Why Appreciating Your Team Is Good for Your Business 

Many collision repair professionals are drawn to the industry because it offers hands-on, problem-solving work, the satisfaction of restoring damaged vehicles, and the opportunity to build a stable career without a traditional college path. What many didn’t anticipate is how deeply their success would depend on the people working beside them every day. 

The Backstory 

Over time, the importance of having top-quality team members becomes evident to most repair professionals. You can be the best technician or estimator in your market, but if the parts specialist doesn’t follow through, cycle time suffers. If customer communication breaks down, CSI scores decline. And when manufacturer repair procedures aren’t followed, vehicle safety is compromised.  

In fact, many collision center owners and managers lose sight of one of the most critical components of their operation and the subtle ways it can be neglected and eventually lost. That asset? Their team members.  

Good employees are not easy to find, develop or keep. Anyone who has lost a key team member (especially unexpectedly) and tried to find a replacement knows this. Finding a person with the training and experience needed to do the job and someone who has the character qualities you desire is difficult. 

In today’s collision repair environment, with a nationwide technician shortage and increasing complexity of repairs, losing even one experienced team member can disrupt production significantly. 

The Challenge

As a leader, you are at risk for misunderstanding what your team members truly want. Many collision center owners and managers believe their employees are motivated primarily by financial gain, with the assumption that more money is the primary driver. While competitive pay matters, many technicians leave shops where they feel invisible, unheard, disrespected, or taken for granted. 

Research studies for decades have debunked this belief. Sure, people want to earn more money, but when they voluntarily leave a company, most employees indicate they don’t leave for more money. In fact, 79% report that a primary reason they leave is  because they don’t feel appreciated.  

Many leaders don’t believe this, so let me offer you some more compelling data. In a global study of 200,000 employees, the Boston Consulting Group found that the number one factor employees related to enjoying their job was that they  felt appreciated  (financial compensation didn’t show up until #8). Additionally, a study at the Sloan School of Business at MIT found that during the “Great Resignation” of 2021-2022, employees who left an organization cited a lack of appreciation three times more frequently than compensation as the reason for leaving. 

Now, you may think you are doing okay in this area – that your employees know you appreciate them. Sorry,  probably not.  A national Globoforce employee recognition survey across numerous companies found that 51% of managers think they do a pretty good job of recognizing employees for work well done (we like this statistic because it feels “real” to us – rather than “95% of managers think they are great at recognizing their team members”). But the problem is, only 17% of the employees  who worked for those managers felt the manager did an adequate job of recognizing them for doing a good job. Obviously, there is a disconnect somewhere. 

Communicating Authentic Appreciation to Your Team  

Both via research and practical experience, we have found that: 

1. Employees want to feel valued and appreciated at work.
2. Most employees don’t feel appreciated.
3. A majority of leaders and managers: 
   a) Think they are doing an adequate job of communicating appreciation. 
   b) Don’t know what else to do (beyond what they’ve been doing.) 

Many people in the U.S. have heard of the 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. Having sold over 25 million books, Dr. Chapman delineated how people differ in the ways they express love and experience being loved in personal relationships. I partnered with Dr. Chapman to apply the 5 languages to work-based relationships in our book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace,  along with an online assessment to identify the specific ways each person prefers to be shown appreciation, and a training process to help team members apply the concepts in daily life. 

Many collision repair professionals want to lead their businesses in ways that reflect their core values (including valuing their employees), but are often uncertain how to put those values into practice day to day. We believe that by showing you and your team members how to communicate appreciation in the ways meaningful to each person, the 5 languages of appreciation provide a practical and effective framework for building respect, trust, and a healthier workplace culture.  

How Appreciation Impacts the Functioning of a Collision Repair Center  

Ultimately, running a collision repair business is about serving customers well while operating a financially viable center. As a result, many owners and managers think, “Yes, I want people to enjoy their work, but I’m not a cheerleader, and we’ve got cars to fix and deadlines to meet.” True. 

But consider this. We know that when team members, regardless of their role in the shop, genuinely feel valued and appreciated (which is very different from simply going through the motions of an employee recognition program), positive outcomes follow. 

Conversely, when staff don’t feel valued: 

• Tardiness increases 

• People call in “sick” more often 

• Productivity decreases 

• Policies and procedures are not regularly followed 

• More conflict occurs over petty issues 

• People become more irritable 

• Client complaints increase 

• Persevering to solve a problem situation declines 

• Turnover increases (which is the #1 non-productive cost to any business) 

Now, do you see the impact and importance of your staff feeling appreciated? 

Employee Recognition vs. Authentic Appreciation  

Many collision repair centers do not have formal employee recognition programs. When recognition does occur, it is often informal and occasional, such as a pizza lunch, a holiday meal, or a Thanksgiving turkey. While these gestures are usually well-intended, they rarely address whether team members feel genuinely valued as individuals. 

Also, these types of recognition efforts tend to be generic (everyone receives the same thing), group-based (with little personal connection), and disconnected from the day-to-day contributions of most employees. As a result, they may express gratitude for the team as a whole, but they often fail to communicate meaningful appreciation to individuals. 

A key concept to understand is that  not everyone feels appreciated in the same ways.  Not everyone values a verbal compliment. From our work with over 450,000 employees who have taken our  Motivating By Appreciation Inventory, fewer than 50% choose words of affirmation (giving compliments and saying “thanks”) as their primary appreciation language. Some people feel valued when you spend some individual time with them. Others appreciate working together on tasks or getting some practical help when facing a time deadline. In fact, we’ve identified five languages of appreciation that are important in the workplace. 

Keys for Communicating Authentic Appreciation  

In working with team members from dozens of collision repair centers across the country, we have found four key factors necessary for employees to truly feel valued. Our published research shows that when organizations apply the concept of authentic appreciation, team members report a significant increase in feeling genuinely appreciated. 

Employees will feel truly valued when appreciation is: 

1. Communicated regularly (not just once or twice a year at a performance review);
2. Shared in the language and actions most important to the  recipient  (not what makes  you  feel appreciated);
3. Delivered individually and personally (not to the whole group in a team meeting);
4. Perceived as authentic (not just “going through the motions”) 

The Solution

Your team members are your collision center’s most valuable asset (try meeting production goals, maintaining quality, or serving customers without them!) As technician shortages continue and repair complexity increases, finding and keeping quality employees has become a limiting factor for many shops. To lead a healthy, high-performing team, owners and managers must learn how to communicate appreciation in ways that are meaningful to each individual. If they do not, performance suffers, and key team members will eventually leave. That is a costly problem you don’t want – and one you can avoid. Additionally, the cost to implement a program of teaching team members how to show appreciation to one another is a fraction of the cost of losing quality employees and finding their replacements (not to mention reducing the stress level of owners and managers).