# Workplace Surgery: thanking an employee who's basically family - **Episode:** [210](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/210.md) (2025-07-01) - **Type:** workplace-surgery - **Tags:** employee-recognition, family, gratitude - **Time:** 37:33–42:52 (start 2253s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/210?t=2253](https://truthliesandwork.com/210?t=2253) --- [37:33] Al Elliott: Okay, it's my favourite time of the week. It's the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Leanne's a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. She's here to answer your work-related questions. So question number 1, how do you thank an employee who's basically family? Uh, this person writes, I recently took over my mum's business and one of her longest-serving employees coming on our 10-year anniversary. She's kind, loyal, incredibly hardworking, and honestly, it feels like she feels like part of the family. I gave her a massage voucher. I better make sure I say that clearly. I gave her a massage voucher, didn't give her a massage. I gave her a massage voucher for her birthday, which she loved, but I do want to do something more sentimental to mark this milestone. Lee, any ideas for a meaningful gift that truly says thank you? [38:18] Leanne Elliott: I'm going to skip over the family bit. I'm just, I'm just gonna, I might come back to that later, but just to take your question as it is, what do we know? What do we know? What does psychology tell us? Um, no, it's experiences over stuff is probably the really simple, high-level answer. Um, we like experiences. They, they boost our, our happiness for longer, much more than things. In terms of experiences, there's 2 things in life that we're all short of, and that's money and time. So, if you can give this person some time back in some way to maybe go away for a bit or give her some— saying it as well is always quite nice in case there's some variables there that you don't know about. So, maybe a trip away somewhere. I don't know. I don't know this person, so it's very hard to be specific, but I would say experiences and anything you can do to give the person back some time would be really nice. I don't know if you have an office, if you have a wall of fame, if you have employees of the month or that type of thing, you could— [39:17] Al Elliott: Yeah [39:17] Leanne Elliott: You could give her one of those as well. Um, yeah, I don't really know where to go from here because I'll be honest, the question makes me a little bit uncomfortable because of the family thing. Because you've just taken over your mum's business, so I appreciate it's a family business. This person's been with the business for 10 years. That's awesome. Um, does it say 10 years? I just made that up [39:37] Al Elliott: No, it says 10 years [39:39] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, yeah, 10 years. They're not family. They're not family. They're, they're a part of your community. They're an important part of your community, important part of your business, important part of your world. But this mindset could potentially get you into trouble further down the line if something happens with this member of staff, or indeed as you start to expand your business. Family doesn't stay a family very long if you've got 20, 30, 40, 50 employees. The other thing as well, in terms of what you can actually do to do something nice for this person, think a bit broader. Think a bit more about her considerable contribution to the business and how you can reward that in terms of— [40:16] Al Elliott: Yeah [40:17] Leanne Elliott: Her career, her professional life. I don't know what that would look like, but it could be things like, does she want to travel? Does she want to take a 6-month sabbatical knowing that her job is waiting for her? Does she want to pursue a different stream of her career, a development avenue that she hasn't had the opportunity to, that still gives her a place in the business, but, you know, is, is something new and fresh and challenging for her? Hmm. Are there elements of the job that she really hates and she just puts up with because she's very loyal? It's having these conversations saying, you know, we want you to be with us for another 10 years or until you retire. What can we do to make sure that the work is still interesting, it's still meaningful, it still gives you purpose, it's still rewarding? All of those questions are going to do much more to show this person how appreciated they are, how much you recognise them, and how committed you are to keeping them in the business. That in terms of the engagement you're looking for, the, the celebrating this person aspect of it, I think you're going to find much more success there than buying them a gold watch or sending them on a holiday. Is that harsh, Al? [41:24] Al Elliott: Um, no, actually I think that's a really good point. And I think also we've got to think about is that, um, this is potentially going to set a precedent for everyone who hits the 10-year anniversary. So you might be like, oh, Oh, you know, this is, this is Marjorie. It is a female, isn't it? It's a woman. Um, yes, longest-term employees, she's— yes. So it could be like, oh, Marjorie, you know, when I was a kid, Marjorie used to look after me when I was coming back from school and stuff. Separate that because that's Marjorie outside of work, and then you've got Marjorie who works for you. So yes, yes, do just be careful. You might be setting a precedent. Um, secondly, I really like that idea of a sabbatical. I really like that idea of Um, asking her what she wants the next 10 years to look like, because that's going to benefit you massively. Because if they— if this woman stays for another 10 years and does a sterling job for the next 10 years, you've got yourself an amazing employee. So, but yeah, like Leanne says, just be careful with family businesses. If you want to go back into the archives, about episode 33, 34, we had Stephen Short on, um, who talked about family businesses, um, and, um, often they go awry [42:27] Leanne Elliott: Yeah [42:28] Al Elliott: If you've seen Succession, then you'll know that. So yeah, maybe just go and counsel, go back and look at that as well [42:33] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. So if you want more help on that, how to approach that conversation, drop us another email, book in a chat, the link in LinkedIn, the link is on LinkedIn, on the brain. The link to book a call with me or Al is always in the show notes. But, but yeah, I love the sentiment. I think we can expand on it to have the most impact