How Important is Appreciation as a Part of Employee Feedback?

One client, Amos, managed a group of 14 people who took the Group Workplace Assessment – with a surprising set of results. Amos had convinced me that he had “great relationships” with his staff, but those results said otherwise. Among the “Top Ten” issues identified by his staff were these 3 responses:

1. There isn’t any follow-through on people who don’t keep their agreements or do complete work.
2. People are seldom recognized or thanked for what they do, even when they go the extra mile to accomplish something.
3. Some people expect someone else to motivate them or tell them what to do, which slows things down and makes it harder to get work done.

What did those responses have in common? They all point to a lack of useful feedback – specifically, to appreciating their work.

For #1, when people don’t get feedback on their work – whether to approve their results or point out a problem – they may lose confidence and start second-guessing themselves. This can begin a process of erosion in work timeliness, accuracy, or creativity. Or all three.

In #2, an expression of appreciation for the work they do is missing, meaning people are likely to lose energy and a sense of providing value to others, or to the organization. Work becomes ho-hum, and if my work doesn’t matter, it loses its purpose.

And #3 underscores the cost of too little attention and appreciation: work slows down, staff loses interest in doing a good job, and others around them will soon be infected by this “sleeping sickness”. Keeping workers energized and alert is a function of attention and appreciation.

Amos was so proud of his staff that he did not see a need to provide positive feedback. “They just keep the pace around here”, he bragged. “They don’t need to be micro-managed.” He was mad at himself for not seeing his lack of attention.

A CEO who writes 9,200 employee birthday cards a year shows, in this article, that he knows the power of positive feedback – a thank-you and special recognition from a boss will make a big difference in people’s relationship to their work. His people know they matter, and that they are making a difference on the job.

This is the power of what we call “Closure Conversations”. These conversations have 4 ingredients – the Four A’s – though not all are necessary to use in every Closure Conversation.

• The first is Acknowledgment, stating what has happened. “Your work results are good, and you missed one thing over here. But you got the other six done completely.”
• The second is Appreciation. “Thanks for doing it this way, because it makes our next Board meeting easier for the members and will help them to finish their year-end report.”
• The third is Apology. “I see that I didn’t make clear the way to structure this middle section. I had expected to see it summarized as a list, not as paragraphs, so I hope you don’t mind doing a bit of cleanup. I think it will be clearer to see the big picture if you do it that way. Sorry for my lack of clarity.”
• The fourth is to Amend the understanding of the job, which updates the work agreement as needed. “I know it will take extra time to reformat this, so let’s extend the deadline to Tuesday before our team meeting. That will leave enough time for us all, in case team members need to edit anything further before Friday.”

In a sense, all four of those items are “positive feedback”. Each one tells you that someone is paying attention to your work in a constructive way. And you know what to do with each of those A’s: recognize what others see in your work, enjoy the appreciation, accept the apology graciously, and interact with the coaching given by making amendments.

The 9,200 birthday cards is over-the-top Appreciation, although I’m sure it pays off for that CEO in people’s willingness to invest themselves. But in the case of Amos, he will be learning to use all four of the Closure Conversation elements. He says he wants effective workers on his staff, so it’s time for him to start practicing all “Four A’s”. I suggest starting with Appreciation.

NOTE: If you want to get your group’s feedback on what they see as their “workplace issues”, the Group Assessment survey will add up their responses to 56 questions while maintaining the individual privacy of people’s responses. You’ll see the results and be able to discuss how to implement the recommended communication solutions with your staff.