Staff appreciation ideas NYC

The Summer Olympics are in full swing, and among the big stories coming out of the games is the record number of medals being won. Michael Phelps, the American swimmer, has now won an astounding 25 medals – 21 of which are gold – and years ago broke the record for most won during a single Olympic games.

Now, let me ask you something. Do you think Phelps is in this for the medals?

Of course he’s competitive, and of course he wants to win. But do you believe that what motivates this world-class athlete to wake up early in the morning, swim for hours, eat, sleep and repeat for the past two decades is…medals? Of course not. He is driven because he is motivated, wants to exceed, wants to be the best at what he does. The medals are tangible symbols of success, as well as a permanent part of his identity. But I contend that they are NOT why he went into swimming, or what motivates him to be the best.

The same argument can be made for the workplace. When the team has done a good job, bosses often seek staff motivation ideas New York City and elsewhere. It’s a natural instinct: rewarding employees after they have achieved a goal, reached a milestone, or weathered a challenge. Managers who are interested in keeping their people happy and retaining their most loyal top performers understand the need to offer recognition, appreciation and reward. I am among them – as a business owner, I understand how difficult finding the right people is, and I want them to know how much I value their efforts.

But this isn’t the only perspective on the matter, which I am all too aware of – both as a former employee myself, as well as NYC corporate team building professional (follow this link for more on what I do now).

Among the organizations I worked at before striking out on my own were several nonprofit institutions. While they were great places with important missions, it was difficult for a young ambitious guy to work there. One of them in a particular was especially rough: the pay was abysmal, especially for someone living and trying to survive in Manhattan. Even though I worked my butt off and produced real, impressive measurable results – FAR beyond what was expected of me in terms of generating attendance, favorable press and actual dollars – there was zero motivation.

Like, zero.

My pay stayed flat, there were no advancement opportunities, no mentoring, no career path of any kind. Not only was I not rewarded for a job well done, I was actually PUNISHED. I was basically told, “Wow, David – we set a goal for you, and you blew it out of the water! Clearly you’re not being challenged enough; your goal for next year is to do the same thing, only 20% more. No, we can’t possibly pay you anything more for exceeding your goals by as much as you did, nor can you expect a raise for the extra work we’re asking you to do. However, let’s revisit this in another year, when MAYBE, we can POSSIBLY explore the option of making the case for giving you a 5% salary boost. Maybe.”

I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but that’s really what the deal was. When I asked what would happen if I said no to those terms, I was told, “Well, maybe it’s time to seek out other opportunities elsewhere.”

The attitude was simple, yet harsh: we appreciate the work you do, but we’ll be fine without you. Yes, you do a good job, but you’re not irreplaceable; you’ll be missed, however we’ll find someone else to shuffle your papers and push your buttons, there’s no shortage of qualified applicants. In the years which have passed, I’ve since learned that I wasn’t alone in this experience as an employee. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, a lot of companies simply don’t care about keeping their people happy, about boosting morale, about retaining talent. They just don’t.

Here is my question: are they right?

As a company owner, I now see things from a different point of view from when I was working for somebody else. Business decisions are driven by hard numbers, and as a going concern, at the end of the day you have to do what makes the most sense for your future and the bottom line. For “the boss,” that doesn’t mean you lose sleep over whether your people feel you show gratitude for their efforts. Particularly when we were in the depths of the global financial crisis, the attitude managers and owners took was this: just be thankful you have a job. Based on the fact that wages have remained flat since then despite clear signs the economy is coming back, it’s clear that many companies still hold on to this philosophy.

I think this is a shame. Work is done by people, and people are – well, human. As a psychology major, I learned that a basic tenant of behavior modification is that you want to reward good behavior. Doing so provides an incentive to keep such behavior going, but also helps build strong emotional and social bonds between the reward giver and recipient. I believe the same is true in the workplace: you want to demonstrate that you recognize and value the efforts of those who are doing a good job, in order to ensure they keep doing a good job – and for you, not your competitor!

Yes, you can certainly take the approach of my former employer and many others like it. But in the long run, is that really what you want for your team – people feeling unappreciated and undervalued for their efforts, despite producing quality work? Won’t that just foster an environment of bitterness, resentment and low morale? On top of all that, if your position is, “if they don’t like it, they can leave” they WILL leave, and you will be stuck having to A) delegate their workloads, B) find and train their replacements, and C) deal with the inevitable fallout, disorientation and lost productivity inherent with such changes.

I’m not saying you have to give your team a formal staff entertainment activity like my business provides, but you do need to do SOMETHING which says “thank you” if you want to keep them motivated, producing good work, and boosting the bottom line. Click here for another article on employee appreciation activities in NYC.