Workplace appreciation is a brain-altering experience and a strategic imperative grounded in neuroscience.
When people feel seen and valued, their brains release chemicals that increase motivation, trust, and connection. And when appreciation is absent, the brain registers it as a threat to social belonging, triggering stress responses that undermine performance and collaboration.
What Happens in the Brain When We Feel Appreciated?
When someone receives sincere, specific appreciation, three key chemicals are released:
- Dopamine: the “reward” chemical that motivates behavior and boosts positive disposition.
- Oxytocin: the “bonding” hormone that increases feelings of trust and connection.
- Serotonin: the neurotransmitter linked to well-being, confidence, and emotional regulation.
Appreciation helps the brain encode positive experiences more deeply, creating “inner strengths” that support resilience, problem-solving, and calm under pressure. (Green)
Put simply, workplace appreciation builds the emotional foundation for high performance, especially in environments where stress and complexity are constant.
Critically, appreciation practices lower Human Capital Risk – those behaviors and dynamics that can cripple your brand and your bottom line.
Why Lack of Workplace Appreciation Triggers the Stress Response
The human brain is wired for belonging and significance. When these needs aren’t met, such as when hard work goes unnoticed, the brain activates the amygdala, our threat detector. This “fight, flight, or freeze” response floods the body with cortisol, narrowing our focus and impairing cognitive flexibility.
This is why chronically unappreciated teams experience:
- Lower collaboration
- Higher burnout
- Increased interpersonal conflict
- Greater turnover
Workplace appreciation isn’t just about morale, it’s about retention, trust, and organizational stability. In fact, in a recent survey, 66% of employees said they would leave their job if they didn’t feel appreciated. (Jones, 2025)
Appreciation as a Performance Strategy
Too often, performance conversations focus on correction, not reinforcement and encouragement. Yet research from Harvard Business School shows that positive feedback improves both engagement and problem-solving, especially when it is frequent, specific, and personalized.
Some practical applications:
- Use Positive Reinforcement to Strengthen Behavior
The brain learns through repetition. When you acknowledge the behaviors you want more of like timeliness, reliability, thoroughness, curiosity, and courtesy, you reinforce neural pathways that make those behaviors more likely to repeat.
- Build Feedback Loops that Include Appreciation
Instead of saving praise for annual reviews, build it into team meetings, retrospectives, or project debriefs. Neuroscience shows that small, consistent doses of appreciation are more effective than rare, grand gestures.
- Acknowledge Emotional Labor and Invisible Work
Recognition isn’t only for results. Appreciating someone for resolving a behind-the-scenes conflict, mentoring a peer, pitching it at the last minute, or handling feedback with grace sends powerful signals of value and safety, something which the brain craves.
- Be Specific and Sincere
Vague compliments activate less reward circuitry than detailed, personalized praise.
Instead of “great job,” try something on the lines of, “your ability to stay calm and reframe that difficult moment really shifted the tone of the meeting, thank you.”
- Make Appreciation Peer-Driven
The brain processes appreciation differently when it comes from peers versus managers. Peer recognition increases oxytocin and helps build collective efficacy – the belief that “we can do this together.”
What This Means for Leaders
Leaders shape the emotional climate of their teams. When they model regular, authentic appreciation, they lower cortisol levels, increase psychological safety, and boost creative problem-solving.
This is especially important in high-stakes or high-change environments, where team members are more likely to feel intensity and stress at work. Appreciation boosts cognitive and emotional capacity, enabling better collaboration and decision-making.
As neuropsychologist Dr. David Rock, the founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, explains in his SCARF model, status and certainty are core brain-based needs, and recognition directly supports both. (Learn more about the SCARF Model here.)
Culture Shifts Begin in the Brain
Creating a culture of appreciation isn’t about motivational posters or gift cards. It’s about designing systems and rituals that align with how humans actually function: biologically, socially, and emotionally.
When appreciation becomes embedded in daily practice, it rewires both individual brains and team dynamics, unlocking innovation, connection, and performance that can’t be mandated through pressure alone.
Think back to a time when someone’s appreciation changed how you felt at work.
- What exactly did they say or do?
- How did it impact your mindset, energy, or effort?
- What would shift if your team made this kind of appreciation a regular practice — not the exception?
Workplace appreciation is not extra. It’s how we bring the brain, the heart, and the culture into alignment.
Check out how you can create an atmosphere of psychological safety by utilising Harmony Strategies services.
References and Resources
Nina Green: 7 Ways Gratitude Rewires Your Brain: The Science Behind a Powerful Practice
Danielle Jones: 50 Must-Know Employee Recognition Statistics in 2025
NeuroLeadership Institute: 5 Ways to Spark (or Destroy) Your Employees’ Motivation
Christine Porath: Ted Talk on Why Being Respectful to Your Coworkers Is Good for Business
Rick Hanson: Hardwiring Happiness
Harvard Business Review: The Feedback Fallacy
Joe Hirsch: Ted Talk on The Joy of Getting Feedback
