Team Management: Why appreciation matters?

In this article, we will be discussing; what is the impact of appreciation and acknowledgment on employees/team member’s loyalty. This article is divided into two parts, firstly we will talk about why appreciation matters a lot in team management. In the second part, we will discuss what steps we can take to appreciate our team members.

We will try to understand the concept with an example. Let’s suppose you own a car. The basic need of the car to start is fuel. But you spend money on other parts of the car as well. You wash it, keep it clean. You take care of the tires. Now let’s suppose, you have to go from one city to another. It’s a long journey. What you will do? You will verify that all the parts of the car are in good condition. Water to keep the car cool, air pressure in tires, Ac is working fine, and so on.

If you just start driving the car with fuel in it and ignoring the other requirements, your car will probably be broken down after a few miles. It can make your journey uncomfortable. It can slow you down. And at the end of the day, you will not reach your destination. And you will blame the car for it. In fact, it’s not the car which didn’t take you to the destination, it’s YOU, who didn’t maintain your car when needed.

The same goes for our professional lives. From the above example, compare the car with a team member, fuel with the salary and the driver is the Team manager. If the manager thinks that the only thing to get the work done by the team member is the salary. Then he is wrong. You have to take care of your team member. You have to spend some time and effort other than the salary. The efforts can be in form of appreciation, encouragement, and trust.

If you don’t take care of these factors and just keep pushing your team for work and only work, your team members will not be efficient. Their productivity will go down, their motivation level will go down. And the worst case is, the team member will leave the organization. And you have to start again, find the new team members, train them to work for you and then again you will ignore these factors, and again you will lose the team member. And the cycle continues.

Happy Employees Ensure Happy Customers and Happy costumers ensure Happy Stakeholders.

Most of the time, it doesn’t cost anything to gain a team member’s loyalty. You just have to spend some time and put effort into them. Appreciate them, Acknowledge them. Show your team members that you care. Spend some time with them. Celebrate your success with them. Rather than saying that I have accomplished the goal, Say, WE have accomplished the goal. Make your team members a part of your achievement.

If you have got a long journey, you just can’t satisfy your team member with the salary or other cash incentives. You have to build a relation with them. A relation of care, trust, and loyalty. It can be achieved by engaging with your team members.

In the next post, we will be discussing, How we can engage with team members to reduce the turnover rate and increase employee’s loyalty to the organization.

If you are a part of the team, what steps your team takes, to make the team members motivated and encouraged? Let me know in the comments section below.

This article is originally posted on personal blog.