In the same way that writing a thank you note always feels a little harder than it should be, finding the correct and most genuine way to communicate praise to your direct report or team as a whole can feel a little challenging. But it’s not something you can ignore—recognition goes a long way towards improving employee satisfaction, wellbeing, and retention.
To help make it second nature, we’ve rounded up a few key tips and 18 scripts for giving credit where credit is due.
Make a Schedule To keep praise from falling by the wayside, set yourself a regular calendar reminder or a weekly quota for noting key efforts and wins on your team. Incorporating a set time for employee recognition in your weekly all hands or one-on-ones is another solid way to ensure you’re getting your message across. Ask Employee Preferences For some people, being praised in front of a group is actually mortifying. Don’t be shy about checking in with your team on how they like to be recognized. Instead of blushing during the company-wide Zoom, certain people may prefer a good old card, email, or even a small reward. A virtual thank you note paired with a gift credit can make someone feel as warm and fuzzy as an on-the-spot shout-out. Be Specific While a general “great job” is better than nothing, highlighting what made their work so successful can not only make someone feel great, it can also go a long way towards helping them ID their strengths. From the top, it can feel obvious to you what someone excels at, but they truly might not know it about themselves! Feeling seen for a particular skill goes a long way. Keep It Professional Some workplaces thrive on Slack reactions and perfectly deployed memes—others, not so much. Use your discretion when giving praise, but when in doubt, always err on the side of keeping things more office-appropriate. Plus, emails can be saved by employees to refer to during performance reviews in a way that emojis cannot. "Highlighting what made [someone's] work so successful can... go a long way towards helping them ID their strengths." Quick-Hit SCRIPTS Love this idea! PS: You nailed that [presentation, project, etc]. Wow, great email response to [client, team member, etc]! Thanks for handling that with grace. This [presentation, design, copy] looks beautiful. I didn’t know how great you are at [skill] until now! Our team just leveled up. Team MVP today! [That thing you do/are doing] makes a big difference. I see how much effort you’re putting into [project/task]—thank you! Thanks for everything today, [their name]. I really appreciate it. I’m so glad you’re part of this team. Longer RECOGNITION Scripts Your positive outlook is a huge benefit to our team—I can see how it uplifts the people around you, and it goes a long way towards helping us feel like collaborators. Thanks for bringing up the team with your optimism.
That was a tough [client meeting, presentation, etc] and you did a great job of handling it. It’s great to know I can trust you to keep your cool in those high-pressure situations. You really brought our vision for that [project, presentation, etc] to life! It’s great to have someone on the team who can reliably take things across the finish line like that. Huge week for the [team, department, etc]! Together we fielded [inserts specific stats or project numbers], thanks to all of your hard work and collaboration. Thank you all for doing your part! Great problem solving on [project]! Love the solution that you came up with. I know the rest of the team is taking notes. I just want to thank you for leading the team to this week’s win. You really went above and beyond, and those efforts have been noticed. Your work on [program, project, skill] has come so far. It’s great to see you master new skills, and I know I’m not the only one who’s noticed. Keep up the great work!
