Staff Appreciation for Every Industry: Hospitality, Childcare, Office Cultures and More.

According to numerous McKinsey reports, including the ‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’, many employees are leaving their jobs due to a lack of compensation, work–life balance, and poor physical and emotional health. 

However, business leaders may have neglected other causes of attrition, such as the desire for a better quality of life and a need to feel valued at work. Without a sense of purpose, many modern workers are falling into despair – and leaving their jobs as a consequence.

McKinsey highlights the problem with relying on raising salaries in their analysis of the attrition problem:

Long gone are the days when it was taboo to move back in with your parents. Debt is cheap; some workers are choosing to leave their roles without savings, relying on loans and credit cards to see them through the job search. None of this is painless. And yet, employees see these sacrifices as less painful than staying in their current positions.

👉 If employees are willing to forego income to improve their work-life balance, how are employers, managers, and HR leaders to respond? The answer isn’t simple, but it begins with a straightforward concept: Employee appreciation.

When businesses are not in a position to raise salaries, or the promise of increased compensation isn’t enough to retain staff, then they are left with few options:

• Organise social events.
• Invest in staff appreciation.
• Offer alternative development routes.

These are all viable paths forward. However, appreciation has the most extensive data to support its role in reducing employee turnover in most industries.

In this article, our company culture experts will explain the importance of staff appreciation in retaining employees and break down ways to express appreciation in various industries, including hospitality, childcare and office settings.

First, Why Is Staff Appreciation Important?

If employees are leaving their jobs because of a lack of purpose and work-life balance, staff appreciation could be the panacea to help businesses keep their staff, maintain their company culture and reduce hiring costs.

After nearly a decade of improving company cultures, we have observed a demonstrable connection between regular recognition and higher engagement. But how does it work?

Recognising the unique contributions of workers builds loyalty and improves belonging. Regular recognition offers a cost-effective strategy to tackle attrition in a variety of workforces, including casual and distributed teams. When employees feel valued and appreciated, they are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere, resulting in lower turnover rates.

What Does the Data Tell Us?

A Marriott International study found that organisations with higher employee engagement levels see a 22% lift in profitability and a 21% increase in productivity compared to businesses with lower engagement.

The same study noted that hotels with higher employee satisfaction scores also boasted higher guest satisfaction scores. The result? An increase in revenue per available room (RevPAR) and market share.

However, the benefits of a strong employee experience program don’t end with customer satisfaction. According to a study by Gallup, businesses should expect around a 40% reduction in turnover rates, helping to mitigate other costs, such as rising Employer National Insurance costs.

Having worked with many successful businesses, including William Hill, Atlas Hotels Group and OVO Energy, we know that the right culture and engagement hub can bring turnover down by 60%.

Competitive compensation is only one part of the story. Here’s a hard truth: if the difference of 50p per hour or £100 per month is the threshold at which your team will depart for another business, you need to find other meaningful benefits to keep staff happy. 

From another perspective, the rise in Employer National Insurance contributions will make raising salaries increasingly unaffordable.

That’s where a cost-effective employee engagement hub that prioritises staff appreciation can have a major impact on staff retention.

Celebrating Milestones and Achievements: A Quick Guide for Leaders

Most companies celebrate milestones and achievements in one form or another. You may already be familiar with long service awards, birthday celebrations and employee anniversaries. However, if you want to harness celebration, aka. appreciation, to improve your company culture, you need to create a dynamic and multi-level strategy.

High Level: Important Milestones

• Less frequent; annual.
• Higher impact.
• Examples: end-of-year celebrations, long service awards.

Mid Level: Positive Feedback

• Regular; monthly.
• Medium impact.
• Examples: employee of the month, end-of-quarter bonus.

Base Level: Daily Habits

• Highly frequent; daily or weekly.
• Steady impact.
• Examples: weekly wins; peer-to-peer recognition.

For a staff appreciation strategy to be effective, it must encompass all three types of recognition. More importantly, a positive company culture will ensure that their employees are engaged with these appreciation initiatives rather than experiencing them passively. This can be achieved through Moments, Boosts and Nominations in Mo’s culture platform.

General Ways to Show Appreciation

Appreciation shown between peers can be just as effective as feedback from senior leaders. Not every moment needs to be imbued with a financial reward for it to be impactful. Here are some ideas for showing general staff appreciation daily. These can be classified as “base level” appreciation within the system previously outlined.

1. Praise at the beginning or end of a meeting.
2. Personalised thank you messages.
3. Genuine offers of support.

Without intuitive software, it can be hard to facilitate general appreciation efforts in hybrid or remote settings. That’s why we designed Mo to support daily appreciation between leaders and peers.

Meaningful Rewards

While bonuses can be a great motivator, many companies can no longer afford massive paychecks at the end of the quarter. Instant rewards can be a great alternative. Smaller denominations increase frequency, encouraging your teams to strive every day. They also contribute to workplace well-being and engagement.

Evidence shows that workplace engagement is declining. We believe that a strategic rewards strategy can reverse this trend. Staff rewards don’t just increase productivity across teams; they also turbo-charge company culture. 

What about peer-to-peer rewards? Giving your employees the chance to appreciate their colleagues increases feelings of teamwork, belonging and accountability.

Private and Public Recognition

Private and public recognition serve different functions. Public recognition illuminates invisible work and encourages employees to strive for excellence. 

It can also come down to personal preference. Some employees are shy and prefer quiet notes of praise rather than a flashy announcement. Managers should evaluate the pros and cons of both before making any decisions. 

Creating a World-Class Company Culture

Research from Gallup shows that many employees are looking for more than a salary in today’s competitive workplace. 

Investing in engagement keeps your company ahead of the competition, especially in competitive industries. More on that later. Any HR leader will tell you that motivating new starters is as important as galvanising current staff, and offering an ethos of belonging on a single digital platform can help remote and hybrid workers feel part of something bigger. Mo is proven to improve employee retention by up to 60% by enhancing company culture.

Staff Appreciation for Office-based Culture

Since the pandemic, office-based work cultures have reported feeling disconnected. Many employees resent coming back to an in-person space, having grown used to a remote situation that eliminated the need for commuting, office lunches and trousers. 

The solution? Make employees feel seen with regular staff appreciation in your office space. Since 79% of people who leave their jobs cite ‘lack of appreciation’ as one of the main causes, you can turn the office into a positive space again by making an effort to show genuine gestures of gratitude.

Staff Appreciation for Hospitality

The hospitality industry is no stranger to challenges. Seasonal slumps, unpredictable schedules and demanding customers come with the territory. But here’s a problem that hospitality leaders can actually mitigate: staff turnover.

High staff turnover makes it even harder to build a strong, connected team. While part-time and casual workers are the heartbeat of hospitality, their temporary status can leave teams feeling fragmented. That’s where staff appreciation can have real impact.

Mo helps hospitality managers boost morale and reduce turnover through meaningful recognition and strategic rewards. By celebrating the Moments that matter, you can build a culture of appreciation that keeps your team engaged.

Staff Appreciation for Childcare and Nurseries

The childcare sector is often described as “fragmented”. Here’s the reality: with so many staff working part-time, building a truly connected team can feel like an uphill battle. Morale takes a hit.

We’ve worked with nurseries and schools facing the same struggles. At the heart of it? A passionate team that simply wants to feel part of something bigger. Mo makes it easy to turn recognition into a daily habit. We help teams stay connected, motivated and inspired by the Moments that matter.

Staff Appreciation for Energy, Oil & Gas

How do leaders in the energy sector keep company values alive across a vast, global workforce? For oil and gas teams, alignment with company goals, such as sustainability initiatives, starts with stronger connections between previously disconnected teams.

Mo helps leaders bring remote, hybrid and on-site teams together, turning staff appreciation into a powerful motivator. When employees feel connected to a shared purpose, engagement soars, and turnover drops. With one central platform built for celebration, progress and positivity, Mo makes it easy to bring your workforce together.

Transform your culture with Mo

Book a free demo to learn how Mo can help you:

• 🤝 Improve employee engagement scores
• 🚀 Reduce employee churn
• 😍 Build a collaborative culture

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Mo Brings Teams Together Through Staff Appreciation

Mo is an employee culture platform that brings teams together to drive real improvement in engagement scores while reducing staff turnover. We strategically help people teams create great places to work through continuous, positive action.

If you’re looking for ways to take action on measuring employee engagement, learn more about how to shift the dial at the manager level and transform insights into action. To find out if you’re eligible for our money-back guarantee, book a demo with our team.