The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People

by Gary Chapman

This is true of employees across the board, from CEOs to housekeeping staff. Something deep within the human psyche cries out for appreciation. When that need is unmet, then job satisfaction will be diminished.

Why is feeling appreciated so important in a work setting? Because each of us wants to know that what we are doing matters. Without a sense of being valued by supervisors and colleagues, workers start to feel like a machine or a commodity. If no one notices a person’s commitment to doing the job well, that person’s motivation tends to wane over time. Steven Covey, author of the bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, feels so strongly about people’s need for appreciation that he states: “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.”1

One employee said of his organization, “We’re pretty good at showing recognition company-wide. But I don’t think we do a good job of it individually.” Trying a general “just say thanks” campaign across the company will not have much impact and can actually backfire, sparking cynicism among the ranks. While we all want to know that we are valued, we want it to be authentic, not contrived.

Here are some other differences between recognition and appreciation: Recognition is largely about behavior. “Catch them doing what you want and recognize it,” the books say. Appreciation, conversely, focuses on performance plus the employee’s value as a person. Recognition is about improving performance and focuses on what is good for the company. Appreciation emphasizes what is good for the company and good for the person (which may sometimes mean helping them find a position that is better for them than their current role).

Finally, there is a bit of good news for these business leaders. When leaders actively pursue communicating appreciation to their team members, the whole work culture improves. Ultimately, the managers report that they are enjoying their work more. All of us thrive in an atmosphere of appreciation.

This leads to the overall thesis of this book. We believe that people in the workplace need to feel appreciated in order for them to enjoy their job, do their best work, and continue working over the long haul.

“The single highest driver of engagement, according to a worldwide study conducted by Towers Watson, is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their wellbeing.”

MAKING IT PERSONAL

Reflect on the following: 1. On a scale of 0–10, how appreciated do you feel by your immediate supervisor? 2. On a scale of 0–10, how appreciated do you feel by each of your coworkers? 3. When you feel discouraged at work, what actions by others encourage you? 4. When you want to communicate appreciation to your colleagues, how do you typically do so? 5. How well do you believe you and your coworkers know how to express appreciation to one another?

While most owners want their staff to enjoy their work and have positive attitudes about the company, ultimately business leaders assess the benefits of any program or activity in terms of its impact on the financial health of the company.

So, a reality-based question that needs to be answered is: “What benefits will I (or my organization) gain from engaging in a process of consistently communicating appreciation to my staff?”

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE

Job security, the feeling or belief that one’s employment is safe, is critical to most workers today. No employer can guarantee the security of their employees. However, helping employees and staff feel wanted and appreciated can help ease their fears.

Belief: Most managers (89 percent) believe employees leave for more money, while only 11 percent of managers believe employees leave for other reasons. Fact: However, in reality, only 12 percent of employees reported leaving for more money,1 while 88 percent of employees state they leave for reasons other than money. In fact, the reasons most often cited by departing employees were more psychological in nature—including not feeling trusted or valued. When staff members feel their contributions are not appreciated and they don’t have a sense of being valued by their employer or supervisor, they look for employment elsewhere.

Interestingly, Gallup reports that almost 70 percent of the people in the United States say they receive no praise or recognition in the workplace.2

APPRECIATION ACROSS OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS

Obviously, the variety of occupations and industries that have been shown to be affected by the communication of appreciation in the workplace is vast. And the issue is not limited to North America—both multinational companies and businesses throughout Europe, Asia, South Africa, and Australia have all found that communication of appreciation in the workplace has a positive impact.3

JOB SATISFACTION: WHAT THE DATA REVEAL

In order to convince organizational leaders that consistent, individualized messages of appreciation to team members will help their organization become more successful, we need to start...

The Tremendous Cost of Employee Turnover

one of the greatest costs to an organization occurs when an employee leaves an organization and needs to be replaced.

“Labor turnover is one of the most significant causes of declining productivity and sagging morale in both the public and private sectors.”7

Other researchers have outlined “the visible cost” of staff turnover as including the cost of termination, advertising and recruitment of new employees, candidate travel, the cost associated with selection, hiring, ...

There are additional hidden costs and consequences of employee turnover—the vacancy until the job is filled, temporary loss of production, the erosion of morale and stability of those who remain, loss of efficiency, and the impact on customer relationships while the new hire becomes acclimated to their position.9

In summary, turnover among employees is one of the largest controllable costs an organization has. Some researchers report the cost to the US economy to be at least five trillion dollars a year.11

Job Satisfaction and Long-term Commitment

Interestingly, even in blue-collar occupations where the level of income has traditionally been viewed as the main incentive, research has demonstrated that job satisfaction was one of the key variables for the employees’ level of commitment to their job.12

Specifically, low job satisfaction is directly related to high job turnover.

But research has shown that even thinking about leaving one’s job has been shown to be closely related to an individual’s current level of job satisfaction.

Job Satisfaction, Employee Engagement, and Appreciation

“Effective … programs can spread positive energy across the organization and may lead to increased profit margins, customer retention, productivity and more.”13

Other Findings

Also, communicating appreciation within work-oriented relationships has been shown to improve the quality of relationships between workers and their supervisors, and also among coworkers. One of the interesting observations we have noted in our work with companies is that coworkers (often more than supervisors) highly value knowing how to effectively communicate encouragement and appreciation to their teammates.

Employee engagement has been shown to impact customer satisfaction.

Research has shown that when employees report higher levels of engagement with their job, it corresponds to a more positive customer service rating as well. And, as most business owners know, customer satisfaction is often the difference between success and failure for a business.

APPRECIATION LANGUAGE #1: Words of Affirmation

Words of Affirmation is the language that uses words to communicate a positive message to another person. When you speak this language, you are verbally affirming a positive characteristic about a person. As with all the languages of appreciation, there are many dialects. A dialect is a unique way to speak a particular language. Let’s look at some of the ways to communicate words of appreciation.

One way to express Words of Affirmation is to verbally praise the person for an achievement or accomplishment.

Effective verbal praise is specific. The more you can “catch” a staff person doing a task in the way you want and you call attention to that specific task or behavior, the more likely that behavior is going to occur again.

It is well documented that global praise does very little to encourage the recipient, and doesn’t increase the positive behaviors desired. Many people have reported to us that global comments actually can be demotivating. “I hate it when my boss says, ‘Good job, guys! Way to go! Keep it up!’” If praise is to be effective, it must be specific.

AFFIRMATION FOR CHARACTER

work—such traits as perseverance, courage, humility, self-discipline, compassion, forgiveness, honesty, integrity, patience, kindness, love, and unselfishness.

For some of us, it is easy to give words of praise for accomplishments but much more difficult to give words of affirmation that focus on the character of another individual. Character looks beyond performance and focuses on the inner nature of a person. Character is the cumulative result of repeated choices that have become part of the person’s makeup.

While character traits are not as easily observable as specific accomplishments, they are in the long run far more important to an organization. When we fail to focus on verbally affirming positive character traits, we are failing to recognize one of the company’s greatest assets—the character of its employees.

For some individuals, commending them for their kindness or honesty or tact means more than any other form of recognition. Start taking notice!

Another dialect of words of appreciation is words that focus on positive personality traits.

If you can’t remember the last time you affirmed one of your colleagues by words of affirmation that focused on their personality, let us encourage you to consciously look for their positive personality traits.

HOW AND WHERE TO AFFIRM

Understanding the preferred context in which you affirm someone is another part of learning to speak the language of Words of Affirmation fluently.

Personal, One-on-One