Motivation-boosting affirmation activities for team building

Positive affirmation in the workplace goes beyond saying positive statements to your teammates. 

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To affirm your employees means to make them feel supported, recognized, and encouraged at work. And as much as constructive words play a part, affirmation also has to do with the actions you take to make your team members feel seen, appreciated, and valued.

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Related articles to help boost motivation:

• Our team’s 7 favorite thankful team building activities
• 14 gift ideas for team building to show your employees you care
• 6 positive attitude team building activities to boost morale 2022/2023
• 5 team building activities to boost morale for remote teams

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Effects of encouragement and affirmation in the workplace

According to research by Behavioral Public Administration and HR Dive, there are quite a number of benefits of encouraging and affirming your employees in the workplace. Some of these include:

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• Managed stress: Employees that receive positive affirmations in the workplace are less likely to experience stress and burnout. They are also more likely to handle difficult tasks better. 

• Increased job satisfaction: Positive affirmation at work can help employees feel more encouraged, optimistic, and generally satisfied with their job and work environment. 

• Employees feel appreciated: These studies also showed that one of the ways employees feel most appreciated is by written or oral words of affirmation.
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• ‍Increased motivation: An affirmed team is more likely to put in their best at work and care about the success of the company.

6 affirmation activities for team building 

Now that you know just how much of a positive effect affirmation can have, you’ll need to choose the right activities to help you make your teammates feel affirmed and appreciated. 

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Here are 6 affirmation activities for team building to get you started.

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If you need more advice on team building, take a look at our other articles on team building activities for work, how to improve team building online, free virtual team building activities, and the best team building apps and software.

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1. Try Appreciation Shower

Appreciation Shower is an activity that will help you to motivate your whole team by praising each other in personal 1:1 sessions. You'll come out of this activity feeling valued, motivated and happy. Appreciation Shower is free to try.

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How it works:‍

1. Take some notes about each of your colleagues (only the ones who joined this activity) and what you value about them.
2. Go into 1:1’s (the app brings your notes with you) and praise each other. There will be so many smiles – promise!
3. Get together in the end and share what you’re looking forward to in the coming weeks
4. Bonus: You can ask the app to send colleagues another compliment in a week - it'll make their morning!

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2. Focus on you 

This team-building activity can help teammates deepen their relationships and affirm each other. To play, 

• Come up with a set of questions for the game. For example, “The name I prefer to be called is…”, “my passions and hobbies are…?”, “what I do best is…?”, “a personal goal I have is…?”
• Have each team member take turns answering the questions without interruption.
• Once they’ve shared, others can ask questions to get more details. 
• After each person has shared, shuffle everyone’s name in a box and have each person pick a teammate to affirm based on what they’ve learned about them. This could be vocally or through a small gift. For example, ‘David said he loves crafting, so I can gift him a set of colorful yarn to add to his collection”. 

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Additional resources: Communication team building activities 

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3. Schedule team health checks

An effective way to manage stress is by simply talking about it. Setting up a structure for employees to freely speak up will help them feel more affirmed and encouraged. 

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To do this, you can schedule weekly check-ins with your team members to discuss any stress factors affecting their work life. This group activity not only brings your team closer together, but also helps employees open up, encourage each other, and proffer solutions to any issues their teammates might have. 

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4. Celebrating achievements

Celebrating the achievements and successes of your team members is one way to make them feel recognized and appreciated in the company. Whenever a teammate meets a goal, completes a huge project, wins an award, or celebrates a significant milestone in their life, make a habit of celebrating with them and reminding them of how valuable they are to the team. 

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A few ways to celebrate your team members include:

• Team lunches/dinners
• Extra days off 
• Gift baskets
• Personalized items 
• Gift cards

5. ‘Praise it forward’ cards 

Here’s a simple affirmation activity for you to try out.  Handwritten notes expressing thanks and affirmation are a great way to let your employees know that you recognize them for their hard work and appreciate all that they do. Cards like these act as a constant reminder that they are valued by you and the team. You can even customize your cards with fun and quirky designs so employees can pin them to their desks. 

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6. Start an employee of the month program

An employee-of-the-month program allows you to publicly affirm and appreciate those who have gone above and beyond over the course of the month. You can also incorporate a reward system to motivate other employees to work harder. For example, the employee of the month could receive a gift, a paid bonus, or a half-day. 

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To get the whole team involved in this program, you can have teammates vote on who has been the best employee each month.  

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Affirmation activities for team building - More than words

Affirming your employees should be a regular practice in the workplace and should involve both words and actions to have lasting a lasting effect. However, keep in mind that a culture of affirmation isn’t built in one day, so remember - patience and consistency is the name of the game.