People in the corporate world, especially department managers, entrepreneurial leaders, and business executives, work round the clock to see that they can effectively increase productivity, success, and motivation. Professional praise is an important component that should be applied in any work setting because it’s a way of motivating people to want to achieve a lot within a short time.
In different organizations today, whenever talent is seen, it’s important to find ways to harness such talents to enable them to perform well and even yield better outcomes. This is the part where affirmation and professional praise come in really handy. Sadly, many organizations today overlook its importance.
There’s no harm in saying “thanks for this” or “nice job” at the end of an email, but only thoughtful leaders tend to leave this complement behind.
If you’re ready to learn how to praise your team professionally, then you’ve come to the right place because in this article, I will take you through the steps to follow and how you can use this empowerment tool to professionally praise your team and keep them motivated and inspired.
Importance of Professional Praise
You might be wondering if professional praise is really important. Different studies have shown that company loyalty and job performance can be directly linked to how individuals feel appreciated and recognized. Almost everyone will want to feel happy about their work, and when they receive praises from co-workers and managers, it inspires them to want to work harder.
However, when it comes to praising professionals, the approach that is used is equally an important aspect to pay attention to. It’s more than just using nice words, but it’s important to keep the compliments as specific as possible. With more specific compliments, you can stimulate organizational strategies to inspire everyone’s commitment to a mission.
Benefits of Intentional and Consistent Professional Praise
Every company needs to pay attention to meaningful and deserved recognition, especially when it comes to stimulating and increasing success. The benefits of this cannot be overemphasized, and here are some of the key benefits that you should always remember:
It leaves everyone happy
Professional praise enhances quality control and increases customer care
Potential for increased company profit as a result of higher engagement from employees
Professional praise can increase job satisfaction and retention rates
It increases work morale and productivity
Professional praise enhances the relationship between customers, co-workers, and clients
Before you start complimenting your employees, it’s important that you understand its benefits. In addition, you also need to know the consequences of not doing so. These are some of the consequences of not using professional praises in your workplace.
Co-worker rivalry
An unmotivated and unengaged workforce
Dissatisfied customers
Lack of trust in management, and even amongst co-workers
High employee turnover
With this, we can now continue with the ways to praise a team member professionally.
Professional Praise
When you learn to praise someone professionally, you also need to acknowledge the fact that what works for a person may not work for everybody. If you become too quick to praise just anyone you come across, it’ll only be a matter of time before it starts to lose its impact.
With that said, you’ll need to find a way to show your appreciation to people so that it doesn’t lose its impact.
Here are a few ideas that you can apply whenever you show your appreciation or compliment someone:
Celebrating anniversaries and milestones
Acknowledge exceptional work
Reward progress towards the company goal
Use encouragement as motivation
Congratulate wins and accomplishments
How to Praise Someone Professionally?
You might already wonder How to praise someone professionally; with all, we have said. Professional praise will always give positive results if you do it rightly, and you’ll equally need to find ways to make it even more meaningful. In many cases, it’s always best to tie the praises to something specific or personal.
Here’s how you can praise someone professionally:
Make it specific: This might seem a bit silly, but it’s nice to include the persons name when you show appreciation because it’s a way to show that you truly recognize their individual contributions. You might want to think that this won’t make much difference, but it’s actually more powerful than generic praise.
Acknowledge results: Apart from making the praise personal, you can also tie the praise to something. For example, you can tie it to a result to show that you recognize the result and acknowledge their efforts.
You can make professional tips vocal, but it doesn’t have to end with it being vocal. It’s actually harder to rely solely on verbal and in-person praise, and you need to be ready to embrace other options.
Today, effective leaders and managers now use other communication tools to show that they recognize success, affirm efforts, and encourage progress. Here are some ideas that you can apply:
Email: You can send an email to show that you appreciate their efforts or results. This is equally an effective way to show that their efforts are recognized.
Letters: Like emails, personalized letters to show that you recognize efforts and also professional praise in the sincerest ways possible.
LinkedIn Shoutouts: LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional spaces in the world today, and you can use it to give shoutouts to your staff for the world to see.
Internal intranets: Using the company intranet to appreciate efforts will also make them feel more important, and you should consider using this strategy.
These are some of the effective ways that you can apply professional praise in your workspace. The bottom line is that when you encourage professional praise amongst co-workers, teams and employees, you easily foster a motivated and collaborative work environment.
This is because when people receive more affirmation and encouragement at work, they feel better about their work and the company itself. It’s simply human nature, and if you don’t already use this tool, you should consider using professional praises in your workspace now.