33 ideas to show employee appreciation and inspire satisfaction

Go the extra mile

Make your company environment safe and inclusive for all. Make sure your employees feel comfortable in expressing their concerns to you. Always be open to feedback. Work hard at building strong relationships by checking in regularly. Create a safe environment for employees to connect. Team building activities are a good way to get employees together. Lastly, provide support and understanding through offering solutions or just being available to listen.

Jonathan Bass, the Chief Executive Officer and Owner of Whom Home

Let them keep the products they review

In our various online businesses, we use a lot of freelancers through platforms like UpWork, TextBroker, and Freelancer, particularly for content creation. Sometimes these great people complete a lot of work for us over time and become full-time employees. 

We can show our appreciation by sending them the best products to review. As one example, they can photograph and write a review about a 10-gallon fish tank, and then they can keep it and use it themselves. Often they can also then come back and update the review with further thoughts on the product’s durability and long-term use. In our experience, they consider being able to keep awesome products as an exciting benefit and reward for good work.

Daniel Morris, Owner of PetNPat

In our various online businesses, we use a lot of freelancers through platforms like UpWork, TextBroker, and Freelancer, particularly for content creation. Sometimes these great people complete a lot of work for us over time and become full-time employees. 

We can show our appreciation by sending them the best products to review. As one example, they can photograph and write a review about a 10-gallon fish tank, and then they can keep it and use it themselves. Often they can also then come back and update the review with further thoughts on the product’s durability and long-term use. In our experience, they consider being able to keep awesome products as an exciting benefit and reward for good work.

Daniel Morris, Owner of PetNPat

Employee appreciation cards always work

Cousins Subs has a robust employee recognition strategy. In meetings with restaurant general managers, Alan Lundeen, Senior Director of Talent Management, calls on them to be recognition detectives. Then on Tuesdays, Lundeen brings in a stack of congratulations cards and each store manager is asked to take some back with them and give a card to someone they want to thank. Cousins Subs also hands out employee birthday cards as well as wow cards, given for high performance or going above and beyond.

Kathryn Kazan, PR Manager at Cousins Subs

Create a Gratitude Wall

Ask the team to fill out a quick survey, naming colleagues they are grateful for and writing a sentence on why. You can submit multiple responses. Just make sure everyone has a couple of gratitude cards each. Then have someone compiled these in a PowerPoint deck to showcase. If you are onsite, even better, print them out and put them up in a high traffic area like above the printer. 

It is important to appreciate your employees, but it also feels great to be the one giving thanks and bringing a smile to a colleague’s face.

Samantha Roberts, Talent Associate at Global Health Strategies (NYC Office)

Give them space to breathe

Giving employees a shout out, gift card, or free food/drinks is easy, but what employees really crave is flexibility. During the pandemic, employers have gone in the opposite direction by investing in employee monitoring software to spy on their remote teams. This is also known as the perfect recipe for distrust and dissatisfaction. 

Your employees will feel appreciated when they finally have breathing room to get their job done when it works best for them. Employees should be given the ability to work when they want and where they want, especially given virtual work platforms that can help teams stay connected regardless of time or location. Trust your employees enough to let them manage their own lives and schedules. You’ll be amazed at how appreciated they feel.

Peter Jackson, CEO of Bluescape

Praise their good work with notes

Employees want two things to be of value to their mission and to be heard. A manager’s job is to acknowledge these things. I find writing small notes that I leave for my staff recognizing their good work or their ideas can be helpful. But even better is when I stop by and have a conversation with them about the impact that they’re having or an idea that they brought to me and how I’d like to implement it. 

That type of engagement may not feel like traditional appreciation but helps motivate and tell the employee that you are engaged with them, which is a form of acknowledgement and appreciation.

Priya Jindal, Founder of Nextpat

Treat them family dinners

When celebrated alone, victories are no fun, which is why we find this appreciation token effective to relieve them from stress and allow them to bond with their loved ones even for a night. It’s these people who continue to support and push them, especially during their rough times. After all, they are their rock, and what makes someone love someone or something else more is when they learn to value and appreciate the people who are close to their hearts.

Willie Greer, Founder of The Product Analyst

Buy them food

Daniel Snow, CEO and Founder of The Snow Agency

The concept of employee appreciation has been around for a while, but the pandemic has put a spotlight on the ideas that businesses have chosen to execute.

One such idea has been mobile food delivery, including convenient options like meal kit delivery for one person. 

Our business has many young families who’ve needed to adapt to being teachers overnight on top of delivering a fully productive workday. One way we’ve enjoyed showing our appreciation to employees is by treating individuals or teams to mobile lunch deliveries to their homes. We’ve also opted to send fresh fruit and veg boxes.

Dane Amyot, Managing Director of bountiXP

Get to know them

William Schumacher, CEO and Founder of Uprising Food

Employees feel appreciated if you engage with them in some way. Know something about them, their kids, dogs, partner’s names. Hobbies, passions, and dreams if you can.

When your greatest asset, your employee, has done good work, look them in the eye and tell them. No email, text, or call is ever as valuable as a face to face acknowledgment.

Letting them know you value them enough to make the time for them, as well as knowing their dog has been unwell, leaves your employees feeling a million dollars. And, you feel good too.

Laura Horton, Founder of Hound101

Give them responsibility

Our number one way of making employees feel valued is not money, perks, time off or other extras. It is just giving people responsibility. Providing employees with as much responsibility as possible boosts engagement, helps them grow, and also speeds up the process of determining if they will be a good fit in the longer term. Obviously, you need to recognize their innate capacity and level of experience, but err on the side of providing more responsibility rather than less and you’ll be surprised with the results.

Rick Wallace, Founder of Tackle Village

From experience, I have found that the best way to make employees feel appreciated is to involve them in company decisions. It can be something as simple as choosing a new uniform or what brand of coffee to use in the office. When they feel they have a voice they feel appreciated.

Ahmed Mir, Founder of Sip Coffee House

Strategic employee appreciation

Step #1: Catch someone doing something good (effort also counts). Be specific in describing the behavior. For example: “Yesterday, when speaking with the customer, you really let him talk about what was important to him. That was incredible”.

Step #2: Name 3 specific reasons why this behavior is important. For example: “This makes a big difference because the customer really felt that you care about him, this will make him more connected to our company (1). Also, he will like us so much that he may recommend us to customers (2). And lastly, knowing that this is how you take care of our customers makes a huge difference for me personally, because I know I can fully trust you, and focus on other areas of the business (3)”.

Many people find it easy to come up with 2 reasons, but the 3rd one is the one that makes the real difference. It forces you to spend more time and energy on what the employee did well, and makes them feel truly appreciated.

Dr.Eyal Ronen, Co-Founder and Director of Sensemakers

Take them out for a lunch

If everyone is still working from home, have a quick meeting and explain the same points. However, you’ll have to send over a gift card to cover lunch. Or, if you’re still working in the same city, some creative people I know have sent over a delivery service so that they can still have lunch (virtually) with an employee. Really… how cool is that?

Alice Ray, Founder of Know Your Chickens

Celebrate your employee’s work anniversaries

It’s uncommon for companies to do this, mostly it’s just the employee who remembers. As such, celebrating work anniversaries (especially milestone ones) is a great way for the employer to show genuine appreciation for the work that the employee has put in.

It doesn’t have to be lavish as well. A simple cupcake or a team effort of appreciative notes is great, as long as the day is remembered and the employee is recognized as a valuable part of the group.

Anna Nielsen, Marketing Director at Our Good Living Formula

Offer them career growth opportunities

My best idea for employee appreciation is career growth opportunity offers. From experience, I think most driven employees prefer rewards in the form of additional knowledge. When you give employees new resources to expand their horizons, this will provide them with opportunities to take on projects even outside the scope of their usual duties.

Doing this has brought about positive and noticeable work results in my organization, employee interaction also got better thereby creating an improved workplace culture.

Employee appreciation at its best means giving employees a sense of purpose at work. At the end of the day, appreciation comes in many forms, and organizations shouldn’t expect perks or bonuses alone to convey the meaning. However, companies that strive to practice appreciation consistently will stand out.

Manny Hernandez,  Founder and CEO at OMNI, INC

Half-day KICK meetings

Encouraging public recognition is not only an important part of keeping team members motivated, but also boosts feelings of being emotionally and socially valued.

It’s very important for staff to feel visible, acknowledged and also confident of their place in the business. I’d recommend this approach to any business leader who wants to give their team a boost, while also improving communication and mental wellbeing.

Carlene Jackson, CEO of Cloud9 Insight

Personalized rewards

We all appreciate it when others take the time and effort to get to know us. When your company wants to show appreciation for a specific employee, engage team members to find out more about that person.

One of our employees was celebrating her 5th work anniversary. Our HR department talked to her colleagues and learned that she loves doing different art projects with her seven-year-old daughter. Our gift was a pottery class for the two of them. She was touched and later showed us pictures of mugs and bowls they created together.

Personalized recognition is an excellent way to make your employees feel truly valued and unique. This kind of appreciation has a tremendous impact on the motivation and loyalty of your staff.

Dorota Lysienia, Community Manager at LiveCareer

Apart from being a professional, each of your employees is a unique personality with passions, hobbies, interests, etc. The message is simple — to keep your employees growing professionally, make sure they are fulfilled as personalities.

For this, pay attention to employees’ preferences. As an example, you can customize your birthday/seasonal corporate presents. Your accountant is crazy about Italian cuisine? Present them a cooking class certificate!

Be ready to meet your employees halfway and they’ll exceed your expectations. For example, if your employee aspires to learn French but doesn’t manage to fit it into the work schedule, allow them to shift hours when they need it. Corporate parties and team buildings are important, but your attention to employees’ personalities is priceless.

Olena Herasymchuk, Content Manager at cloudprinter

Internal awards ceremony

It’s our way to show our employees that no matter their position and missions, we acknowledge them, support them and are proud of them. One’s success is everybody’s success as we work as a team. It’s important for us to shine a light on each and every one of our employees!

Sukhi Jutla, Co-Founder & COO at MarketOrders

Announce an employee of the demi-month

Bonus: The current winner gets to nominate the next one, thus making the process all the more grassroots and organic.

Peter Bryla, Community Manager a ResumeLab

Surprise them with unexpected presents

The way I show appreciation to my employees is not always by giving monetary incentives. I noticed they feel incredibly ecstatic when they receive unexpected presents. I know it feels great to think that someone put some effort into getting you a gift. I keep a list of what they like. I don’t announce when to distribute what I prepared – it just happens, like a big surprise on a regular day.

Steve Johnso, Owner of www.bootmoodfoot.com

One of my favorites is what I call “Suprise Appreciation.” Once or twice a month, I will pick someone who has done an exceptional job with some aspect of their work. I do this irregularly, so employees never know when it is coming. Then I task the rest of the staff to create positive notes for the recipient and decorate their desk or their tech truck while they are at lunch or leave for the day. I purchase a surprise like flowers, balloons, or a stack of their favorite candy, etc. 

It’s a small, relatively inexpensive way to show appreciation, but it always makes the individual feel good, and it builds team camaraderie and even usually feels great on those days.

Laura Fuentes, Operator of Infinity

Organize team days out

Another unique angle we take at Wicklewood to show how much we appreciate our team is our “Quilt Days”. Every team member gets a quilt day once a quarter when they can call in at the last minute and take the day off to relax at home with one of our cozy quilts from our latest range. It’s a small gesture but sometimes people just need a day off to recharge.

Rosie Axford, Co-Founder and Marketing Director of Wicklewood

Set up a reward system

We use a reward system in our company to show our appreciation for each accomplishment being made by our employees. In this system, each employee would be given points for each task that would be completed. The points differ depending on how big the task or the project is. Upon collecting these points, employees can use it to redeem rewards like free products from the company, gift certificates, a day off, a paid vacation trip, or paid leave.

Oliver Baker, Co-Founder of Intelivita

Every staff member may assert tasks of their preference and, upon completion, would collect the point values correlated with the tasks. For something ranging from an extended holiday and work-from – home days to company-paid continuing education, these points could be redeemed by team employees at a workplace bonus site. One thing is to value workers in a way that makes sense to you, but the gamification tool we used allowed individuals to be valued in a way that was most important to each worker.

David Meltzer, CEO of East Insurance Group

Due to the new WFH scheme being implemented, the company is saving quite a lot and we are planning to give back to our employees by giving a raise to those employees who deserve it. We plan to have it by conducting a performance assessment to each employee by the end of the year and those who would be selected would be compensated using the funds that are allotted for this plan.

Aaron, Founder of TestPrepGenie.com

Don’t forget the remote workers

Remote staff looked forward to the email from Snappy notifying them they could choose their gift. All employees received that same email for other milestones — project success, birthdays, anniversaries. 

I’ve talked to several employees who’ve moved on to other firms and they tell me that what they miss most was the Snappy gifts that made them feel like they were an important part of the team. In addition, those gifts — thermal coffee mugs, weighted blankets, essential oil diffusers — still remind them of good times at that firm. By the way, this firm earns five out of five stars on Glassdoors reviews, so it must be working.

Laura Handrick, Contributing HR Professional for Choosing Therapy

Shopping spree raffle

My favourite method for this was to set up a sort of ‘shopping spree raffle’ where staff could earn entries for completing their tasks to be entered into a draw. Each month a few people would win a ‘shopping spree’ and be given an amount of money to spend, then we would take them to the local mall and let them spend the money within a short time frame.

The rules were loose but they had to purchase 1 item for themselves, 1 small item for their team, and the rest was up to them. After it was done, we would take them back to the office to share their small item with their office and that way everyone felt like they received ‘something’.

Andrew Cunningham, Founder of DailyPest

Help them with their financial pinches

We came up with the ‘We Care Program’ as a way to show that we support and appreciate what they do for our business. We emailed all of our guys and said when they find themselves in a financial pinch to reach out to us and let us know what’s going on. It not only gives us an opportunity to coach them up and assist them but an opportunity to show them that we care.

Myles Daniel, Owner of Sell My House Fast

Virtual get-togethers for the best employees

What we’ve done at Offsyte ourselves includes sending a private virtual ramen and sake tasting class for the people we are really thankful for, with the ramen and sake kit delivered to them and their remote family before the live class. We’ve also helped many other companies plan such events, including Google, Apple, Dropbox, Netflix, etc. There are many virtual events with delivery on Offsyte that are perfect for this occasion, including blind wine tastings, mixology classes, boba tea workshops, and more.

Emma Guo, Co-Founder and CEO of Offsyte

Annual office party with posh giveaways

James Bullard, Founder of Sound Fro

Create a #you-are-awesome Slack channel

For example, recently our sales manager posted a note about a successful sale by one of our sales reps, and a marketing team member gave a shout out to an operations team member. The reason this channel is so effective for employee appreciation is that it is peer-to-peer, which means it tends to provide recognition and appreciation for the kinds of contributions that may not be on a managers radar. After the praise goes up, everyone else piles on with emojis to cheer the team member on.

Michael Alexis, CEO of TeamBuilding

Maintain a corporate greenhouse

That information would align to a corporate message of overall wellness, and programs reinforcing the importance of making good health choices. Employees would share in the harvest from the greenhouse, by getting a care basket with a card and recipe suggestions for its contents. The card would say ‘From our greenhouse to your table’. We care for our people, our environment, and our health!

Jenn Drakes, Founder of ICANNWORLD INC.

Give them cash to buy home office equipment

The Covid-19 lockdown happened and suddenly everyone in our performance marketing company had to work from home. This was a situation that no-one had really prepared for and raised all kinds of issues over suitable working spaces and equipment. 

Our staff gets a benefit to spending on travel and wellness, but we quickly changed that to allow them to spend the cash on home office equipment instead. So they used company funds for all manner of chairs and tables and laptop stands, to set themselves up for comfortable home working. 

We also sent them boxes of healthy snacks, fresh fruits from a local farm, and a tasty takeaway, just to keep their spirits up as the pandemic wore on, and to help the local food economy.

Mario Cacciottolo, Branding Manager at Blexr

A special appreciation letter to employee for outstanding performance

Send a letter of appreciation to the employee’s house, but don’t address it to them. Address it To the family of [NAME]. Detail the employee’s contributions. Describe the difference their work has made in your life, the lives of your clients, and the lives of their co-workers. Speak directly to the family, like this: “I’m sending this letter to tell you about the incredible work your Mom’s been doing and to thank you for sharing her with us….”

Be detailed and celebrate that employee. This gesture costs nothing and will feel truly special. Remember, effective appreciation is not about a gift, it’s about people feeling noticed and valued.

Joe Mull, M.Ed, CSP, Speaker, Author and Commitment Consultant

Appoint a Fun Ambassador at the office

There are actions you can start taking TODAY to encourage fun and employee appreciation in your workplace and create an open, creative, and collaborative environment.

One great way to implement more fun and appreciation is to appoint someone in the company (or on your team) as the official Fun Ambassador.

This person would be responsible for championing your “fun roadmap” or establishing a “fun culture blueprint” on an ongoing basis. This position should be someone who is positive, upbeat, and who others look up to.

If you want to implement things like monthly work parties, an employee recognition system, or a team-based hiring process, your Fun Ambassador would make all that happen in your company.

Rebecca Binnendyk, CFO (Chief Fun Officer) and Founder of Fun Outta Life Mentoring & Coaching

Set a table with essentials

The table has Advils for when they get headaches, Kit Kat bars if they need a break, printed Starbucks barcodes for free coffee, a calendar to schedule a day where they can bring their pets to the office, and earplugs for when they need some do not disturb time. This is my simple way of showing that I listen to their needs and their hard work is always appreciated.

Valentina Lopez, Co-Founder of Happiness Without

Gift them time

We do gift bonuses or gifts, but sometimes just gifting Time to someone matters more than anything else! That time was well spent with friends and family. He was very happy.

Adam Rowles, CEO at Inbound Marketing Agency

Conclusion

Managers need to stay on track with each employees’ development. It is up to the manager to challenge each employee with a steady pace of growth that is pushing them to learn but not at the speed of being overwhelmed.

Besides, executives need to make sure there is a visible opportunity to grow within the company. An employee should always have a viable position to be striving towards. It will motivate them to work harder as well as provide a visible success path within the company. 

Lastly, integrating core values into the company culture that support the team members and place value on their best interest as well as encouraging open communication and feedback.