We asked industry experts to share one thing their company does to ensure employees feel valued. Discover practical insights into building a culture of recognition, personalizing growth opportunities, and celebrating achievements in meaningful ways. Here are their effective approaches that you can implement to foster a more engaged and appreciated workforce.
- Build Real-Time Recognition Culture
- Personalize Growth and Development Dashboards
- Celebrate Achievements with Thrive Camp
- Spotlight Client Wins in All-Hands Meetings
- Recognize Small Wins Consistently
- Connect Recognition to Meaningful Impact
- Share Impact Stories Tied to Values
- Empower Employees with Real Ownership
- Foster a Culture of Aspirations
- Combine Recognition with Transparent Communication
- Prioritize Empathy and Flexibility
- Highlight Employee-Driven Product Improvements
- Implement Peer-Nominated Core Value Awards
- Invest in Personalized Well-Being Rewards
- Reward Employees with Monthly Recognition Program
- Celebrate Personal Milestones Genuinely
- Encourage Weekly Peer Recognition
- Integrate Performance Management with Recognition
How Companies Make Employees Feel Valued
Build Real-Time Recognition Culture
We believe that recognition should be timely, authentic, and inclusive. To ensure our employees feel genuinely valued, we’ve built a culture where appreciation isn’t reserved just for annual reviews; it happens in the moment. Through our digital recognition platform, anyone in the organization, from a junior employee or a fresher to a senior leader, can instantly acknowledge a colleague’s effort, whether it’s a significant achievement or a small, everyday contribution.
A great example of this is our peer-to-peer recognition system, which includes gamification features like badges, reward points, and a leaderboard. This system not only makes recognition engaging and visible across the organization in real-time but also ensures that contributions at every level are acknowledged and celebrated so that no effort goes unnoticed. By showcasing appreciation openly and consistently, we boost morale, build a strong sense of belonging, and create a motivated workforce, ultimately driving higher engagement and business success.
Partha Neog
CEO & Co-Founder, Vantage Circle
Personalize Growth and Development Dashboards
At our social media agency, we have implemented personalized Growth and Development Dashboards for each team member. Every month, team members update and share their boards with me, including detailed information about their career trajectory, goals, and achievements.
This document is not merely a performance review; it’s a comprehensive roadmap that illustrates exactly where they’re heading within Scott Social and why their work with us is significant. This approach includes discussing their dream jobs, even if we both acknowledge that the ultimate dream job might not exist within our company.
Our focus is on transparency and support.
Each dashboard comprises:
- Clear and customized career paths with transparent pay information
- Space for both personal and professional goals
- Customized “user manuals” that honor their work preferences and communication styles (these are shared with the entire team)
- An ongoing achievement portfolio for those moments when imposter syndrome surfaces
During our one-on-one meetings, employees lead the conversation based on what matters most to them at that time, which is typically documented in their Growth and Development Boards.
A team member might dedicate the entire session to strategizing how to reach their next promotion or sharing new personal goals—it’s their time and their agenda.
This approach ensures our team understands that we’re invested not just in their output, but in their entire journey, both within and outside.
Chelsea Scott Flower
Owner, Scott Social
Celebrate Achievements with Thrive Camp
We believe our team’s success directly fuels our platform’s success. That’s why we’ve created our Thrive Camp program—a quarterly initiative that combines professional development with meaningful recognition.
Thrive Camp isn’t just another corporate training program. It’s a personalized growth journey where team members set ambitious goals aligned with both their personal aspirations and our company objectives. What makes it special is how we celebrate achievements—each Camp culminates in a company-wide virtual celebration where we spotlight individual and team wins.
For example, last quarter, our engineering team faced significant challenges integrating a new feature that would help eCommerce clients better visualize 3PL geographic coverage. After six intense weeks, they not only delivered the solution but enhanced it with unexpected capabilities. During our Thrive Camp celebration, we highlighted their journey, had team members share their experiences, and awarded them with personalized development budgets to further their expertise.
These celebrations reinforce our values of hard work, commitment, and community. By publicly acknowledging both the struggles and triumphs, we validate the effort behind the achievements. We’ve found this approach creates a culture where team members feel genuinely appreciated for their contributions and invested in our collective success.
In the 3PL industry, where connecting businesses with the right fulfillment partners requires both technical precision and human understanding, nurturing our team’s talents and recognizing their efforts isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential to delivering exceptional service to our clients.
Joe Spisak
CEO, Fulfill.com
Spotlight Client Wins in All-Hands Meetings
I believe the most powerful way to make employees feel valued is to recognize their impact, not just their effort.
One thing we do consistently is run monthly “Client Win Spotlights” during our all-hands meeting. But here is the twist: It is not leadership presenting the win. The client success or content strategist who drove the result shares the story directly, gets credit, and walks everyone through the outcome. For example, when one of our editors helped a fintech client go viral on LinkedIn with a well-crafted post, she got to tell the story, show the results, and hear live appreciation from the team and the client. That moment meant more than any generic kudos ever could.
Appreciation feels real when it is specific, public, and tied to purpose. That is how we make sure people know their work not only matters but also moves the business forward.
Vaibhav Kishnani
Founder & CEO, Content-Whale
Recognize Small Wins Consistently
We believe that feeling valued isn’t just about grand gestures—it’s about creating a culture where people feel seen and appreciated every day.
One thing we do consistently is take the time to recognize small wins, not just major achievements. Whether it’s a successful project launch, solving a tricky customer issue, or simply going the extra mile to support a teammate, we make it a point to call it out—both privately and publicly.
One simple but powerful example: after major milestones, we host informal “appreciation moments” during team meetings. It’s not a formal awards ceremony; it’s just an open space where anyone can shout out a colleague who made a difference. I remember one session where a junior team member was recognized for spotting a tiny bug that could’ve led to bigger problems. Hearing peers—and not just managers—appreciate each other created such a genuine, uplifting atmosphere.
It reminded me that appreciation doesn’t have to be complex. Often, it’s the simple, authentic moments of recognition that make people feel truly valued.
Yuying Deng
CEO, Esevel
Connect Recognition to Meaningful Impact
As a dog trainer, I know that working with animals requires patience, emotional energy, and consistency—not just skill. To ensure my team feels appreciated, I always connect recognition to the impact they’ve made, not just outcomes. For example, when one of my trainers helped rehabilitate a rescue dog that had severe anxiety around men, I didn’t simply say “good job.” I shared a handwritten note from the dog’s adopter, along with a bonus and a paid day off.
We also hold monthly team huddles where we recognize one another’s achievements—whether it’s a challenging case, a positive client review, or assisting a teammate with a difficult dog. This type of peer recognition goes a long way in making people feel valued.
In our line of work, it’s easy to think that the dogs receive all the attention—but I ensure that the humans behind the results feel equally appreciated.
Elliot Rosenberg
Founder, K9 Mania Dog Training
Share Impact Stories Tied to Values
At the organizations I help transform, we’ve moved beyond outdated annual reviews to embrace continuous performance management that authentically values employees. Here’s the one approach I recommend to clients that delivers results:
We establish systems where managers share specific “Impact Stories” on internal platforms weekly. These highlight real contributions with results tied to 3-5 core company values. These stories become important at monthly team meetings and include rewards that employees select themselves: Whether that’s 1-on-1 mentorship with executives, more credit to professional development funds, or additional PTO days.
Gallup’s 2024 research shows employees receiving structured recognition are 45% less likely to leave within 24 months and produce 31% higher quality work.
McKinsey’s 2025 report demonstrates organizations with personalized development programs are 4x more likely to exceed financial targets and see 28% higher productivity per employee.
Karim Hamri
CEO, tttoolbox
Empower Employees with Real Ownership
We’ve found that giving people ownership over real business decisions creates deeper appreciation than any perk or gift ever could.
When our junior strategist mentioned feeling stuck in his role, instead of the usual “hang in there” talk, we handed him a small client project to lead entirely on his own. Watching him present his campaign to the client—who loved it, by the way—transformed his confidence overnight.
That was six months ago, and he’s since become one of our most vocal team advocates.
People don’t leave companies that truly see them as individuals, is something I tell our management team constantly. Anyone can offer competitive pay, but creating moments where employees feel genuinely known creates loyalty that money simply can’t buy.
Olivier De Ridder
CEO, WDR Aspen
Foster a Culture of Aspirations
It is widely accepted that motivated and happy employees form the best teams and bring the most value to an organization. The pending question here is: what can we, as leaders, do to ensure that top-level employees feel valued and appreciated?
We practice several different types of employee recognition: compensation raises, bonus systems, and other small benefits. However, in my opinion, the one that has proven to be most effective is providing them with opportunities to grow.
In our company, people know that they can always delve deeper, upgrade their skills, advance to the next level in their chosen field, or even change fields completely while still staying with the company. In our experience, recognizing employees’ efforts and achievements by opening more doors for them has turned out to be our secret recipe for a motivated team.
One of the things we do to ensure timely recognition and a proactive approach is conducting regular one-on-one meetings with the team to better understand their aspirations, “hidden skillsets,” and goals. As a rule, top performers are not interested in staying in one position for too long, and they are more often motivated by something other than just material things. Quite often, those other things are growth, a wider skillset, and richer experience. So, providing them with opportunities and fostering a “culture of aspirations” has proven to be the best way to make them feel valued. What is sometimes even more important, it can also be a good retention technique for team members who have outgrown their roles.
It’s as simple as that. Make sure to open more doors for your employees, encourage them to share their professional aspirations, and you’ll see your team flourish. Being a leader is like being a good gardener—you are there to help them grow, bloom, and be the best version of themselves.
Kseniia Savchenko
Chief People Officer, SupportYourApp
Combine Recognition with Transparent Communication
One of the ways we ensure employees feel truly valued is by combining personalized recognition with transparent communication. In a technical environment like ours, it’s easy for engineers and project leads to feel that their hard work goes unnoticed—especially when success means things simply work as intended.
We recognized this disconnect early on, so we created a monthly “Maker Spotlight,” where we highlight one team member’s specific contribution during our all-hands meeting. Whether it’s solving a complex design flaw or meeting a tight prototype deadline, we recognize the how and why behind the achievement. We also pair this with open updates about company performance, upcoming projects, and client feedback—so everyone sees the bigger picture and how their work fits into it.
Here’s an example: when a mechanical engineer devised a rapid tooling adjustment that saved a $100K order from delay, we publicly recognized it, shared the client’s reaction, and tied it to our quarterly win. This kind of visibility fuels pride and employee retention.
Alejandro K.
CEO, OPTIUSA
Prioritize Empathy and Flexibility
One thing we do consistently to make our team feel valued is to slow down and really see them—not just as workers, but as whole people. That means listening, being flexible with their needs, and making sure they know they’re contributing to something meaningful.
For example, one of our team members was going through a rough time last season—a close family member was ill, and they were trying to juggle everything while showing up here like nothing was wrong. Instead of pushing for performance, we gave them paid time off, stepped in to cover their responsibilities, and brought meals to their home. Not as a “perk,” but because it was the right thing to do.
A few weeks later, they came back with more energy, more loyalty, and more heart than ever. It reminded me that appreciation doesn’t always come in the form of bonuses or pizza parties (though we love those too). Sometimes, it’s just showing up for your people when it really counts.
Andrea Sankaran
CEO, Lotuswood Organic Wellness Farm
Highlight Employee-Driven Product Improvements
A few months ago, one of our support team members noticed a pattern in customer complaints regarding a formatting issue in our resume builder. She suggested a small change to improve the user flow. We tested it, saw a clear improvement in engagement, and rolled out the fix to all users.
After we shipped the update, we shared the full story in our company meeting. We explained the problem, showed how her insight led to the change, and gave her full credit for improving an experience that now benefits thousands of users every week. We also invited her to a roadmap planning session with our product team so she could share more frontline observations that might guide future improvements.
We showed our appreciation by ensuring people see the impact she made, and by giving her access to decisions where her judgment can continue to shape the product.
Stephen Greet
CEO & Co-Founder, BeamJobs
Implement Peer-Nominated Core Value Awards
I’m constantly striving for our team to embrace one another’s work styles and unique talents—to truly value and appreciate each other.
A great example of this is our Core Value Awards, where the team votes for someone they believe best lives out each of our values in the workplace. A Senior Manager was recently awarded the Core Value Award for Respect. Respect is at the heart of everything we do. It’s one of our four core values—alongside integrity, teamwork, and teachability.
One of the nominations for this award read:
“His respectful approach fosters a positive and collaborative environment where each team member feels valued and heard. Learning from him has not only enhanced my professional growth but also deepened my appreciation for the importance of respect in both work and life. His leadership and example continue to inspire us all to uphold this essential value.”
This recognition event—and giving the team the opportunity to reflect on their colleagues in this way—is a major contributor to reinforcing how valued and appreciated everyone feels.
Bill Randag
President, DATAMARK
Invest in Personalized Well-Being Rewards
We invest in employee well-being as an encouragement to their overall health. This is a clear commitment to valuing their contributions and expressing gratitude.
We use Maavee (gomaavee.com) as the platform all staff can access to be rewarded. Through Maavee, employees can find resources, products, and communities that will support their personal wellness journey. Whether it is physical, mental, emotional, social, or environmental well-being, each employee is able to travel the road that makes the most sense for them without the company deciding for them. We love the span of support Maavee gives!
John jbaldino@humareso.com
President, Humareso
Reward Employees with Monthly Recognition Program
In our remote company, we have an “Employee of the Month” program that’s all about celebrating the hard work and achievements of our team.
It’s a fun way to recognize the people who go above and beyond, and it helps us stay connected even though we’re working from different places. On top of that, the program includes a monetary award, making the recognition even more rewarding!
Alice Davis
Sales Development Representative, Teamflect
Celebrate Personal Milestones Genuinely
One key element that makes employees feel valued and appreciated is when an employer celebrates personal milestones in a genuine way, without turning it into a public display on social media.
I have personal examples that illustrate this perfectly. Our team consists of remote workers from various countries, and I have yet to meet any of them face-to-face. Over the past six months, I have reached several important milestones in my life, and the company made an effort to celebrate these moments with me, making me feel special on some of the most significant days of my life.
Here’s what happened:
My Birthday: During our virtual morning meeting, everyone in the company had a “Happy Birthday” background. Later that day, a package arrived at my home containing 24 beers and candles.
Christmas: Out of the blue, our family received a wonderful hamper with the best Christmas wishes from the company.
My Bachelor Party: Knowing I was leaving for my bachelor party, the company arranged a virtual meeting disguised as a GDPR policy meeting. When I joined, I was surprised to see everyone with funny bachelor-themed backgrounds, and we had a list of fun virtual activities planned while having a few beverages.
My Wedding: Before I left for my wedding, I received a gift box from the company filled with champagne, glasses, and small gifts, along with a lovely note.
My Graduation: I also graduated with my master’s degree during this time, and the company surprised me with another celebration in a virtual meeting.
Easter Weekend: My family received a lovely Easter weekend hamper from the company.
These gestures truly made me feel appreciated and valued by the company. Never have I worked in a company that genuinely feels interested in what I do and what I achieve. Although I have never been to the company office (more than 10,000 km away), they still manage to pull it off effectively.
Johan Nortier
Digital Marketing Executive, Growthlabs
Encourage Weekly Peer Recognition
We have a global team, so we have to work hard on team cohesion. We have a weekly “water cooler” meeting every Friday morning, which includes shoutouts where everyone is encouraged to give praise and recognition to anyone for something they did throughout the week. Everyone gets involved, and there’s always applause, clapping, and party popper emojis flying around on Google Meet. Feedback from the team has been that receiving direct, personal feedback in front of the whole team is really motivating. We also have a dedicated gratitude channel in Slack where we encourage the same thing, and this is really effective because it’s in the moment.
Gareth Morgans
Digital Director, Herdl
Integrate Performance Management with Recognition
Our mission is to empower businesses—especially small and medium enterprises—to focus on what matters most: their people. We believe that feeling valued is not just about recognition, but about being seen, heard, and supported at every stage of the employee journey.
One powerful way we bring this to life is through our integrated Performance Management Framework (PMF), which combines clear goal setting, continuous feedback, and peer recognition. Employees are evaluated based on personalized OKRs and KPIs, while peers contribute through structured reviews that ensure invisible contributions are made visible.
What makes the experience truly meaningful is how recognition becomes actionable. After each review cycle, managers not only give constructive feedback but can also nominate team members for tailored awards through the system—be it a training sponsorship, mentorship opportunity, or public acknowledgment.
A great example? One of our support analysts was consistently praised in peer reviews for going the extra mile with client onboarding. She was nominated through our Awards module and received a fully funded professional certification—reinforcing that recognition in our company is more than words; it’s a commitment.
Michael Hamilton
Founder, DataSimplified PTY Ltd
