“Great job!” It’s a commonly used phrase that we’ve heard since childhood. Little league, report cards, riding a bike, and more. While everyone enjoys receiving praise, keep in mind that the words “great job” lack definition of what exactly was great. Effective leaders do more than say “Great job” or “Thank You” when recognizing employees.

Forms of recognition can be an email, a phone call or ideally, an in-person conversation. Recognition may be public or private. The most important part of recognition is that it should always be highly specific about the action or behavior that was done well.

Center for Practical Management offers the following best practices to ensure that your employees know exactly what they did to receive the praise, what impact that had on their customers or team, and reinforcement that encourages continuation of the activity or behavior.

• Use language that praises performance. Adjectives like amazing, wonderful, fantastic, etc. relay how happy you are with an employee’s performance and will inspire the employee to continue that positive behavior.
• Explain how their behaviors impacted the customer experience, improved efficiencies, or strengthened the team.  
• Recognize your employee or team’s abilities that led them to this positive outcome. Was it their knowledge and skills that led them to this success? Were they doing specific activities to achieve a positive result?
• Engaging the employee is the final best practice. Explore how the accomplishment was achieved. How can others learn from this employee to reach similar results?

The manager’s role is to create and nurture an environment that inspires employees to want to excel and to obtain knowledge and skills to achieve superior performance. When you positively recognize your employees, you will motivate them to perform at higher levels and ensure greater productivity for your team.

Once you put these best practices in place, you will think differently when you hear the phrase, “Great Job!”