An excerpt from Lauren Parsons’ book ‘Thriving Leaders Thriving Teams’.

Gina started working as a waitress in a restaurant chain. As a young and inexperienced member of the team she lacked self-confidence, so she decided to work with a coach who encouraged her to focus on acknowledging her colleagues. She started making a point of thanking her workmates and writing them little notes, sharing what she appreciated about them.

About a year later, the company’s senior managers visited the restaurant. They were interested to discover why this outlet’s results were consistently so much better than others in the chain.

After investigation, all the indicators pointed to one young waitress – Gina. Her positivity and genuine regard for her fellow colleagues had a major impact on team morale. It created an uplifting atmosphere among the team, which flowed through to the ambience in the restaurant. Customers noticed and came back more often. They also brought their friends, which meant more bookings and higher takings for the restaurant.

The managers were thrilled and Gina ended up with a promotion and a healthy pay rise. The leadership started looking at how they could foster the same culture in their other outlets.

WHY RECOGNITION MATTERS

Psychology shows us people perform at their best when they feel valued, acknowledged, appreciated, and respected. Staff who receive regular appreciation are happier, more loyal, spend less time worrying and are quicker to clarify instructions when they need to. 

Praising your staff is like watering your trees. Providing coaching feedback is like fertilising them to improve growth. Both of these things work together. The watering (praise) allows the fertiliser (constructive feedback) to better soak in and be accepted, understood and absorbed.

It’s been suggested that for every time you provide criticism or corrective feedback, you should have three to seven prior instances of positive feedback to balance out the negative. Otherwise staff will more likely lose confidence, causing performance to decline even further.

The challenge is, most of us notice when things go wrong, more than when they go right. Customer complaints, broken equipment and missed deadlines tend to get our attention, whereas people doing their day-to-day tasks well sometimes get missed (even though those behaviours are fundamental to success). So, it’s vital leaders become highly skilled at looking for instances of good work and make it a habit to provide on-the-spot praise.

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR RECOGNITION

Regular praise motivates your team to go the extra mile. When recognition hits the mark, staff are 73% less likely to feel burned out, 56% less likely to be looking for other job opportunities and 44% more likely to be thriving in their life overall.

A US survey showed 40% of employees would put more energy into their work if they were recognised more often, and 82% of them don’t feel their supervisors adequately recognise their contribution.

That lack of recognition takes a terrible toll on morale, productivity, and ultimately, profitability. Insufficient appreciation lowers discretionary effort and is a major reason people quit. Employees who report they’re not adequately recognised at work are three times more likely to resign in the next year and eight times more likely to be actively disengaged, rowing the boat in the opposite direction of the organisation’s goals. 

What if there was a highly effective, low-cost way to improve work quality by 24%, lower absenteeism by 27% and reduce staff shrinkage by 10%? 

Simply double the number of times your leaders recognise staff!

Increasing recognition in your workplace is an incredibly cost-effective, high-impact way to lift performance, boost staff satisfaction, and prevent staff churn.

What steps will you take to improve the way you’re recognising your team?

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If you’d like to lift your leadership skills and discover how to create a thriving workplace culture, check out the Leading So People Thrive course and make a real difference as a leader.

Lauren Parsons is a multi-award-winning Wellbeing Specialist who helps leaders boost both staff wellbeing and productivity. With over 20 years’ experience in the health and wellbeing profession, she is a sought-after speaker, coach and consultant.

NZ Keynote Speaker of the Year & Educator of the Year 2023/24, TEDx speaker, author of real food less fuss, founder of the Snack on Exercise movement and host of the Thrive TV Show and certified Emotional Culture Deck practitioner.

Based in the Manawatu, she travels regularly and specialises in helping organisations create a high-energy, peak-performance team culture, where people thrive. Get your complimentary copy of Lauren’s ebook “5 Keys to a Positive, Energised, High-Performance Culture” here.