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Chetan found himself extremely demotivated at work. He felt like he wasn’t being appreciated for his effort. As he wasn’t vocal about his feelings, his coworkers would often take credit for his work. Chetan usually completed his work on time, without any fuss. But when this happened several times, he felt discouraged and his job satisfaction considerably decreased.
Many times, even when you’re doing great work, you may not feel like it’s receiving the attention it deserves. You may come up with creative solutions for pressing problems or participate in meetings by sharing great ideas. But when all your effort is overlooked by your team or others in the organization, it can seem like a waste of time.
The importance of appreciation at work can’t be stressed enough. It’s not about validation for the hours you’re putting in. Instead it’s a recognition for your effort, dedication and interest in your role.
Let’s decode the meaning of appreciation at work and how it can improve productivity, leading to a positive and healthy work environment.
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What Does Appreciation Mean?
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What Is Appreciation In The Workplace?
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Establishing Trust In The Workplace
What Does Appreciation Mean?
Appreciation is the act of recognizing a person’s actions, skills and abilities. It means to give credit where it’s due. In the workplace, among a crowd of employees, teams and departments, individual contributors may often get overlooked. But it’s important to make everyone feel like they’re a valuable member of the organization.
For instance, if you’re an individual contributor, you’ll likely find it motivating when your efforts are recognized. If your contributions are appreciated, it adds value to your work as well. Say you came up with an idea to maximize customer relationships. Upon implementation, it generates a lot of business for the organization. This is a direct win for you as an employee. You’ll be motivated to continue this good work if you’re recognized for your idea. But if in this same situation your seniors or coworkers take all the credit, or if no one’s actively appreciated, it’ll just seem dull and meaningless.
This isn’t to say that your efforts are wasted if you don’t get a thank you note from senior leadership. But when someone else gets the credit or if you’re not given the right opportunities even after delivering excellent work, you may feel like you don’t belong. This can even compel you to quit your job. Appreciation for employees is important for reduced turnover rates.
What Is Appreciation In The Workplace?
Appreciation in the workplace can be a simple thank you or an incentive for achievement. Unlocking appreciation at work requires a dedicated effort to invest in employee development. If you, as an employee, trust your organization to value your work, your organization needs to trust you to deliver.
Here’s how organizations can invest in appreciation for employees:
1. Giving Credit To The Right Person
If you’ve worked on a project and your teammate is recognized for it, you’d probably not like that. Senior leaders and managers need the right processes in place to make sure everyone’s recognized for their share of the work. This can be streamlined by setting individual and team goals, assigning tasks based on skills and abilities and establishing a feedback cycle to stay on top of things.
2. Being Mindful Of Individual Efforts
Sometimes what you do as an individual may be overshadowed by what you do as a team. Each task that gets rolled out is a result of collaborative effort. But each member of the team contributes their skill in some capacity. A win for the sales team, for instance, is automatically a win for everyone on the sales team. But there are specific instances when you need to be appreciated for a winning idea. Maybe your team was facing a backlog of work and you came up with a way to solve that. A positive word from your manager can be enough to turn your day around.
3. Employee Development
Employee learning and development is multifaceted. It includes giving constructive feedback, listening to and acting on employee needs and offering growth opportunities with training efforts. If you want to grow in your role, you should have the opportunity to do so while you’re on the job. These efforts toward employee well-being reflect an organization’s appreciation for employees.
Appreciation for employees might be email acknowledgment, incentives or a kind word. It leads to positive results. Employees experience increased job satisfaction, above all else. Trust-rich workplaces are far more likely to retain employees than others.
Establishing Trust In The Workplace
Appreciation at work and trust go hand in hand. When there’s trust between managers and employees, appreciation is a direct outcome. Harappa’s Establishing Trust course will teach you everything you need to know about building trust. Learn how credibility and reliability factor into trust-based relationships. Improve your world of work as our expert faculty guides you on your professional journey!
Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics such as Employee Rewards And Recognition, Features Of Motivation, Employee Engagement Strategies and Boost Employee Morale to build strong professional networks.
