It takes hard work and focus to improve at something you’re struggling with. When you’re trying to turn around an underperformer, or just coach up someone’s weakness, praise can make all the difference. To keep them motivated and not looking for work and approval elsewhere, you need to recognize them.īut what about those that may be struggling? Praise can help them, too. So far, we’ve focused on your best performers. If they know you’re paying attention, they’re more likely to keep putting in the effort you want to see.Ĥ) Pick something to change and praise any demonstration of that change They do a great job of highlighting the most important points.”Īs with all workplace praise, the more specific you can be with them, the better i t will be received. “Samantha, I like the visuals you chose in your presentation. Find things you like and praise them for it. If you’re looking for ways to improve your praise to criticism ratio, take 5 minutes and dig into recent work by one of your team members.
The average ratio for the highest-performing teams was 5.6… The medium-performance teams averaged 1.9… But the average for the low-performing teams, at 0.36 to 1, was almost three negative comments for every positive one.”
“The factor that made the greatest difference between the most and least successful teams was the ratio of positive comments to negative comments… In research published in the American Behavioral Scientist, researchers Heaphy and Losada, found: Unfortunately, if you only focus on what’s wrong, you can discourage your team. It’s easy to catch a problem in someone’s project: a bug, a typo, a grammatical error. You may be surprised how far a little appreciation, and perhaps a thoughtful gift, can go to continue to fuel and motivate your unsung heroes. If you imagine everything would fall apart, or not sure what you’d do without someone, make sure you tell them thanks from time to time. I want you to know that I notice and appreciate your efforts.” No matter how rude they are, or challenging the issue, you always leave them better off than when they started. “Jamie, it goes unsaid too much, but we really appreciate how you are consistently so warm, and helpful to our customers. If they’re excelling at their job, tell them. Make sure every role performed at a level of excellence is treated as a respected profession.”Įven the most junior person on your team, the lowest paid, or the ones that do the most repetitive work, deserve and will appreciate, praise. In Gallup’s, First, Break All the Rules, they share some really interesting findings on what it really takes to be an effective manager.Īs Gallup found, the best way to have high performance at all levels of your org is to, “Create heroes in every role. Yet, once you hire them, it’s often exactly the people exemplifying them most that you take for granted. “Reliable”, “consistent”, and “trustworthy” are the kinds of characteristics most managers would look for in a potential hire. The same study also found that managers who make it a habit of recognizing their employees saw “increases in engagement by almost 60%”: More than 40% of those respondents who cited not feeling appreciated said they didn’t fully trust their managers and believed their managers didn’t trust them. The same study found that more consistent workplace praise also helps employees achieve better results, with 66% of respondents citing “appreciation” as a significant motivator of performance.Ĭonsultancy firm Towers Watson also found in their Global Recognition Study that praise and appreciation are two of the most important factors in building trust. They found that managers who consistently praise their employees have a lower turnover rate and “79 percent of employees who quit their jobs cited a lack of appreciation as a key reason for leaving.”
Management experts Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton’s The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance revealed data from a 10-year study of more than 200,000 employees. Several other benefits have been reported by recent large-scale research. “ “In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work” is responsible for a 10% to 20% difference in revenue and productivity.Įmployees who report that they’re not adequately recognized at work are three times more likely to say they’ll quit in the next year.” The benefits of praiseĬorrelations to revenue and productivity increases aren’t the only benefits of regular praise in the workplace. Gallup found that giving praise has a profound impact on a company’s bottom line and its retention: The power of praise in the workplace is more than anecdotal.