First off, if you haven’t read Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages, stop reading – purchase the book from your favorite bookstore. There are versions for couples, singles, teens, and the workplace. Trust me – it’s life changing.

5_Love_Languages_at_WorkThe basic principle of the books is that there are 5 primary ways that people communicate their love:

  1. Quality Time
  2. Words of Affirmation
  3. Receiving Gifts
  4. Acts of Service
  5. Physical Touch

You are most likely to communicate love to others using your love language. But the person you are showing your love to receives love most easily when you speak to them in their love language.

My primary love languages are receiving gifts (probably obvious since I started a company that specializes in personal and corporate gift boxes) and acts of service. My lowest two are words of affirmation and physical touch. My husband’s #1 is words of affirmation, and my daughter’s is physical touch. So, I’ve had to learn to be multilingual in order to preserve and grow the relationships in my home.

I learned these languages almost a decade ago, but I never once thought of applying them to the workplace! Thank goodness my business partner at the time, Alicia Boisvert, had the revelation that speaking appreciation to our employees in their love languages could have a serious impact on their fulfillment in our workplace!

We had people who appreciated shout outs on team calls (words of affirmation), people that felt loved when they received thoughtful birthday/holiday gifts (receiving gifts), and others who loved for Alicia or I to fly out to their market to spend a day or two with them (quality time). I had operated from a one size fits all approach for years, but that was not working…at least not well.

5_Love_Languages_at_WorkSo, we completely changed how we operated. We began asking people what their love languages were during the interview and onboarding processes. This has changed our world drastically.

Now, we intentionally create opportunities to connect with our employees using their love languages. And the relationships with our employees become noticeably stronger.

How can you initiate this in your workplace? First, as we mentioned earlier, we recommend the 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace by Gary Chapman. Have your team take an assessment to figure out what their primary love language is. Create a system (or use the tools Dr. Chapman has created) for organizing this information and create ideas for appreciation that speak to this individual. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1.Quality Time: You can’t rush this one.

  • An out-of-office meeting at a nice restaurant
  • A morning walk instead of a meeting
  • Start each 1:1 meeting with 5 minutes of conversation about their life instead of jumping right in. At our company, we even changed the title of one employee’s 1:1 virtual meetings to “Coffee with…” It just gave it more of a feel of connecting.

2. Words of Affirmation: Tell them how you feel.

  • Be quick and frequent with shout outs via your company’s communication system. We use Slack most often for internal communication. This provides a great place for a quick mention of wins – big or small!
  • Handwrite a thank you card.
  • If you’re a small company, you can recognize wins publicly on social media with a shout out to that particular employee.

3. Receiving Gifts: It’s not really about the size of the gift. Sometimes the best business present ideas don’t cost a thing!

5_5 Love_Languages_at_Work

  • Send a gift for work or non-work holiday. It could be a hiring anniversary, birthday, new home, etc.
  • Bring something back from a tradeshow or work trip that you think they’d like. Maybe it’s a new product they’d like to try. Once, I sent my team members some samples of snacks and supplements so they could be part of that particular tradeshow’s bounty.

4. Acts of Service: What can you do that will make this person’s life easier?

  • Find something specific to take off your team member’s plate when they are in the weeds. It could be something small, but it will speak volumes.
  • If you’re looking for a gift for this person, it could be hiring a cleaning or lawn service, a meal plan (if you know their dietary needs) or something else that creates more time for them to do the things they love!

5. Physical Touch: According to our HR department, there are some appropriate ways to speak the language of physical touch, even in the work place. This one can be tricky, so you do have to err on the side of caution here.

  • Literal pats on the back
  • Fist bumps
  • Side hugs

There are hundreds of ways to show your employees and clients you care about them! The key is to speak your love and appreciation for them in the language they best understand.