By Victor Assad

We celebrate Thanksgiving in the US this week. It’s my favorite holiday of the year because of the family-and-friends gatherings, my favorite meal of the year, and the spirit of gratitude and giving without the hustle and bustle of the end-of-the-year holidays. Workers need gratification.

Being grateful is an American tradition. As reported by Elizabeth Bernstein in The Wall Street Journal, research has shown that gratitude has mental- and physical-health benefits, including less depression and better sleep, relationships and success at work.

I encourage all leaders to pause and reflect on whether the same spirit of gratitude at Thanksgiving resides in their workplace year-round. As you will learn, a little bit of gratitude and recognition in the workplace goes a long way to making employees feel valued. It builds morale and collaboration and improves efficiency and innovation.

Unfortunately, many employees do not feel valued at work. As reported by Forbes, a survey of more than 1,000 full-time employees in the US found that more than half of respondents felt only somewhat valued (46.6 percent) or not valued at all (10.7 percent)  by their organization.

And here’s the point that should cause managers to really worry: Employees who do not feel valued underperform at work which, in turn, reduces their productivity and leads to higher turnover.

Workhuman and Gallup discovered an easy solution to the problem of employees feeling undervalued. In 2022, Workhuman and Gallup partnered to learn the correlation between employee recognition and company growth and success. They conducted a large-scale study of more than 12,000 employees across 12 countries. Workhuman and Gallup found that recognition is one of the most effective and affordable ways to improve employees’ sense of being valued and wellbeing, sparking cultural transformation, and helping workplaces achieve exceptional performance.

Workhuman and Gallup observe that when organizations create an environment where employees consistently receive high-quality recognition, the companies see tangible benefits – increased engagement, reduced levels of burnout, and improved company loyalty – translating into clear return-on-investment (ROI). In fact, the study shows recognition can help mitigate the $322 billion cost of global turnover and lost productivity.

Note: We are discussing recognition here, not pay increases.

How do you give good recognition to employees? It is very simple. Managers need to be timely with recognition, specific, and let the employees know the positive impact of their work for the organization. The recognition can be for working hard to meet difficult goals, trying something new, achieving a new career level or completing a class.

And there is more great news about recognition, being heard, and feeling valued.

At InnovationOne®, LLC, we have learned that organizations scoring in the top quartile on the InnovationOne Culture Index© have cultures where employees feel valued by their fellow team members and leaders, are listened to, and considered an equal among their peers. In short, they experience trust and mutual respect.

Our empirically developed InnovationOne Culture Index©,. shown at right, has four organizational dimensions and 12 drivers of innovation. In the organizational dimension called Leadership in the4 upper right, there is the  driver, Employee Connectivity. It is the dimension where employees feel recognized, valued, listened to, and as contributors to the team. The organizations scoring in the top quartile of our Culture Index reported higher financial-performance than bottom quartile performers by as much as 22 percent.

The end goal is to build a culture and teams that have mutual respect and trust,

Many studies show that trust (which researchers sometimes call psychological safety) is the number one characteristic of high-performing teams—even higher than the intelligence of team members, the number of extroverts, the meaning and societal impact of the work, dependability, and understanding team norms.

This Thursday, when you are passing around the turkey and pumpkin pie, take a moment to reflect on your sense of gratitude and the recognition you are giving your employees. If they might feel undervalued, like half the employees in the recent Workhuman and Gallup survey, you can change that sentiment. You will be glad you did.

Learn more at InnovationOne, LLC.

About InnovationOne, LLC

About InnovationOne®, LLC.

InnovationOne®, LLC helps organizations worldwide build a culture of innovation and make it sustainable. InnovationOne® uses a scientifically developed assessment to measure, benchmark, and improve your company’s culture and capability to innovate and enjoy better outcomes and financial results. We have conducted research with The Conference Board and the US Department of Energy. Companies scoring in the top quartile of our InnovationOne Culture Index© reported higher financial performance than bottom quartile performers by as much as 22 percent. US Department of Energy labs scoring high on our assessment can have up to 3x higher performance over the lower scoring labs. Measure and ignite your culture of innovation.