Getting Personal: The Power of Appreciation
It’s that time of year. Now, more than ever, we begin to look for ways to show appreciation to those around us. As a result, gift card sales soar. But, have you wondered how meaningful and impactful those “appreciation” gift cards are – the ones that are handed out like candy at work? Or, that stack of Starbucks gift cards you buy to give out to those who help you in your personal life? Would a simple heartfelt “thank you” have more meaning and impact? Well, recently, researchers Bradler and Neckerman (2016) conducted experiments to examine this very issue. And this is what they found.
Results show that either a financial gift of $5 or a personalized thank you note significantly increased performance. This suggests that the monetary gift and the personal thank you note were equally effective.
Interestingly, a combination of a $5 gift card and a thank you card that was not personalized did not increase performance.
Overall, the results suggested that the combination of money and gratitude only works when it’s accompanied by a personal approach, such as a written note or in-person expression of gratitude.
The researchers conducted another experiment to verify the results. In a subsequent experiment, they found similar results and concluded the following:
Personalized appreciation can be an effective substitute for a financial gift.
Even better, when you combine a monetary gift and invest personal care in the presentation of that gift, the response is significantly larger than if the giver provided a monetary gift or gratitude alone.
A combination of appreciation and money as a gift without any personalization does not work well and may actually be perceived as negative.
Important Takeaways
While the implications of this study may be obvious, here are a few takeaways for you to consider both at work and in your personal life.
Giving a financial or monetary gift alone may be perceived as an economic exchange and prompt the receiver to think, “I did all that and all I got was a $5 gift card?”.
However, a personalized ‘thank you’ might be perceived by another person as a social exchange, even when it’s accompanied by a financial reward.
The implications of this research for the workplace are significant. Consider this, according to Forbes, there is a $46 billion market for employee recognition rewards. And this amount is only related to recognition rewards given as symbols of gratitude, rather than as explicit bonuses for performance. Wow! That’s a big number for something that might not be effective.
So, if you’re tempted to use monetary rewards at work or in your personal life, you might want to consider how those “gifts” will be received and take time to think about how you’ll present them. For example, you may want to accompany any monetary gift with a hand-written note or an in-person presentation or, perhaps, even substitute that monetary gift for an invitation to a special event, dinner at your home, a personalized gift, or some other symbolic reward.
And in your personal life, think about this. Instead of running around trying to figure out what you can do for that neighbor who picked up your Amazon boxes or ran an errand for you, consider how you can move that expression of gratitude from a monetary exchange to one of true appreciation.
Shifting your approach to one that is personalized will be even more meaningful and might save you money, both at work and in your personal life.
Need a few tips on expressing gratitude? Check out one of our newest micro-lessons to help you become more comfortable expressing meaningful appreciation.
REFERENCE
Bradler, C., & Neckermann, S. (2016). The magic of the personal touch: Field experimental evidence on money and appreciation as gifts. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics.