Love Languages in the Workplace: What’s Yours?

The five love languages were established by Dr. Gary Chapman in 1992, and for over 30 years has been helping couples and relationships build a love that lasts. Let’s break down how the five love languages individually translate into workplace languages of appreciation.

1. Words of Affirmation = Feedback + Mentorship 

   • Examples of this include telling someone they’re doing a great job or verbal acknowledgment of great leadership.

2. Quality Time =  Workplace Bonding 

   • Examples of this include taking your team to lunch at the end of a big project, celebrating workplace anniversaries with a celebration, encouraging team members to take mental health days, or creating space for uninterrupted attention.

3. Receiving Gifts = New Opportunities + Challenges 

   • Examples include an actual gift on a work anniversary or important milestone, a celebratory day off, giving a promotion, or offering mentorship or advice.

4. Acts of Service = Support 

   • Examples of this include an email to just check in with a coworker who might be struggling, emailing a helpful resource or tip, helping a coworker when you have free time, or bringing in donuts to lift people’s days.

5. Physical Touch = Encouraging Touchpoints 

   • Examples include a fist bump or high five to celebrate a win, making eye contact and smiling when giving praise, regular 1:1 meetings to check in about things outside of work, or words of appreciation when someone reaches or achieves a milestone.

How do we determine someone’s language of appreciation? You can get a good feeling about someone’s workplace love language by asking these three questions:

1. How does this person treat others?

2. What does this person complain about?

3. What does this person request most often?

Asking these questions is a great way to determine what someone’s workplace language of appreciation might be and what small adjustments you can make to better work with them. We often find ourselves in situations that lead to conversations starting with, “For future reference.” What if we did a fun exercise that identified everyone’s workplace love language before encountering problems?