By: Jacob Maslow

Regarding employees and clients as workers, individuals, and real assets of an organization is vital to a business’s success. This is because doing that helps boost productivity, office morale, and retention rate of employees. Meanwhile, those are the three central tenets of a pleased and engaged workforce.

Moreover, this is not one thing that should be carried out only on Employee Appreciation Day. Rather, appreciating your employees and clients is expected to be a frequent matter, woven into the fabric of your establishment’s culture, irrespective of the number of employees and clients you have. Appreciation undoubtedly shows how much you value their contributions and hard work.

Nevertheless, incorporating company-wide recognition into your approach and employee-first initiatives requires certain steps. Let us look into the client and employee appreciation methods you can employ to achieve a fun working environment and reward your employees for propelling your organization forward.

Ways to Show Appreciation for Employees and Clients

Sending a Thank You Note

When you cannot express your appreciation to your clients and employees immediately or when the magnitude of the accomplishment requires more than mere “congratulations”, you can always put your gratitude into writing.

You can take the time to write a personal thank-you note or even an email that expresses your true appreciation, including the recognition of their trust, hard work, and even the acknowledgment of their professional growth.

This method of appreciation for employees and clients shows that you are intentional about their recognition and appreciation, whether it is for volunteering, working overtime, or being a team player. Additionally, the written note is one thing they can always keep as a reminder of what they have achieved.

However, you should ensure the note of appreciation is properly written and sincere. For instance, endeavor to be precise about the effort or accomplishment you appreciate them for. You should also state the impact it had on you as a person or the company as a whole.

Providing Corporate Gifts

While a meaningful gift goes a long way, the exact benefits are based on who your company is gifting. For instance, for employees, receiving a thoughtful and valuable gift can drive job satisfaction, enhance morale, and boost motivation and productivity. Corporate gifts convey the message that your employees are valued and that their contributions matter. It means you recognize their hard work, and you are grateful for it.

Also, for partners and clients, corporate gifting helps to nurture long-term relationships. When you give a well-thought-of gift, you prove that you are observant and caring enough to know the needs and preferences of your clients.

Apart from the personal benefits, corporate gifting also has practical business benefits. It includes the encouragement of higher retention rates among employees, improvement of brand perception among clients, revenue increment, new collaborations, as well as driving referrals.

Meanwhile, while thinking of corporate gifting, it is essential that you also bear in mind that you are gifting without the expectation of receiving anything in return. Fix your heart into selecting the ideal present, and allow the journey to take you to where it will.

Recognizing Personal Achievements 

The best appreciation schemes are more than merely rewarding employees and clients for attaining milestones. They focus on encouraging occasional appreciation for personal achievements and for employees, both on and off the job. These may include finishing a task, hitting a quota, attaining a goal, productive collaboration, and learning a new skill, among others.

Meanwhile, to identify the achievements that mean the most to the members of your team, you should think about your business and what your employees and clients strive for. Afterward, you should integrate an appreciation for daily tasks and outstanding achievements that push results.

Additionally, you can integrate recognition for personal achievements beyond the walls of the workplace, such as health and wellness goals, in order to show that you hold your employees and clients in high esteem as individuals, not just for their performance at work and their contribution to the growth of your business.

Public Appreciation 

While you should recognize and appreciate clients and employees in private settings, public recognition of employees and clients’ achievements calls out the characteristics that other team members and even clients can emulate and develop a collective spirit of optimism and success. To go about this, there are several ways to carry out public recognition.

Today, a lot of organizations have a newsfeed that gets updated in real-time and shared company-wide. Publicly acknowledging an employee on a company-wide newsfeed has a great impact and offers a special spotlight. This means managers, colleagues, and teammates will be able to see the employee or client’s contribution and also participate in its recognition.

In another way, you can show appreciation by stating achievements in meetings, thereby coming up with a wall of fame, sending out email announcements, as well as posting on the organization’s website. With the help of technology in this period, there is no shortage of ways to publicly acknowledge and appreciate success.

Birthday Celebration

Celebrating an employee’s birthday is an easy way of recognizing them as an individual and also to nurture their sense of belonging. You can consider sending a digital or physical birthday card among the employees and clients so everyone can include their wishes. If you can gather in-office together, you can also give them a unique treat or gift card for a coffee or shopping.

Meanwhile, if you have a larger team, you can consider doing a once-a-month cake ceremony to celebrate all employee and client birthdays for that month. In another way, you can choose to bake a cake for each employee on their birthday.

Appreciation for Clients and Employees

As has already been stated earlier, staff and client appreciation can positively impact your company culture and greatly boost productivity. This means you need to critically tailor your appreciation efforts such that they will be meaningful to both your employees and clients.

You can consider integrating a variety of tactics to show appreciation and recognize both your employees and clients in different ways.

Published by Mark V.