of justice and fairness
When workers realize that their work is getting recognition, they develop a sense of fairness in them. If they believe that they are being treated fairly, they will be happy to serve their company. This will help motivate them and in turn increase the team’s productivity. But fairness comes when everyone is treated equally and appreciated equally. There are cases when the whole team deserves appreciation and the management must identify such situations.
- Sense of loyalty
A company can register higher growth if its employees are loyal to it. Loyalty is not something that can be bought. Instead, it is something that is earned. If the workers feel respected and treasured, then as a show of gratitude, they will be loyal to their company. This loyalty is what strengthens a workplace. The relationship between the employees and management becomes stronger.
- Helps develop a purpose
When the employees are appreciated for their work, they feel a sense of belonging to the company, which eventually leads to a purpose. To get complimented once again, and to make the bosses proud – these become the purpose for the employees. Such motivated employees start working on enhancing their professional growth. This sense of purpose makes them highly engaged with the company affairs. The positive, healthy competition among colleagues and the relation of respect and acknowledgment with the upper management become key drivers for the company’s success.
Conclusion
It should be kept in mind that only positive appreciation will achieve great results. Biased and baseless appreciation will create problems. That becomes flattery, and flattery in a workplace brings disasters only. Instead of creating healthy competition, it instills jealousy among colleagues. This sort of thing can only destroy a positive working environment.
Meaningful acknowledgment of the workers’ hard work, and showing gratitude to them for giving their all, means a lot from an employee’s perspective.
It not only helps reduce stress but also makes the workers feel happy and makes them work hard for their company, which helps them remain physically and mentally healthy.
A healthy workforce always leads to greater productivity.
