This is a guest post by Adrian Mansfield who is International Associate Director for the recruitment firm Jonathan Lee.

In my very humble opinion in today’s world of full inboxes, heavy schedules and tight deadlines we just don’t celebrate wins of any size anywhere near enough and that’s a problem.

For a start a win you fail to celebrate when it happens will be lost forever in the day-to-day so your world and the world of your team becomes, well, grey. People just plod on trying to “get though it all”. Meh!

Worse still, over time we just lose the habit of celebration which we often recognise and then try to rectify with one “big hit” celebration and we all know how much “fun” they can be!

So what can you do? The answer is insanely simple: start celebrating the small wins right now! Rebuild the habit and just see what happens to the morale of your team.

A slap on the back or a short public announcement of a success (with clapping of course) costs nothing. Find a budget and you can do more from buying crème cakes (or fruit for the health-nuts) to a few drinks after work or meal out. Occasionally we used to have “office feasts” where people bought in food on a Friday and we all shared it during a communal (and extended) lunch.

You can also use the same strategy for you treating yourself when you score a win or achieve a personal objective. When I started in recruitment I set myself a goal and a timescale that if I achieved it I’d treat myself with a Breitling watch which cost the equivalent of a month’s salary. Well, I still wear that watch today and it still means as much to me now as it did the day I bought it.

So supposing you were to start celebrating the small wins what’s likely to happen?

Well in my experience you’ll see a lift in morale, increased motivation and a team that feels appreciated. In short it’s so much more fun and we all know that happy workers are more productive people.

I firmly believe celebrating wins is a plan with no drawbacks and these days there aren’t many of those!