Have Significant Cultural Events Impacted How Employees Want to be Appreciated?

The COVID-19 pandemic. The dramatic increase in remote and hybrid employees. The changing of generations. All these significant cultural events have impacted the current workforce.

Many downline consequences have flowed from the increase of remote and hybrid employees – people coming into the office less often, which leads to less interactions with others.   Conversely, the use and acceptance of virtual conferencing as a viable meeting modality have exploded.  And due to many employees moving during the post-COVID-19 years, teams are spread further apart geographically.

An additional transition is also occurring simultaneously. The large generation of Baby Boomers is now rapidly transitioning out of organizations. Simultaneously, younger generations are becoming a greater proportion of the workforce and day-to-day leadership.  Differences across the generations are reflected primarily by their divergence in values and priorities.

These cultural changes have led to issues that need to be addressed within the workplace:

*how do you onboard someone virtually?

*issues of (perceived) fairness across coworkers – especially between onsite and remote staff

*colleagues getting to know one another and working well together on collaborative tasks

*trust/lack of trust issues between supervisors and direct report team members

*feeling known, understood, and valued by one’s colleagues and leaders

These challenges havea significant impact on the functioning of an organization.  Research continues to show that when team members feel truly known, valued, and appreciated, good results follow – greater employee engagement, higher customer service ratings, increased productivity, and higher profitability.

The question arises: how are these two substantial cultural events affecting the ways employees feel valued and appreciated?

An Empirical Study: Comparing Employees’ Preferences

In 2017, we conducted an investigation exploring how employees desired to be shown appreciation.  We analyzed the results of over 100,000 employees’ online assessments, which identify their preferences for receiving appreciation (White, P., 2017). These results were obtained prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the dramatic rise of remote and hybrid work arrangements, and before the major generational shifts in the workforce.

Given the tumultuous nature of the cultural changes that occurred worldwide between 2019 and 2022, we compared the results of 80,000 employees who took the same inventory (the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory) during the calendar years of 2023 and 2024 to determine if the ways people wanted to be appreciated at work had changed (White, P. 2016).

We compared the percentage of participants who chose one of four appreciation languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, and Tangible Gifts.  These languages are based on the conceptual model of the five languages of appreciation in the workplace (Chapman & White, 2023). (The fifth language, Physical Touch, is not included in the assessment due to challenging cultural issues in the majority of U.S. culture.)

Descriptions of languages of appreciation

Comparison to prior findings

As can be seen from the following comparison table, the proportion of employees who chose each language as their preferred way to be shown appreciation changed very little across the generation population.

The results are rather surprising, given the dramatic changes in workplace culture over the past decade and the generational transitions which are occurring. They suggest that employees’ preferences for how they want to be appreciated appear to be consistent over time, even in the midst of major cultural changes.

Trends

Some trends were observed across age groups. First, as a group, the older the employee, the more often they chose Words of Affirmation as their preferred language – from 48 percent of those 60 years old or older down to only 37 percent of those twenty or younger.  Conversely, the younger an employee, the more likely they were to have Quality Time as their primary language, with 33 percent of those twenty and younger in comparison to only 25 percent of those over 60 years old. Finally, the older group of employees desired Tangible Gifts less than 5% of the time, while 11 percent of employees 29 and younger enjoy receiving gifts as a demonstration of appreciation.

Additionally, some gender differences were observed. The percentage of men and women who chose Quality Time and Tangible Gifts as their primary languages of appreciation were essentially equivalent. But men chose Acts of Service as their preferred appreciation language more frequently than women (25.8 percent vs 18.8 percent), while women chose Words of Affirmation more than men did (45.5 percent vs 40.0 percent).

Conversely, when identifying their least valued appreciation languages, men dislike gifts at a higher rate than women (63 percent vs. 52 percent), while women choose acts of service as their least desired language more than men do (28 percent of women vs. 18 percent of men).

Practical Implications

When considering the results, it is essential to remember that they summarize patterns and trends across large groups of employees.  Leaders must be cautious in inferring preferences from an individual solely because they belong to a certain age group. The most meaningful way to show appreciation to an individual employee is in the ways they desire individually.

Probably the most important finding is one that has been true over time: while giving gifts and rewards may motivate employees to achieve goals, they are not the way most team members want to be shown appreciation for their contributions at work.  Words affirming their value as a team member are desired far more frequently.

A second key trend is that employees under thirty tend to value quality time as an expression of appreciation.  However, earlier studies have found that this does not mean they want time with their supervisors, but rather time with their colleagues (which is a significant shift from older generations).

Communicating appreciation to team members in ways meaningful to them is key to both “hitting the target” and not wasting time and energy doing things unimportant to the recipient. While being mindful of individual differences is critical, it is interesting to note that the patterns of preference across the general workforce have remained stable, even in the midst of major life events within our culture.

References

1. White, P. (2017), “How do employees want to be shown appreciation? Results from 100,000 employees”, Strategic HR Review, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 197–199. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/SHR-06-2017-0037  

2. White, P. (2016), “Appreciation at Work training and the Motivating by Appreciation Inventory: Development and Validity”, Strategic HR Review, Vol. 15 No. 1, pp. 20–24. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/SHR-11-2015-0090
3. Chapman, G. & White, P. (2023) The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. Chicago: Northfield Press.