How do you say thank you to your colleagues, team mates, employees? Read the full blog post to see how often you should thank them and what you could say to express thankfulness. Get to understand the importance of recognizing effort and showing appreciation.
Great things need great effort. That statement holds true, when you add that great effort comes with a great reward(s). To sustain a high quality standard at work, a company must make employee appraisal a very central part of the business culture. I did some online research and in the process, I found a very surprising statistic:
Thank You Culture at Work
TalentLMS conducted a survey: How often do you receive appreciation for your contributions at work from your supervisor or manager? The respondents answered:
- 6% of the respondents answered that they never have received appreciation
- 22% answered that they rarely receive appreciation
- 33% answered that they sometimes receive appreciation
This means, that an entire 61% of the respondents don’t feel that they are being appreciated. So, here is my advice to you: develop an appraisal system as part of the work culture to encourage your employees. This way you provide the opportunity to retain your employees, because such initiative helps boost their energy, enthusiasm, and their sense of belonging. Let your employees know, that you appreciate their amazing effort.
Sure, employees like appreciation and thank you’s from colleagues and stakeholders, but they need it from their manager too. A salary and benefit package does not always suffice. it might make work tolerable, but might not necessarily make work pleasant.
Saying thank you
For the sake of employee health and employee retention, it is crucial that you spend time acknowledging the time and effort that they put in to it.
The ultimate consequence of neglecting performance appraisal is to completely ruin the employee experience. The most common reason that people resign, is that they don’t feel appreciated. In an effort to meet task and project requirements,, engaged employees will attempt to exceed your expectations. They work to make a great effort, not just a good effort. They will make a big effort to apply their competencies and curiosity to learn.
Employees should be thanked for making an effort and even more so when they make an awesome effort. That does not mean that we should show appreciation all the time, because that takes out the value of a genuine “thank you” or “thank you so much“. We also shouldn’t say thank you for things, where the negative outweigh the positive. However, never fail to let them know, at least weekly, that they are doing a great job and that you appreciate their time and effort. In addition to that, it is very important that you acknowledge a high quality of work.
With that in mind, I thought I would provide you with a list of phrases for this very purpose. In addition to expressing gratitude with a thank you, and appropriate body language, you can say any of these things:
Effort Phrases: How to say thank you for the BIG effort
You are catching on really fast: By using this phrase one is saying that you are a fast learner.
You take instructions well: Say this to someone if they follow instructions easily and act upon them.
Perfect timing: It is great when things happen, right when you need them too coincidentally.
You are exactly on point: This phrase has two meanings. One is that you are staying on the relevant topic. The second definition is that you are absolutely right about something. One could also say that the marketing team has created a campaign, which is on point. That means that it is perfect and that it aligns well with the brand image.
I appreciate that you are going the extra mile: Another phrase for this is to go above and beyond. The meaning of these phrases is, that an employee has exceed expectations.
Thank you for giving it your all: This means that you are going all in on completing a task or a project. Other examples of how to say this include: Thank you for giving it your all or giving it 110%,
Thank you for working overtime: Say this when someone works extra hours to complete a task or a project.
He/She really is pulling his/her weight: If you and your team are working on a project and one of your team members is putting a lot effort into doing their part, then you can say that they are pulling their weight.
Thank you for (all) your efforts: Yes, this one is in plural. In its essence, it means thank you for all that you have done. There are two variations of this phrase:
- Thank you for your efforts,
- and thank you for all your efforts.
Discover more phrases: Here Are 7 Phrases About Big Effort
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