What’s the best way to appreciate your employees?

The first Friday in March is Employee Appreciation Day. As I post this, that makes it today. What is the most valuable way to show your employees how much you appreciate them?

Key takeaways

1. Only 23% employees globally and across sectors are engaged in their employer’s success. Your business is successful despite 77% employee disengagement. This should make you think:

a. My employees are truly amazing, to deliver growth against these odds!!

b. We could grow even more if I could increase my employee engagement.

c. More engaged employees will help safeguard our future success.

2. Employees globally say that they want to feel connected to your business by a sense of belonging and purpose. This does not align with what talent-specialized managers believe employees most want: more transactional value. So please avoid a transactional signal of appreciation like a book token or free lunch on Employee Appreciation Day.

3. Re-engage your employees by enabling them to connect to your business’ success and use their particular brand of brilliance to contribute the most value that they can. Making a sincere commitment to work out how to evolve your organization into one that 100% employees love working at, and to implement the program as a priority, is the most meaningful way to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day.

— — — — — — —

If a quick search of the many online lists of sure-fire ways to recognize your employees is anything to go by, you might be planning to give out small gifts or write an annual thank you message. Unfortunately, there is a good chance that a transactional signal like this will backfire, with your employees understanding that how much you appreciate them is… not very much at all. I am suggesting that you avoid these transactional signals because they don’t show a good understanding of what would truly make your employees feel valued.

The lists go on to suggest appreciation by building team connections, such as by providing a free lunch, or arranging a team gathering. The trouble with this kind of activity is that it’s very difficult to make them fully inclusive: diverse likes and dislikes mean you’ll never find something that everyone truly enjoys; some employees will need to adjust caring options for children or family members if your plans ask for participation outside their normal working hours; and for some neurodivergent colleagues, the stress of navigating unspoken social expectations and conventions will make your event feel like an ordeal, and demand a long recovery time. Some of your smiling team members will not so much be connecting but grimacing inside and wondering how quickly they can get away.

There is a more meaningful way to show your appreciation to your employees. That is to enable each one of them to do what they want to do: use their particular brand of brilliance to contribute the most value that they can to your business’ success. I am sorry to say that you would be a notable exception if each of your employees is truly already doing this!

Imagine an organization of 1,000 employees that you lead; locate it anywhere, in any industry — have fun, this is fantasy! You’re a successful leader, and whichever metric you’re using to measure your business performance, the line is going up. Feels good, right?

What is not make-believe, though, is that a mere 230 of your employees are engaged in your business’ success. According to Gallup’s global and cross-sector report published last year, this is the highest they’ve seen the metric since they started to publish the report in 2009, but I’m going to suggest that 23% employee engagement is not really anything to celebrate.

Perhaps you’re now thinking that I must be wrong, because your business success metric of choice is going up, so 23% engagement is probably OK. Let me bring you back to reality once again. Of the 770 other disengaged employees you’re paying for each month, you’re only aware of the 180 who are making their dissatisfaction quite obvious by actively undermining your success. If each actively disengaged employee only cancelled out the contributions of one engaged employee, you’d be left with 50 engaged people, but we have all experienced that the impacts of one toxic employee go far beyond one other person.

Your other 590 disengaged employees are accepting their salaries in return for putting in minimum effort. They have quietly disengaged from caring whether your business is a success or not. They’re not actively undermining you, but neither are they contributing as much as they could and would want to if a couple of things would change.

Your business success metric of choice is going up despite extensive disengagement — 77% on average globally — amongst your employees. That is probably triggering a few thoughts:

1. My employees are truly amazing, to be delivering growth against these odds!!

2. What would our growth look like if I could increase my employee engagement?

3. Would our future success be more assured, against the backdrop of whatever is going to happen, if my employees were more engaged?

Answers:

1. Yes, your employees are amazing!

2. Your growth would be bigger if they were more engaged.

3. Yes, you would also be more resilient if they were more engaged.

How do we turn this situation around? Luckily, we can be guided by the employees themselves. A report in McKinsey Quarterly looked at the reasons that employees gave for their disengagement, and compared these with the perceptions of managers who specialized in talent. The report reveals both a significant mismatch, as well as salvation.

The managers thought that their employees wanted improvements in compensation, whether in their current salary or by finding another job, or were struggling with their physical or mental health, but these weren’t the most important factors for employees. More than half of employees said that they didn’t feel valued and didn’t feel a sense of belonging. That’s why appreciating your employees with transactional tokens or team gatherings might not be the best way to make them feel valued.

Salvation is, however, at hand: both employers and employees cited the importance of work-life balance and feeling engaged at work. Great, your employees want to feel engaged and connected — but what does that actually mean? What can you do?

I suggest that the most reliable route to your continued success is to focus on two dimensions of performance: business performance, and people performance. You’re already a successful business leader, and the McKinsey report reveals that you can improve your leadership of people by offering a business culture to which every employee feels connected through a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose, as well as having a fair salary and professional development opportunities. That is not only my opinion, but also backed by industry research, such as this report.

I think that the best way to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day is to make a sincere commitment to work out how to evolve your organization into one that 100% employees love working at, and then make it happen. It would be a bold and respectful signal to start by listening to what your actively disengaged employees are trying to share, even if it might be too late to win them back. Develop a program to understand and protect what you are doing well, and to acknowledge and improve on your weaker points, so that you will (re-)engage your people-shaped packages of passion, skill and experience. Put dedicated leadership in place to implement the program and embed it in your business culture.

The benefits are there for the taking if you make this a priority. It’s not easy, it’s not quick, but it is worthwhile and will pay for itself many times over. The most meaningful way to mark Employee Appreciation Day that I can think of is to engage and empower your employees to collectively shape your business culture and success.