Recognising and celebrating employees' successes: Simple ways to make your team feel valued

In the creative world, it's far too easy to get swept up in the relentless tide of deadlines, client demands and project deliverables. But when you're racing from one thing to the next, how do you make time to pause and celebrate the wins – big or small? Many creative leaders wrestle with how to meaningfully recognise employees' successes without it feeling like yet another task on the list.

Here's the good news: it doesn’t have to be complicated or overthought. Often the most powerful recognition comes from the simplest, most human gestures. Systems that encourage appreciation and celebration can be woven into your culture, so it doesn’t rely solely on you remembering to give someone a pat on the back.

This discussion was led by Nick Hunter – Co-founder, CEO and Executive Creative Director of Paper Moose, a B Corp certified independent creative and production agency that’s been shaking things up for a decade – and Dr Khristin Highet – a clinical psychologist and founder of Mind Evolution Enterprises with over 15 years’ experience supporting creative professionals and building workplace wellbeing strategies. Andy Wright, CEO of Streamtime and host of Never Not Creative, kept the conversation grounded and practical.

Create systems that work without you

Nick is the first to admit that recognition can’t just sit on the shoulders of leadership: "We have a shout out mechanism every week we have an anonymous shout out box where people pop in channels that they want to recognise their team for doing awesome work and then we announce that on Monday sort of our company-wide web so it's a great way for everyone to ensure that they're recognising each other."

When recognition becomes peer-to-peer, it stops being a “nice to have” and starts being a natural part of your company culture. Nick’s advice is to avoid overengineering it: "I think the danger is making it quite a labourious thing and time consuming. I don't think it necessarily needs to be that."

Make recognition immediate and genuine

The best recognition doesn’t need a meeting, a PowerPoint or a budget. It happens in the moment. As Nick explains: "Often just commenting to an employee about something that you've seen or that they've done at that moment is also very... people just want to be seen and understand that the work that they're doing is meaningful."

Andy agrees and shares how his team approach it: "We do a weekly shout out in our stand-ups. You don't have to do it every week but we normally do go look yeah I just want to shout out this person for what they did last week." And sometimes, he says, an emoji on Slack is enough: "It's just recognising, it's just validating and understanding like you've seen it."

Celebrate effort, not just outcomes

Khristin brings an important reminder: not every success is about a shiny final result. "It can be really important to praise the effort and not just the outcome so you know even sometimes just surviving a very challenging or highly demanding time can be a huge achievement and also be specific with your people about what were the contributors that helped to achieve the outcome."

This mindset validates resilience, learning and growth, and it helps your team feel valued even when things don’t go perfectly.

Be intentional about what you celebrate

Nick points out that if you’re not careful, you can end up reinforcing the wrong behaviours: "Work out what it is that you want to celebrate because sometimes it's just behaviours and if you're trying to build a culture around certain behaviours being able to recognise that actually these are the behaviours that we want to celebrate then that kind of helps sort of reinforce what it is you want people to do in future."

He warns against glorifying burnout: "If I know that there are agencies who will you know this person did an amazing job they came in they worked all weekend and then they worked every late night last week and we celebrate that well guess what we've actually just celebrated a culture which is going to burn people out."

Create moments to share and celebrate work

Recognition isn’t only about individuals, it’s about the collective wins too. Andy suggests building in regular opportunities to bring everyone together: "Just ensuring that you are celebrating the wins and celebrating the work and having those moments whether it's just going out to lunch together or having a moment where everyone is showing and sharing the work because often in a business like that is not everyone is across everything that everyone is doing."

These moments help teams connect, understand each other’s contributions and strengthen bonds across departments and projects.

You’re not alone in wanting to do better

Recognising employees' successes doesn’t need to be grand, expensive or time-consuming. Start small. Be consistent. Focus on feedback that feels authentic and specific. Build simple systems so it becomes part of your culture, not an afterthought.

Most importantly, remember this: your people want to feel seen. They want to know their contributions matter. When you genuinely appreciate the effort they bring, you help create a healthier, happier workplace where good work can flourish.

‍