Judy Pesek

Imagine a football game in which the entire crowd was silent, save for some frowns after a fumble. Awkward, right?

Yet, this is the type of feedback some supervisors give their employees. Silence when they do well and “recognition” only when something goes wrong. I have learned that simple ways to show your employees appreciation can go a long way.

A couple of months ago, Christine Porath came to our office for a dialogue about helping employees thrive. One way to do this, she mentioned, was to offer performance feedback. She told us that employees are happier with a lot of little rewards (like thank you’s) versus occasional big awards (like annual bonuses).

Our firm has always encouraged us, as leaders, to do everything we can to keep our biggest asset—our people. That’s why we have occasional paper airplane contests, jeans Mondays, (as well as jeans Fridays), Kudos Awards, and Friday Happy Hours, and we always try to extend the ever-classic, genuine, “thank you.”

Like a study from Towers Watson finds, “Frequent recognition is like applause; it rewards the accomplishment in real time.”

So applaud your employees’ accomplishments today. Fill that theoretical football stadium with the appreciation that motivates its team to keep playing.

Black butcher paper and chalk currently decorate Gensler's break rooms, with “encouragement to encourage” fellow employees.