National Day of Encouragement on September 12, provides a fantastic day to encourage employees, colleagues, and customers. National Day of Encouragement started in 2007 and is rapidly becoming a day where teams and individuals take time to encourage and uplift each other.
Back in the early 2000s, a group of high school students were attending a leadership forum at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. They were asked to come up with a solution to the biggest challenge facing high schoolers today. The problem they identified was a lack of encouragement.
They wanted to boost encouragement to help overcome negative influences. Their solution was to create a day of encouragement. September 12 was chosen because it comes after September 11, one of the most discouraging and sad days in American history. The high schoolers reasoned that they could make a difference by creating a day of encouragement to uplift, reassure, and boost others.
They saw the day grow. First, Belinda LaForce, then mayor of Searcy, issued a proclamation on the Day of Encouragement on August 22, 2007. Then, the Governor of Arkansas at the time, Mike Beebe issued a proclamation that designated September 12 as the “State Day of Encouragement.” In 2007, President George W. Bush signed a document designating September 12, as the “National Day of Encouragement.” Following that, Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Senator, introduced a Senate Resolution for the National Day of Encouragement. It was unanimously passed on September 13, 2011, ten years after 9-11.
How to Celebrate National Day of Encouragement
Many studies have shown that basically everyone does better with encouragement. Employees perform better when they are encouraged instead of criticized. Encouragement comes in many forms. It can be helping someone to accomplish a goal or expressing a belief in them. It can be a high-five, an ecard, or a thoughtful message. It can be an acknowledgment of a job well done. Peer encouragement, in all its forms, is a powerful motivator.
Managers have a profound impact on the experience of their employees and whether they feel encouraged and supported or berated and criticized. On National Day of Encouragement this year there are many ways you can encourage and appreciate your employees. Let’s dive in!
Discuss Professional Goals and Aspirations With Employees
National Day of Encouragement is about encouraging someone in their goals and dreams. As a leader, you have a chance to make a far-reaching impact on an employee’s path. Take a few minutes either on National Day of Encouragement or throughout the week to meek with your employees and discuss their goals and aspirations.
Approach this meeting with a positive attitude you would approach a conversation with a close friend, but realize that as a supervisor, you also have the power to greatly influence your employees.
Ask your team how you can best support their goals and aspirations. Discuss what tools and resources would best help them and what challenges they face. There may be opportunities to support them in ways that feasible.
One manager discovered that her employee really wanted to take continuing ed classes. Although the business was small and didn’t have a program to help cover the cost of tuition, the manager was able to support her employee by giving her an hour of flextime on the days her employee had class. This meant a great deal to the employee, who felt supported and encouraged.
Send an Ecard With Encouragement
Ecards are an excellent way to encourage, recognize, and tell your employees “thanks!” Thanks has a number of ecards available to anyone who wants to send a little written cheer vía email. Check it out here. Simply sending an ecard is a great way to encourage someone, but there are a few ways you can increase the impact of your message.
- Be Specific: This adds a touch of personal care to the message. “I’ve seen you care about people from the first week you started when you stopped to give advice to Phillip. I know you will achieve your dream to complete your HR degree!”
- Give Examples: Choose a trait or characteristic that your recipient has that demonstrates to you that they can make their dreams come true. Point out that strength to them.
- Recognize: Name something they’ve accomplished recently or an admirable challenge they’ve overcome that you appreciate or admire.
- Encourage: Tell them how they have positively impacted your work life in some way.
The Day of Encouragement gives you an “excuse” to refocus your team on inspiring and encouraging each other. Inspire your team to take a few moments to also send a card to someone and encourage them.
Publicly Recognize An Employee For An Outstanding Job
Another way to encourage someone is to publicly encourage and recognize them. Recognition has the ability to not only tell someone “you’ve done a great job!” but also say “You can achieve your goals!”
As you recognize others, focus on traits and hard work that make a success, not the actual success. For example, “Great job winning the Smith Account!” may make an employee insecure if they feel that it was luck or they may not be able to replicate it.
Instead, try; “Your consistent communication with the Smiths is the main reason you won the account!” or “I was impressed by your dedication in handling all the Smith’s questions and concerns and I knew watching you that you would continue to have a profound impact on this team and company!”
By redirecting your praise and encouragement to the individual and their actions and traits, you can most effectively encourage those around you and help others who read your message to see them in the same light- which spreads the encouragement. In Thanks, employees can publicly recognize through the Wall of Fame.
Bring in a Motivational Speaker or Leader
If you are looking for a way to encourage your team as a whole, consider having a community leader or motivational speaker come speak to your organization. Have employees write down items on their bucket list or goals they hope to achieve.
A motivational speaker can have a profound influence on employees. If you don’t have the ability to bring someone in, consider having a group activity where you watch a video or conference with a speaker. Or, ask someone to share a message and record it, then send it to your employees to watch when they have time.
Conclusion
Encouraging colleagues and staff on the National Day of Encouragement shouldn’t only happen once a year. But, using the Day of Encouragement to pause and encourage others at work will have a positive impact on them.
If you are looking for other ideas or ways to encourage those around you, check out these articles:
13 Written Ways To Show Employees Appreciation
11 Ways to show Employee Appreciation by Investing in their Professional Development
8 Reasons Your Company Needs A Mentoring Program
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.