A Blast from the Past – Appreciation Isn’t a New Idea
While looking through my collection of books, I rediscovered a classic with surprising ties to appreciation! Read on to learn more.

While looking through my collection of books, I rediscovered a classic with surprising ties to appreciation! Read on to learn more.
A healthy, positive culture is foundational to a healthy organization. But many companies are learning that their employees are unhappy and disengaged. It isn't that managers haven't been trying, but what they're doing hasn't been working.
Many corporate leaders and managers are in denial about employee engagement trends, even as Gallup continues to publish research about engagement being at an all time low. Why is that and what can you do about it?
Help Us Answer an Ongoing Question about Appreciation To date, more than 425,000 people have taken the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory (MBAI) to discover their language of appreciation! Our goal in creating the MBAI has always been to provide relevant, practical and easily applied resources to help team members communicate appreciation effectively to one another. But over time, some relevant questions have come up. What if my supervisor changes? Or team roles and responsibilities have changed? Or if I work for a different organization? How stable are our desired ways of being shown appreciation over life stages and other changes... Continue reading...
Vibrant workplaces draw people to them – quality, talented employees want to work in a healthy place. But what is a vibrant workplace, how do you create one, and why are they more important than ever? Learn more in this week's blog.
Most of us don’t need new goals for the year. Really, we don’t. But we do need to continue to progress toward our current goals (and, hopefully reach some of them). We also need to make some adjustments from the feedback we are receiving from “real life.”
There are many factors to how holidays are handled in the workplace. Work schedules and demands, time off, decorations, and holiday parties all factor into how the season is incorporated into an office space and received by the employees who work there. We polled our readers to find out what they loved and hated about holidays in the workplace. We received nearly 3,000 responses! We explored both the good AND the bad because, while we attempt to focus on the positive and provide hope for improving workplaces, we are also committed to being reality-based. So, what did we learn? Clearly,... Continue reading...
Office holiday gift-giving can be difficult to navigate. We address some of these issues and give tips in this week's blog.
Last week we asked you to share about your Thanksgiving celebrations and experiences and over 200 of you responded! Our staff enjoyed reading about your traditions and dishes – from the familiar to the ‘new to us.’ There were lots of comments about the joys of spending time together, especially with relatives and friends that don’t live nearby, minor frustrations, and cherished traditions. ******* The Basics When asked how large your typical family (or friendly) gathering was, 12% of people expect 4 or fewer guests and 12% of people expect more than 20. The majority of people, around 76%, plan... Continue reading...
Tells us about your typical Thanksgiving holiday and share all the things you love, and hate about this pivotal fall holiday.
Overseeing large groups creates some unique circumstances and challenges in the workplace. Our latest blog offers tips about how to successfully integrate appreciation into your culture when you mange a large team.
Many organizations only want to use resources or processes that have been demonstrated to be effective as supported by research. In fact, “evidence-based resources” has become a catch phrase in many circles. And understandably so – leaders and administrators don’t want to invest time, money and energy implementing a course of action to improve their workplace culture based on slick advertising or unfounded claims. That is why we at Appreciation at Work have been committed to verifying the practical utility and success achieved by using our resources through ongoing research. Let me summarize the foundation we have built over the past decade: To... Continue reading...
There’s a difference between a bad job and one that is truly toxic. A toxic work environment can seriously affect your physical and mental health, even to the point of shortening your life.
Many people assume that appreciation is always communicated verbally. While using words is one way to show staff members that you value them, many employees prefer appreciation shown through the language of Quality Time. In fact, Quality Time is the preferred appreciation language for 26% of employees in the U.S. (or, one of every four of your colleagues). By Quality Time, we mean spending time with a colleague either by giving the person your focused attention, working collaboratively with them, or just hanging out and talking about non-work-related topics. You are showing that you value them by giving them your most... Continue reading...
Appreciation is a powerful intrinsic motivator without which few people can sustainably perform at top levels. Unfortunately, the concept often gets caught up in the long list of platitudes about employee motivation and confused with recognition.
Feeling awkward about communicating appreciation among team members is normal. When teams are first introduced to the 5 languages of appreciation and begin to implement the concepts, this “weirdness factor” is a common reaction.
At Appreciation at Work, we want to create thriving and healthy workplace cultures. But all the work we do comes from the foundation laid by our best-selling book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.
By nature, we all tend to speak our own language of appreciation. If Quality Time makes me feel appreciated, then I may go out of my way to stop by a teammate’s office and check in to see how they are doing. If Acts of Service make me feel appreciated, then I tend to pitch in and help my colleagues. If Words of Affirmation make me feel appreciated, then you can expect that I will give verbal praise to those with whom I work. But if I only do what comes naturally, the language of appreciation that is least valued... Continue reading...
How to Use Words of Appreciation Effectively While Words of Affirmation is the easiest language for most people to understand and use, it isn’t always deployed effectively. Supervisors and managers often use words to encourage their team members. Compliments, a simple thank you, praise in front of others – are all common examples of using words to send positive messages in the workplace. We have found that following a few simple tips can make the use of words more effective in showing appreciation and encouragement to colleagues (and help you avoid some common errors, as well). To be most effective... Continue reading...
In the world of workplace culture and HR professionals, there has been a lot of discussion about generational differences over the years (including my blog on recent research about Gen Z). The understanding of how others differ from us, especially in what is important to them, is valuable when trying to lead groups of employees. But sometimes, knowing how people are similar can be equally helpful. And current research is showing one significant similarity across generations: they do not feel positively about their workplaces. A survey of 1,000 employees across the U.S. found a pattern of results that are rather... Continue reading...
Sometimes (maybe lots of times) we don’t actually do what we intend to do – even when we know the action would be good for us and for those around us. Despite our good intentions, communicating appreciation to others often falls into to this pattern: Let’s agree that behavior change is difficult. (Otherwise, we would all be in good shape and have no bad habits!) This premise is true at work, as well. Our lack of good habits is not usually due a lack of intent or desire, but rather, not fully understanding the power of habits and utilizing the... Continue reading...
The new school year is starting and, being honest, a lot of people are not real excited about that prospect (even if we exclude those students who want summer to extend a bit longer). If you work in a school (preschool, K-12, public or private) or have a family member or friend who does, there is a high likelihood that some feelings of dread are present. Why am I predicting negative expectations? Because, currently, schools are one of the most difficult workplaces in our culture to be employed. Consider the following factors: Low prestige. In past decades, teachers and... Continue reading...
The language of appreciation that usually raises the most questions (and, for some, the most controversy) is appropriate physical touch; the love language in personal relationships that is difficult to translate into a workplace setting. When we first started investigating how to best apply the love languages to work-based relationships, we utilized all five of the languages, even though we knew it would be a challenge to translate the language of touch. We found that the number and variety of these actions are fairly limited (high fives, fist bumps, congratulatory handshakes, or a pat on the shoulder), but are no... Continue reading...
When comparing the various Languages of Appreciation, it’s easy to see that employees overwhelmingly don’t choose tangible rewards as the primary way they want to be shown appreciation. Only 6% of employees identify tangible gifts as their primary language of appreciation. They also choose tangible gifts as their least valued language almost 70% of the time. This is important to consider because most employee recognition programs emphasize giving gifts. While there is obviously nothing inherently wrong with this, companies end up wasting millions of dollars giving employees gifts that aren’t wanted and do little to improve performance and make them feel appreciated.... Continue reading...
When some leaders hear the suggestion that it is good to show appreciation to their employees they respond, “I don’t care how they feel about their work. I’m not a cheerleader and it’s not my responsibility to make them happy — I’m here to make sure things get done.” Others are less direct, but the message is similar – why should I care how my team members feel (about work or themselves)? APPRECIATION IMPACTS THE FINANCIAL STATUS OF AN ORGANIZATION While communicating appreciation to team members does increase positive feelings across the workforce, ultimately, running a business, professional practice or... Continue reading...
When I started speaking about the 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace, an interesting pattern developed. During breaks, people would frequently relay stories about how nasty their workplace was or what a jerk their boss was. This happened so frequently that I became curious and concerned enough to start researching toxic workplaces (which resulted in our book, Rising Above a Toxic Workplace, and our associated video series). I started keeping track of the types of workplaces that were most frequently referred to as toxic, and five categories rose to the top: colleges and universities, hospitals, government social service agencies,... Continue reading...
As I work with organizations across the country, the issue of understanding, leading, and working with employees from different generations continues to be one of the most common challenges leaders mention to me. As Baby Boomers retire and cycle out and Gen Z employees enter in, understanding the differences across generations in the workplace has become a huge focus for supervisors, managers, and HR professionals. Members of Gen Z’s are generally considered to be 25 years old or younger and are just now starting to impact the workforce. While they are still developing their adult identities and workplace values, some... Continue reading...
“Don’t tell me you care; show me.” This is a phrase often said by those whose preferred language of appreciation is Acts of Service. For them, actions will always speak louder than words and they feel appreciated when others reach out to help. More than 1 in 5 employees (22%) have Acts of Service as their primary language of appreciation (with another 15% having it as their secondary language). So over one-third of your coworkers value appreciation shown through practical actions that will help them do their work more effectively. How you help out a colleague really is situation specific.... Continue reading...
Holidays often serve as markers in our lives – markers of seasons (the middle of the summer), reminders of prior years (what we did for the 4th of July when we were growing up), and touchstones for reflection (what are we celebrating and why). I love the 4th of July holiday largely because we have a legacy of wonderful family get-togethers that are a lot of fun and which evoke a large number of fond memories for me. And our family celebrations involve several traditions that I enjoy: being outside playing games, shooting fireworks, barbecuing, swimming and boating, and watching... Continue reading...