Appreciating your staff makes sound business sense

Purpose – Advances the view that showing appreciation to employees makes sound business sense. Design/methodology/approach – Observes that many employee-recognition schemes currently fail to achieve their goal and explains how to rectify this. Findings – Explains that when employees do not feel appreciated, bad things happen in the organization, with higher rates of tardiness, more absenteeism, increased internal theft by employees and managers, higher staff turnover, more internal conflict and stress among team members, a drop in productivity and the quality of work and lower customer-satisfaction ratings. Practical implications – Describes how team members feel appreciated when appreciation is: communicated regularly; given in language and actions important to the recipient; delivered individually and about him or her personally; and viewed as being authentic. Social implications – Highlights how organizations can improve the performance of their employees. Originality/value – Concludes that the key is to communicate authentic appreciation in the ways that are meaningful to team members.