{"id":7190,"date":"2025-04-25T17:19:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/?p=7190"},"modified":"2025-04-25T17:19:21","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T16:19:21","slug":"how-can-i-help-people-feel-valued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/how-can-i-help-people-feel-valued\/","title":{"rendered":"How Can I&#8230;help people feel valued"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>\u201cRecognition right now? It doesn\u2019t feel appropriate; it\u2019s tone deaf to even consider celebrating achievements with everything else going on.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>I can see why some people might think this, and to a certain extent I agree. Holding award ceremonies and doing &#8220;employee of the week&#8221; could feel uncomfortable and out of place during our context of significant change. But these big gestures are at one end of the recognition scale. There are plenty of other things we can do as leaders and managers to help people feel valued \u2013 and these things aren\u2019t just \u2018nice to have\u2019 they are \u2018essential\u2019 right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A recent article states, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u2018During organizational change, uncertainty and stress are common. Recognition can alleviate some of this stress by\u00a0providing reassurance that employees&#8217; contributions are valued.\u2019 (Field, 2024)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The word \u2018<strong>reassurance<\/strong>\u2019 jumps out here. It\u2019s natural to question whether your skills are valued during change. Most of us have probably asked ourselves, &#8220;does the organisation value my skills?&#8221; &#8220;If I am put at risk or my current job is changing significantly does that mean my contributions and skills aren\u2019t valued?&#8221;. This can be unsettling and can lead to self-doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As leaders and managers, we can reassure and motivate people through thoughtful recognition, and by reminding them that, whatever the outcome, they are valued. Often what gets in the way of us doing this is concern about the appropriateness of the gesture, and a fear of getting it wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are some simple actions you can take to help people feel valued right now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Read our <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/how-can-i\/\">\u2018How can I encourage kindness\u2019 blog<\/a>.<\/strong> Acknowledging the situation, listening and taking a genuine interest in people are the starting point. This shows you care and will make the recognition you give feel <strong>authentic<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Celebrate <strong>effort<\/strong>. Even coming to work for some people right now might be difficult. I\u2019m not suggesting you stand up and congratulate your team on turning up for work&#8230;but if you know someone is struggling with this, acknowledge their efforts and offer support. For others the effort might be their creativity, their resilience, their willingness to support others around them. Let them know you\u2019ve noticed this and are grateful for it.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Recognise <strong>progress <\/strong>along the way. If people are working towards a goal or piece of work, don\u2019t wait until its completed to say well done. Recognise milestones or the fact they have overcome obstacles. Let them know they are on the right track.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Help people reflect on their <strong>achievements <\/strong>since joining the team, also ask them about the small things they do that make a difference. This is a great way of helping people recognise the value they add. Many of us struggle with talking about our achievements but it\u2019s an essential skill, so opening up a discussion about it will help develop this too.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Let them know what <strong>strengths <\/strong>and qualities you really admire. Ask them which strengths they will draw on to get them through the next phase, whatever that might be. If they aren\u2019t sure what their strengths are the <a href=\"https:\/\/stafflearn.canterbury.ac.uk\/totara\/dashboard\/index.php?id=75\"><strong>VIA Strengths assessment<\/strong><\/a> can help with this.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Incorporate recognition into every team meeting \u2013 even if it\u2019s just to say <strong>thank you<\/strong>\u2026.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/602\/2025\/04\/wilhelm-gunkel-L04Kczg_Jvs-unsplash-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7202\" style=\"width:488px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/602\/2025\/04\/wilhelm-gunkel-L04Kczg_Jvs-unsplash-1.jpg 640w, https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/602\/2025\/04\/wilhelm-gunkel-L04Kczg_Jvs-unsplash-1-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/return-relationships-making-your-team-feel-like-belong-ali-agha-hdshe\/\">\u2018Making your team feel valued and like they belong.<\/a> \u2019LinkedIn, Ali Agha, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joinassembly.com\/blog\/employee-engagement-strategies-during-organizational-change#:~:text=Recognition%3A%20During%20organizational%20change%2C%20uncertainty,are%20on%20the%20right%20path\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">\u2018Employee Engagement Strategies During Organizational Change.\u2019<\/a> Field, 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Harriet Robb, Learning and Organisational Development Team<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cRecognition right now? It doesn\u2019t feel appropriate; it\u2019s tone deaf to even consider celebrating achievements with everything else going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136217,"featured_media":7194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1138,10],"tags":[270,1154,158,1150],"class_list":["post-7190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-can-i","category-leadership","tag-change","tag-recognition","tag-team","tag-value"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"Juliet Flynn","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/602\/2025\/04\/Values-blog-2.jpg","postExcerpt":"\u201cRecognition right now? It doesn\u2019t feel appropriate; it\u2019s tone deaf to even consider celebrating achievements with everything else going on.\u201d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7190"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7230,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7190\/revisions\/7230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/staffdevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}