Top employee appreciation and recognition quotes

Hiring and retaining the right employees is one of the most prominent challenges organizations face. The right employee appreciation and recognition programs can help improve workplace retention rates and employee experience.

Employee appreciation and recognition is the act of recognizing the right behavior and skills at the workplace and appreciating and endorsing it.

Psychologically, people want and expect appreciation. When you appreciate someone genuinely, you acknowledge their value, which makes them feel positive and happy. There are different ways organizations can plan their employee recognition programs to make the employees feel valued.

Unlike what some may assume, all these programs don’t have to make a dent in the organizational budget. There are many inexpensive and effortless ways to build a culture of appreciation and recognition that can make a tremendous difference in employee productivity and engagement.

These programs, when done right, have the below benefits.

• Improve employee retention rate – Recognizing valuable employees encourages them to stay with the organization longer.
• Encourage self-improvement and independence – With timely recognition, employees enjoy their work with minimal supervision and support. An employee who works independently is an asset to the organization.
• Improve employee experience – Employee experience is a holistic factor that affects productivity, engagement levels, and efficiency at the workplace. Rewards and recognition programs are significant to improve the overall employee experience.
• Boost employee morale – Employee morale reflects how satisfied the employee is, and employee morale affects employee behavior and attitude at the workplace. An employee who is recognized for the hard work done has a more positive outlook when it comes to working.
• Support a healthy work culture – How amazing would it be when employees support and back up one another, have great feedback culture, and are able to finish tasks as a team without internal grievances and issues. Employees who are recognized are less jealous and make fewer unfavorable comparisons with peers. All these, in total, improve workplace relationships and culture.

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Tips for employee appreciation and recognition

Now that the importance of employee appreciation and recognition programs is evident, you need to know how to get the strategy right. Here are some fantastic tips for creating recognition and appreciation programs that actually work.

Create specific employee appreciation days and events

You can have specific days and events where the worthy employees are recognized on a common platform. Do this periodically, so the employees know their efforts are being monitored and acknowledged.

Recognize your employees via bonuses and promotions

While there are a lot of non-monetary ways to recognize your employee, financial and positional benefits definitely are essential too. Create budgets for offering bonuses, raises, and promotions to employees who are worth it.

Invest in employee recognition tools

Employee recognition tools can streamline the appreciation process and help build intelligent platforms. Virtual recognition walls are great examples to consider investing in.

These give a common platform for managers and peers to recognize and appreciate other employees. If you want rewards and recognition programs to make a better impact, then you need to invest in such tools.

Encourage peer-to-peer recognition

Encourage your employees to endorse and appreciate one another. Again, peer recognition tools and platforms can help achieve this. When employees appreciate one another, the value addition is extremely high. This is a long-standing culture that can uplift the entire morale of the organization with time.

Encourage managers to appreciate and recognize on larger platforms openly

Appreciation and recognition matter more when they are done openly. You can start a culture of sending shout-outs to all employees, including recognition messages on company magazines and websites and celebrating work anniversaries as a group. All these helps improve employee morale.

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Employee Appreciation and Recognition Quotes

Almost all top leaders in various industries have spoken loudly about the importance of employee appreciation and recognition. Here are some quotes you should know of.

1. “Keep your eyes open and try to catch people in your company doing something right, then praise them for it.” – Tom Hopkins, legendary sales trainer and author.
2. “I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way will treat your customers and that people flourish when they are praised.” – Richard Branson, British entrepreneur, author, and investor.
3. “Employees who report receiving recognition and praise within the last seven days show increased productivity, get higher scores from customers, and have better safety records. They’re just more engaged at work.” – Tom Rath, American employee engagement consultant and author
4. “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward, American motivational author.
5. “It all came down to employee engagement. It all came down to recognition. It all came down to leadership, which led to every sailor feeling ownership and accountability for the results. You can ask a team to accomplish a mission, but you can’t order excellence.” – Mike Abrashoff, Co-Founder of Aegis Performance Group
6. “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” – Mother Theresa
7. “I kick off every monthly team meeting with ‘core value stories’ – team members stand up and recognize how another team member exemplified a core value.” – Jennifer Hyman, CEO of Rent the Runway
8. “Treat your employees like an investment and not a cost” – Dan Sullivan, American Senator
9. “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person- not just employees- are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees means satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.” – Anne M. Mulcahy, Former Chairperson and CEO of Xerox
10. “Everyone wants to be appreciated. So if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” – Mary Kay Ash, Founder Mary Kay Cosmetics
11. “Recognition is not a scarce resource. You can’t use it up or run out of it.
    –Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Human Resources Expert
12. People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards.” –Dale Carnegie, Leadership Training Guru
13. Brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated.”
    –Robert McNamara, Fmr. American Secretary of Defense
14. Everyone wants to be appreciated. So if you appreciate someone, don’t keep it a secret.” – Mary Kay Ash

Finally, you should also know this very popular quote by Stephen R. Covey in his book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.’ “Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”

Can anyone say anything about recognition and appreciation better than this?

Conclusion

Employee recognition programs are not optional anymore. If your organization has not been giving due importance to appreciation and recognition, it means you have been missing out on a critical growth factor.

Start by analyzing your current R&R strategy and conduct an internal survey to see how effective these have been. If you think you will need professional help in creating R&R tools, then PossibleWorks can help. We have tweaked and transformed top organizations’ rewards and recognition programs and bought out the best in their employees.

Contact us to know more about how we can help.

We all want to feel valued, inspired, and appreciated by the people around us. The only way to ensure this happens is through genuine appreciation and recognition. You can share with your employees these quotes to show them you care.