Categories for 5 Languages of Appreciation
A Guest Blog By Denise Boudreau Years ago, I was leading a long-term care organization in New Jersey when a massive snowstorm shut everything down. Roads were buried, buses were delayed, and yet my team still showed up. Some spent hours commuting just to be there for the residents and patients we served. I was so grateful that I decided to thank them in a meaningful way: by gifting everyone sweatshirts with our organization’s name. The sweatshirts arrived, and at first, I handed them out personally from my office, thanking each person face-to-face. But after a long day... Continue reading...
Even if you’ve never watched the ESPN 30 for 30 episode on the invention of Gatorade, you are surely aware of the ever-present sports drink. But you may not be aware of the back story or the huge impact sports drinks have had on athletic performance. The Gatorade Effect: From Exhaustion to Excellence You see, back in the day, coaches had a tough guy approach to physical training. They would drive their players hard, testing the limits of their physical and mental endurance – often to the point of exhaustion, and even, hospitalization. In the 1950s and ‘60s, many athletic... Continue reading...
Many workplaces launch employee appreciation programs with enthusiasm and good intent. But after a few months, questions begin to surface: Is it working? Are people actually feeling valued? Is this making a difference in retention or engagement? When done right, appreciation is a powerful driver of workplace health and performance. However, like any strategy, it needs evaluation. If you’re going to invest time and resources into showing appreciation, it only makes sense to measure team appreciation with intention. Let’s explore how to track impact, define success, and avoid common mistakes when evaluating your recognition efforts. Define What Success Looks Like... Continue reading...
September 29, 2025 9:31 am
Have you ever wondered how you developed the routines that get you through the day? Brushing your teeth, taking a shower, eating breakfast—these are all habits. If you’re a parent, you know the effort it takes to help children develop healthy, beneficial habits. We do it because we know that once an action becomes a habit, it becomes an automatic and effortless part of their lives. Habits are mental shortcuts. They allow us to perform repetitive tasks without draining the mental and emotional energy needed for conscious thought. As we grow, we build more complex habits to manage our lives... Continue reading...
September 15, 2025 9:47 am
For more than a decade, research with hundreds of thousands of employees has consistently found that giving tangible rewards to employees to show appreciation and increase employee engagement is a huge waste of money. Fact #1: In spite of companies and organizations, spending billions of dollars annually over the past decades ($16 billion in 2022 alone)1, Gallup reports employee engagement has actually decreased during the same time period to its lowest level in nine years.2 Fact #2: Research with hundreds of thousands of employees has repeatedly and consistently shown that receiving tangible gifts is the least desired way employees say... Continue reading...
September 8, 2025 9:16 am
A Special Guest Blog by Evan Wilson Organizational leaders probably never stop thinking about what additions or changes need to be implemented to enhance their strategic plan. When leaders enter a season of strategic planning, one important pillar should include creating, building or sustaining a strong organizational culture. This often drives focus to core values, mission and purpose statements. This has been a common cadence of boards and leadership teams for decades. Over the past 17 years while leading an organization of 350 employees, I came to believe organizational culture defines long-term success. While I certainly endorse organizations... Continue reading...
It is no news that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on everyone’s mind in the world of business. The number of AI programs and platforms has proliferated exponentially in the past two years. For some, AI represents the hope of their dreams for progress and (potentially) profitability. For others, AI is the Darth Vader to the world – the entity that wants to control, destroy freedom and individuality, and may lead to the subjugation of the human race. Is AI Really That Helpful? Is Artificial Intelligence really going to be that helpful in improving the experience of life for us? Let’s... Continue reading...
Have you ever tried to find a place—looked it up on Google Maps, driven there, and still couldn’t locate it, even though you were staring right at it? That happened to me recently while searching for a barbeque restaurant tucked into a converted shipping container next to a bank drive-through. I felt a little foolish once I finally saw it – it had been there all along. That’s how I feel about the rising levels of workplace loneliness and disconnectedness. The signs are clear. The underlying causes have been present for some time. And yet, many leaders still ask, “Where... Continue reading...
Teaching new information and skills to groups of people isn’t as easy as it looks. Why? Because each person brings a unique set of experiences, skills, and knowledge to the learning situation. And, importantly, workplace learning styles vary widely. You may have heard of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. But beyond those categories, there are deeper factors that influence how people absorb new information and implement it in the workplace. A Psychologist’s Perspective on How Adults Learn Best As a psychologist with over 30 years of experience in identifying learning differences across all ages, I’ve seen firsthand how people grasp... Continue reading...
Appreciation isn’t a luxury reserved for special occasions or high-level executives; it's a fundamental human need that transcends industries, roles, and titles. Whether in finance, education, healthcare, tech, non-profit or construction, the desire for meaningful recognition is universal.
Why emotional well-being at work starts with realistic expectations, ownership, and perspective—not forced positivity. In recent years, I’ve seen job titles like “Chief Happiness Officer” popping up across organizations. And to be honest? Each time I see one, I sigh a little, smile to myself, and think, “Good luck.” As a psychologist with over three decades of experience, I’ve worked with individuals across the emotional spectrum—anxiety, depression, burnout, frustration, and yes, even happiness. And here’s my professional take: Trying to “own” or manage someone else’s happiness is a losing battle. The Limits of Leadership When It Comes to Happiness Why?... Continue reading...
Even if you don’t work in education, it’s hard to miss the alarming trend: schools are struggling to retain teachers, educational assistants, administrators, and support staff. A recent report from the Walton Family Foundation and Gallup revealed that nearly one in five teachers either plan to leave the profession (5%) or are unsure if they’ll return next year (13%). What’s causing this widespread disengagement and turnover? The answers aren’t complex, but they are deeply rooted in the realities of today’s educational environment. The Harsh Realities Driving Educators Out Low Prestige and Cultural Devaluation Once admired figures in the community, educators... Continue reading...
Now that Memorial Day is upon us, summer—and the warmer weather it brings—is just around the corner. Naturally, this leads many of us to begin planning a summer vacation. And while it may feel like a luxury or indulgence, taking time off isn’t just about escape. In fact, research and experience alike show that a purposeful break can significantly impact your mental health, work-life balance, and long-term performance. But how often have you returned from vacation only to hear (or say), “I need a vacation from my vacation”? That feeling is real. Travel delays, lost baggage, illness, and jam-packed itineraries... Continue reading...
Employees and supervisors in the trades need to know that their work is seen, respected, and valued. Learn more about the practical tools we've developed specifically people working in the trades.
If you're looking for employee retention strategies or want to know how to improve employee engagement, it may be time to stop focusing exclusively on your top or lowest performers—and instead turn your attention to a group that's often overlooked: your average employees.
Younger employees approach work—and life—differently than many of their colleagues. What they value personally, their expectations for their career paths, and even how they want to be treated on a daily basis reflect a new generational perspective.
Showing appreciation to your boss can be tricky. But managers and supervisors need to be appreciated too. In this week's blog we offer some advice and suggestions for showing appreciation up the chain of command.
Conflict in the workplace happens, but not all conflicts look the same. Learn more about the causes of these workplace clashes in this week's blog.
While looking through my collection of books, I rediscovered a classic with surprising ties to appreciation! Read on to learn more.
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...
January 13, 2025 11:06 am
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.”
December 30, 2024 10:53 am
December 16, 2024 9:00 am
Office holiday gift-giving can be difficult to navigate. We address some of these issues and give tips in this week's blog.
December 2, 2024 10:08 am
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...
November 4, 2024 10:04 am
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.
September 30, 2024 9:54 am
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...
September 23, 2024 9:38 am
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...
