The following activity has been provided by Shay McConnon (An Even Better Place to Work) and is one of a series of safe, short and fun activities on a number of key employee engagement themes such as giving feedback, managing differences, ownership, openess, motivation and feeling valued. It is ideal for when time is limited and you are looking for a quick activity to improve engagement levels and can be used as part of a team meeting, lunch ‘n’ learn sessions etc or combined with other activities for a longer session.
ACTIVITY: APPRECIATION @ WORK
Objective: To enable people to feel even more appreciated and valued in their teams and in the wider organisation. This particular activity aims to identify how people would like to be appreciated and share this with colleagues.
Time: 20 minutes
Materials: Appreciation @ Work sheet, flipchart
Notes:
While some people feel appreciated with responsibility, others feel dumped on. Being thanked can be experienced as patronizing. This activity gives everyone the opportunity to share their unique appreciation criteria. You may even discover that some people have a low appreciation need score and feel over appreciated. Aim to get a lively discussion going and encourage people to say how they need to be appreciated by team members. Set team goals e.g. everyone’s actual score to be within two points of their need score. It will be useful to set a review date and a person responsible for organizing the review activity.
Instructions:
- Everyone in the team fills in the Appreciation @ Work sheet
- People share their answers in groups of 3-4 and discuss how they need to be appreciated.
- Convene the team and wrtie team member’s names down the left hand side of the flipchart.
- Record everyone’s need score (how important it is to feel appreciated by the team?) and the actual score.
- Review these scores with the team.
Discuss:
Are we happy with these scores?
What can we do about it?
Would it be useful to have a team goal – everyone’s actual score to be within two points of the need score?
Would it be useful if individuals circulated completed Appreciation @ Work sheet so colleagues will know how others need to be appreciated?
Are there any team or personal goals we want to agree?
Record any team or personal goals that have been agreed.
