How engaged are your team on a daily basis?

Are they happy, productive and continuing to go the extra mile?

Or are you loosing good team members unexpectedly, receiving frequent complaints or just dealing with reluctant and unmotivated people?

Whatever your current situation – you’ll find this helpful.

Because whether or not your team are happy right now, there will always be times in life when staying engaged in what you do gets difficult – so here’s a really simple way to prevent this from happening to you and your team.

It all comes down to the art of showing appreciation – but not as you know it.

I call it an ‘art’ because that’s exactly what it is. There is an art to showing appreciation and it’s not as simple as giving a high-five or a bonus.

It’s about understanding the way THEY want to be appreciated, not the way in which YOU want to appreciate them.

Why is showing appreciation so important? The image below sums it up perfectly…

If you’ve worked extra hard on something and someone thanks you in a personal way and makes you feel really good about it – doesn’t that make you want to keep up the good work?

So if you’d like a high performing team – you need to show them appreciation regularly.

You could call it ‘speaking their love language’, but basically it’s getting to know how that person wants to be thanked for doing a good job.

Because everyone is a little different, right?

Some people prefer gifts, others kind words. Some people like it when you do something nice for them (a service, or a surprise), others hate surprises. Some people like to be acknowledged publicly, others would find it their worst nightmare and it would probably do more harm than good!

Either way you can see how important it is to get it to get it right when it comes to showing appreciation, or else there could be a lot of wasted money, time or effort spent on something that means little to someone else.

There are some companies that continue to buy gift vouchers as a thank you for their staff when they’ve done something extraordinary, and some of the staff love it – others think it’s not personal enough to mean anything.

I know a guy who once did a great job on a project and afterwards the company’s CEO spent 5 minutes sitting with him, thanking him for his hard work. He said that was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his entire career. Why? Because it meant something to him! He had spent years working for companies and never even seen the CEO – so for him, this was special and he would never forget it. For him, it meant a lot more than a monetary bonus ever would have.

But it’s not the same for everyone – hence why it’s important to get it right.

So how can you do that?

One of the easiest solutions is to just straight out ask the question – how do you want to be appreciated when you’ve done a good job? (Within reason obviously, we can’t all afford to be giving out pay-rises, but there are some practical alternatives you can use).

I know a company based in Melbourne who have done this, they’ve asked all of their staff this question and recorded it on their files for future reference and they’ve got one of the lowest turn-over rates and some of the most engaged staff I’ve ever met.

It’s not rocket-science, but it works.

And you can do it too – let people know what your love language is, how you like to be appreciated (and this can apply anywhere – at home, at work, with friends, all areas of your life) so that you feel appreciated, valued and overall happier as a result.

Keeping staff engaged and productive is one of the many skills our company training specializes in, so if you’d like to know more about this then send us a message, we would love to hear from you.

And make sure you check out our Instagram – @InspireAffect – for more insights.