Show your appreciation for appreciation
The cost of praising someone is nil-but a recent study has found that the payoff can be huge.
When employees want to be praised, it means they care to be seen as competent, hardworking members of the team. Good managers want satisfied, motivated, and productive staff members. A Personnel Today survey of 350 HR professionals has found that the greatest factor in workplace productivity is a positive environment in which employees feel appreciated. The survey reports that two-thirds of the respondents said they felt a lot more productive when they received recognition for their work, while the remainder said they felt a little more productive.
Just feeling productive can be motivating in itself. When workers don’t feel productive, frustration sets in, according to 84 percent of the survey respondents, and 20 percent said they felt angry or depressed when they weren’t able to work as hard as they could.
Here are three tips on providing praise effectively:
- Be sincere. Give praise only where it is due.
- Give public praise. Your goal is to encourage the employee to keep up the good work, while simultaneously encouraging others to put out greater effort. Praising in public is a good way to raise general morale.
- Be specific in your praise. Name exactly what it is the employee has worked on and what he or she has accomplished. Don’t just say, “Well done, John.” Remember that if the employee feels the praise isn’t genuine, it could have a negative effect.