Employee Appreciation Ideas
Annually on the last Friday of March, the U.S. and Canada celebrate National Employee Appreciation Day. It is a good opportunity to do something a little special for your staff to let them know you see them and value them. It’s also a good reminder to make sure employee recognition is built into your ongoing work plan throughout the year.
Key Takeaways
- Recognizing employees enhances satisfaction at work and home alike.
- With many employees working remotely, appreciation becomes even more crucial. Remote workers can feel disconnected or undervalued, so recognition is key.
- In addition to bonuses and time off, thoughtful gestures like handwritten notes and care packages can make employees feel more valued. These personal touches can go a long way in strengthening relationships.
- Recognition can be customized based on employees’ preferences, which are informed by their DiSC® personality styles. For example, some may appreciate public praise, while others prefer private, personalized recognition.
- Regular, specific, and timely recognition can foster a culture of gratitude and contribute to a more engaged team.
Why is employee appreciation important?
Employee appreciation contributes to:
- employee satisfaction
- team cohesion
- retention
- productivity
- feeling connected
- more happiness at home
A 2022 Gallup/Workhuman study of employees in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland showed that when employees receive recognition, they are 73 percent less likely to feel burned out. However, 81 percent of leaders say employee recognition isn’t a priority for their company.
Additionally, research from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that for 70 percent of people, recognition at work makes them happier at home.
SHRM quotes an employee wellness specialist as saying that “many remote workers experience feeling ‘out of sight, out of mind’ or, even worse, feeling as if their work and dedication are being questioned since they are not physically in the office each day.” Employee appreciation is easy to forget but especially important to practice on remote teams.
The percentage of people working from home is down from what it was in spring 2020, but not by much. According to a study by the U.S. Career institute, it's predicted that by the end of 2025, up to 14 percent of the adult U.S. population will have remote jobs. This will reflect a five-fold increase since before the pandemic when just 7 million Americans were working from home online. However, as return-to-office mandates and hybrid hiring practices become more prevalent, companies must consider employee appreciation ideas that accommodate remote, hybrid, and in-person employees.
The bottom line? Frequent, consistent recognition—both top-down and peer-to-peer—makes employees more likely to feel connected and committed to their work, regardless of where they're working.
It can be hard to think of employee appreciation ideas, as you want to show appreciation in a way that feels genuine, meaningful, personal, and fun. We've compiled several ideas for employee appreciation that can be used for all kinds of teams, whether in person or virtual. These can spark some inspiration, and help you customize an employee appreciation strategy for your team.
Employee appreciation ideas
The classics: time and money
If you’re in a position to grant these things, consider recognizing employees with additional time off (even just an extra hour for lunch or a late start/early close), more flexible schedules, bonuses or raises, or professional development opportunities.
Take it offline
When we spend our days in front of the computer screen, steeped in emails and video meetings, anything happening outside that realm can feel extra special. Here are some ideas to try.
Mailed, handwritten notes
It will likely take you longer than you think to write and prepare these, so block off an afternoon on your calendar to devote to the task without stressing about what you’re not getting done. Take the time to be specific in your praise, so people won’t think that everyone is receiving the same generic message.
Care packages
Put together a mix of useful and/or just-for-fun items, and plan to drop them off at their desks or mail them to their homes. For example, if your employees live in a place with cold winters, a small box with hot chocolate packets, vitamin D, lotion, and some snacks might be welcome. If your employees have kids, you can add a small age-appropriate item, like a puzzle or book. If they have pets, consider adding a pet treat or toy. If they're an in-person employee who is always refueling at the coffee bar, add some local coffee beans or a fun mug. There are plenty of ways to personalize!
Flowers, succulents, houseplants
Greenery can liven up at-home and in-office workspaces alike, but make sure to choose something that isn’t poisonous to pets or kids, doesn’t trigger allergies, and can grow in low light.
Equipment to make their work life easier
If you have a small team, you can ask them individually what they need. For larger groups, put together a list of options for people to choose from. Examples: desk lamps or ring lights, noise-canceling headphones, cushion or lumbar support for chairs, laptop stands for standing work, etc.
Screen-free time
Because so much of nonwork life also happens online, your employees may be struggling to carve out time when they’re not in front of some type of screen. Encourage each team member to schedule a few hours every couple of weeks (or whatever your agreed-upon interval) where they are on the clock but not expected to respond to Teams, Slack, email, etc. They can use this time to catch up on the latest articles in your industry, do some big-picture project planning, or even clean and reorganize their workspace.
Walk-and-talk session
Regular check-ins tend to be task-focused, and the format doesn’t often invite larger discussions about your employees’ hopes. Consider making one of your next meetings a focused "walk and talk," if it works with both of your abilities.
For virtual employees, you can set up a phone call during which you’re both walking outside. Walking puts people in a different frame of mind than sitting at a desk. Ask about their stress level, their longer-term career goals, and how the company could help. Bring a notebook to jot down what they say, and follow up promptly with an email summary and actions you are taking to address any concerns or assist with professional development. Sometimes, meetings that feel less formal can generate especially valuable insights and action items.
Sing their praises
- Write endorsements for them on LinkedIn.
- Do you work with freelancers? Write a testimonial they can use on their website.
- Shout them out on social media, from either your personal or company account.
- Start team meetings by recognizing accomplishments and leaving space for team members to recognize each other.
- Set up a Slack channel (or your company’s equivalent) for people to amplify each others’ good work.
- Nominate employees for awards—within the company, the industry, or the community. Even if your employee doesn’t win the award, you can share the nomination materials with them, and with company higher-ups.
- Have the “big boss” compliment them, not just their immediate supervisor.
- If you have an internal newsletter or other regular employee communication, recognize employee accomplishments there.
Team building ideas
- Leave a few minutes at the beginning or end of meetings for a non-work-related discussion question, for a few trivia questions, or for employees to share a talent or something new they learned recently.
- For virtual teams, review the creative suggestions in this Fast Company article: a cooking class, trivia night, comedy show, wine tasting, and virtual escape rooms are all fun ways to bond, even when your team is spread out across the globe.
- Play some good old-fashioned games on a physical or virtual whiteboard, such as Pictionary, tic-tac-toe, or any of these.
- Meet for an in-person or virtual happy hour where you ask employees to come prepared with pictures of themselves around a theme: favorite vacation, pictures with pets, etc.
- Have meals together: Go out to breakfast or lunch as a group! For virtual teams, you can have a meal delivered to each team member and then enjoy it together during a video meeting.
Employee appreciation by DiSC® style
You can customize your employee appreciation approach based on what you know about your employee’s DiSC styles. Of course, there is plenty of individual variation within styles, and the best way to know how someone likes to be recognized for their work is to ask them. In that vein, “How do you like to be recognized for your work?” is a great opening question for team meetings, because it allows team members to hear directly from their coworkers what makes them feel valued.
Some things to keep in mind when recognizing various DiSC styles:
D style
D-style people tend to value personal freedom, challenges, and winning. They strive for unique accomplishments and new opportunities. Recognize them in a way that doesn’t take up a lot of their time and that focuses on the results they achieved. A good reward for D styles is offering more authority or autonomy at work, or helping remove an obstacle preventing them from moving a project forward.
i style
i-style people are motivated by social recognition and relationships, and fear being ignored. i styles look for opportunities to express themselves and connect with others. Of all the styles, i-style folks are probably more likely to be excited about group activities, such as a party to celebrate a team achievement—and they would probably love to help plan it. i-style employees appreciate novelty, so a good reward may be swapping out one of their more tedious regular tasks with a more creative one.
S style
S-style folks want to know they are making a difference and helping others. Show them the effects of their work, and how they make the team better. An S style is not likely to be shouting their successes from the rooftops, so you may need to be deliberate about noticing and amplifying their good work. A specific and sincere thank you note will mean a great deal to an S-style colleague. They might also appreciate a small gift showing that you have listened to them and know them, such as a novel by an author they like. Work-wise, a good reward for S styles may be swapping out a stressful task for a new opportunity involving collaboration or one that connects them more directly to the people they are helping.
C style
People with C styles like independence and assurance that others see them as competent. They look for opportunities to gain knowledge and show their expertise. Many C-style folks prefer to avoid strong displays of emotion, and may not like a public thank-you as much as other styles. A good reward for a job well done may be the opportunity to learn something new or gain a new skill. Perhaps the company can cover the cost of a class, a magazine subscription, or a tool or resource that would allow them to get more data on something they’re working on.
Build employee appreciation into your year-round work plan
Appreciation works best when it is timely, specific, and personal. Don’t limit recognition events to annual holidays or work anniversaries. Develop a strategy for recognizing excellence as it happens, at both the individual and team level.
You don’t have to be the boss or HR director to engage in employee appreciation. Anyone can foster a culture of gratitude by tuning in to opportunities to say thank you to coworkers, amplify their successes, and make them feel like a valuable part of the team.
Posted 02/23/2021, Last Updated 02/06/2025
