Entries categorized as ‘Gratitude’
Economic uncertainty seems to remain in the air, but it’s also clear that the job picture must be improving, at least in the macro, from some recent things I’ve been reading on certain career-focused Web sites.
This recent post from Career Builder advises companies how to attract and win over ideal job candidates. The list includes lots of perks that range widely:
- Offering a healthy work/life balance
- Having flexible or alternative work schedules
- Corporate volunteering groups and efforts
- Cross-training opportunities
- A “Green” facility
- Tuition reimbursement
- Health benefits for an employee and his/her family
- Casual dress
- Dogs in the office
- Employee trips
- Candy at the reception desk
- Free yoga
- In-house massage
- Learning opportunities
- Fun contests to promote recognition
- 15 days off during the holiday season
- Profit sharing
Missing from this list, arguably, is the key strategy of engaging current employees and offering them a tangible system that helps them set, achieve and celebrate goals. Employees under your roof now are your greatest asset, and best advertising tool to boost your ranks with top-performing people. Best to start the year right by setting a policy and agenda toward employee engagement for a sustainable organization.
As discussed in this recent post from Jo Confino, executive at the London-based Guardian, employee engagement is not really rocket science, but more a matter of communication. Says Jo:
“We are delighted that our most recent employee survey has shown that our staff engagement programme has led to a dramatic uplift in the scores on sustainability, compared with the same survey the previous year.”
According to Career Builder, the job forecast for the upcoming period is improving. It’s probably a good time to shore up employee engagement to build a truly sustainable and productive workforce.
Categories: Thank You Power · Trends
Tagged: Employee engagement, employee rewards, job picture, Sustainable workforce
To the fortunate many who received gThankYou! Ham, Turkey or Grocery Gift Certificates recently, congratulations! Yours is a thoughtful and useful reward for a job well done!
To help you through the process of using your gThankYou certificate, I’ve created this handy primer designed to answer any questions. Since I, too, was the recent recipient of my first gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificate, I thought there no better way to help than to share my own experience
Told that my gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificate would cover $20 toward the purchase of any Turkey of my choice from any grocer, I went shopping. Here’s how it worked.
After settling on the exact Turkey I wanted – Kosher this year – I planned where to shop for the perfect size Turkey at a good price. I found the perfect bird at Trader Joe’s, a national specialty food retail chain that caters to the foodie crowd. The bird fit my criteria, and those spelled out on the certificate (it needed to cost at least $20).
Certificate in hand, I advanced toward the check-out. After I presented the certificate, my checker examined it and began reading the instructions. He was a first-timer too, having never seen a Certificate from gThankYou. A manager responded, and after he read the certificate instructions, completed my transaction.
After hardly the bat of an eye, I was done. It worked just like a coupon presented during the check out process. But this was better, because I was fulfilling a reward.
A few tips:
- Pay attention to the specifics. Details on your certificate will tell you what the gift covers: Turkey, Ham or Groceries and for how much.
- Certificates will have a good-through date. Use the certificate by this day to ensure you receive the full benefit of your gift.
- Expect to wait a minute or two for verification from a store manager. Shopping during a slower time of day on a slower store traffic day will minimize your wait.
- If you run into stores with questions, there’s a toll-free number on the certificate that managers or clerks can call on the spot.
- Rest assured that the certificates are usable for any specified item at any store, even if they’ve never (as was my experience) processed a gThankYou certificate. It’s the real deal.
It was truly an unexpected thrill to receive a gThankYou Gift Certificate. I felt proud using it, and enjoyed serving the Turkey I purchased with it, which this year had more of a story. Share your experience getting and using gThankYou certificates, and serving the resulting meals.
Categories: Employee Gifts · Showing Gratitude to Employees · Thank You
Tagged: Using gThankYou! gift certificates
The anticipation is nearly killing them. My kids, still young in the world, just can’t wait until they can open the gifts under the tree. It makes me wonder when in life we start to cherish giving and the tangible benefits this simple act bestows.
Thanks to a recent New York Times piece, “In Month of Giving, A Healthy Reward,” by Tara Parker-Pope, whose Well columns have this year has become some of my favorite Google Reader picks, I know a lot more about the gifts of giving. During this season, it’s important to be mindful of those rewards.
There are real reasons we feel good giving people gifts, whether they’re gifts of time, talent or a treasured trinket. It’s particularly interesting that scientific studies confirm that giving is, indeed, good for you.
Quoted in the piece, Stephen Post, who wrote “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” says that giving and helping provides benefits that last years.
“It turns out that giving — far more than receiving — is a surprisingly potent force whose impact reverberates across an entire lifetime, nourishing health and happiness in astonishing ways.”
Post directs the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University, which has compiled evidence of the good of giving in 50 studies.
So, as we near the end of the year – the end of the decade, in fact – and thoughts turn toward incremental ways you can change your daily life for greater happiness, health and good, keep in mind the power behind a simple Thank You and other little ways to include giving in your daily life. You could be the greatest benefactor.
Categories: Gratitude · Gratitude Research · Thank You · Thank You Power
Tagged: Giving, great ways to say Thank You
In case you’re wondering about the power of Thank You and appreciation in the workplace, consider the loads of information being shared on creating workplace happiness and the importance of this concept in achieving productivity.
Peter Warr and Guy Capperto’s new book “The Joy of Work?” is among the work being presented on this hot topic. We spend one quarter of our lives at work, so it’s important to make the best of it, says Warr, emeritus professor a the UK-based Institute of Work Psychology. It’s important, Warr explains in a New York Times article, to focus on job satisfaction or finding meaning in your work, describing nine necessary elements of happiness in work and life. These include: having some sense of empowerment, using and expanding your skills.
There’s more:
- Consultant and author Alexander Kjerulf (self-dubbed Chief Happiness Officer) offers 10 reasons happiness at work is the top productivity booster. Among the benefits of workplace happiness Kjerulf cites: less complaining, more energy, higher optimism, increased motivation and fewer sick days.
- Performance Coach Arvind Devalia chimes in with his 12 steps to workplace happiness. He cites a UK survey that found that two out of three people are dissatisfied with thier jobs and encourages workers to “See your work as a game. Life is meant to be fun and if you are going to spend a third of it at work, you might as well enjoy the game.”
This offers more proof that employees, and companies, gain from thankfulness and appreciation.
Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Showing Gratitude to Employees · Thank You Power · Trends
Tagged: Alexander Kjerulf, gratitude at work, Gretchen Rubin, Guy Capperto, Institute of Work, new york times, Peter Warr
The emails just kept coming from our local community center, which usually collects food, assembles and distributes 1,000 plus Thanksgiving Baskets a year to needy area families. Last weekend, they were still shy a few items – more like hundreds of tin roasting pans and boxed pie crust mix. This year, demand was higher and more food needed.
It hit home. People this year and are in need of basics. Being able to provide a Turkey Dinner with all the fixings is a real gift. That’s why today I’m thankful for generosity that has filled family’s tables across the country this Thanksgiving. A special Thank You to those who use ingenuity to get Turkeys on tables this year, like one gThankYou customer that used employee cash donations to purchase gThankYou Turkey Gift Certificates for its food drive benefiting families of a local school.
Writes Wendy Stane, Star-Telegram Special Events Coordinator, 
“…employees’ generosity in cash donations far exceeded previous year’s contributions. These turkey certificates will go to all families in need who submitted an application for assistance compliments of YOU, the Star-Telegram employees. Thank you! In the past, actual food donations required a bob tail truck loaded down and several volunteers to load and unload. With fewer resources this year, we were still able to provide 80 families with a turkey certificate and 31 with a complete dinner kit.”
The certificates were a big hit, according to this from Cynthia Monsevalles, a counselor at Hubbard Heights Elementary:
“The Turkey Certificates to be redeemed at any store were a great idea. Every family got one. Thanks. Through our PTO, a special teacher fund and Star-Telegram we were also able to provide a food box for every family.”
The story is the same, I suspect, most every place. When times are tough, people take the opportunity to shine with acts of gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at gThankYou!
Lynn Welch is a contributor to gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies recognize employees’ great work at Holiday Time. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Gratitude · Thank You · Trends
Tagged: great ways to say Thank You, Thanksgiving, the art of "thank you"
It’s rare to gain insight to employee happiness in the workplace.
Australian psychologist Timothy Sharp, of the Happiness Institute recently asked 50 people what they consider to be the top three things that contributed to happiness at work. Their answers provide very valuable information to HR managers.
While I won’t rehash all five things Sharp outlines as steps to happiness at work, number three in particular struck me as relevant: Give Thanks
Says Sharp:
“Employees want to be valued as members of a team and organization. But they also want to be told, frequently and appropriately, that they are valued, as people. They want to be thanked and appreciated for their accomplishments. When managers and colleagues openly congratulate employees for their wins or efforts, it makes everyone happier.”
Sharp explains that this response is consistent with a great deal of research into what he terms the “social and emotional benefits of gratitude.” University of California-Davis psychologist Robert Emmons discusses this concept in his book, Thanks!.
He explains gratitude as a way of life, and provides tips on how to practice it in our everyday lives arguing that it enhances our sense of self-worth, while at the same time strengthening social ties. Emmons continues his study of expressing thanks, which he calls the “forgotten factor” in happiness research, saying that it increases the happiness of both giver and receiver.
Sounds like required reading for anyone interested in boosting workplace happiness…and maybe the rest of your life, too.
Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to valued employees. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Gratitude Research · Thank You Power · Trends
Tagged: gratitude at work, Happiness Institute, Robert Emmons, Timothy Sharp
Thankfulness has been said to be a key component in happiness and an important tool to up your satisfaction with life – and work.
Thanks to the positive psychology gurus at the University of Pennsylvania, you can measure your level of gratitude. In six simple questions, Dr. Martin Seligman – often credited as the father of positive psychology – offers a tool to test your thanks. (An easy registration is required for this quiz.)
Thanks is key to happiness.
In his own words, Seligman says gratitude amplifies good memories of the past. He offers an exercise in expressing gratitude. Think of it as a way to throw out bad memories to make room for the good.
How does this apply to the workplace? Writing on happiness on the job in her HarvardBusiness.org blog, London-based executive coach Gill Corkindale explains it this way:
“It all comes down to choice, and this is where I believe happiness lies. In choosing — as far as you are able — what you want to do and how you will do it. While not all of us can choose our work and colleagues, we can all choose how we approach things — with an open, optimistic, and positive outlook or with a frustrated, irritated one. To this end, I suggest you look at the work of positive psychologists such as Martin Seligman and Tal Ben-Shahar, whose course on happiness at Harvard has been inspirational for many students.”
It’s important, today more than ever, to recognize the importance of tools like gratitude to amplify the happiness we all have in our work. This is happening in the most unlikely of places. In England, the British government has appointed economist Richard Layard to the post of “Happiness Czar” to bolster the happiness of its citizens. It’s certainly worthwhile, in our own lives, our own work, and our own organizations, to look at how to be thankful and boost our own happiness quotient.
Categories: Gratitude Research · Thank You Power · Trends
Tagged: gratitude at work, harvard business school, Martin Seligman, Richard Layard, Tal Ben-Shahar
There was a campaign this summer that encouraged companies to plan a recess period at work as a way of thanking and engaging employees. Here’s more about the program:
“It has been proven that breaks are essential for satisfaction. But what does this mean to an employer? Well according to Rich DiGirolamo, Founder of Recess At Work Day, it’s simple……..Breaks lead to satisfaction; and satisfaction easily transfers to increase morale, reduced employee stress, more engaged and healthier employees; ultimately having a positive impact on productivity, absenteeism and profits.
Now in its 6th year; Recess At Work Day is the perfect complement to any Health and Wellness or Employee Engagement Initiative.”
This initiative hits a couple of HR goals, covering both praise and motivation as well as the continued movement toward corporate wellness programs and team building.
How can a game of Dodgeball provide engagement? Consider this from Dale Sweetnam, an Army public affairs specialist who worked at Google’s office in Washington, D.C as part of a training program. While there, Google put on a “Recess at Work” day that included “square pizzas, chicken nuggets, juice boxes, four square and dodgeball.”
“I can’t remember ever having that much fun at work. The whole office got into it. A computer and speakers were set up on the side of the room and a projector displayed YouTube Michael Jackson videos while we pelted each other with dodgeballs. The event was a huge success. I really felt like it was recess. I was still attending recesses in grade school when Michael Jackson came out with “Bad” and it had probably been that long since I’d last played dodgeball. It was a blast. The event led straight into the weekend. As far as I’m concerned, weekends don’t start out much better than that.”
There seems to be a mini movement toward this idea of corporate recess as a reward. There *are* lots of creative ways to say “Thanks” and engage employees.
Stay tuned!
Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies recognize employees’ great work at Holiday Time. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Fun with Gratitude · Gratitude · Management & Leadership · Showing Gratitude to Employees · The Art of Thank You · Trends
Tagged: Google, Recess At Work
After reading Robert Palmatier’s research on relationship marketing and hearing so much about how companies are now using this in the B2C marketplace, I ran across an insightful piece from Fast Company. Written by columnists and Made to Stick authors Dan Heath & Chip Heath, the article poses a really good question: “Why do companies make it so hard for us to say thank you to the right people?”
The Fast Company article predates the hoopla created when Hyatt Hotels created its customer thanks program this year. Heath & Heath push (hard) for the idea of bringing active thankfulness a step further.
“Suppose there were some way to lower the transaction costs of a thank-you so much that praise became effortless?”
They continue, “Think of those obnoxious engaged couples who skip around Macy’s with UPC scanners, zapping waffle irons and cutlery for their registry. What if there were some ways to zap the cup holder in your car, or the quesadilla on your plate, and instantly deliver a thank-you to the people who count?”
Aren’t there a zillion times you’ve walked out of a meeting with colleagues, or suppliers, or customers, when someone really, really lightened your load, and you want to show your gratitude? Give them a *huge* “Thank You!”?
Guess what? There are companies that have it figured out.
These companies make it easy for customers to praise their employees. Doesn’t that makes sense? If customers show their gratitude for a job-well-done it means a lot. The employee’s boss finds out in the process. The with-it boss piles on the “thank you”, and what do you have? The perfect storm that makes employees feel great.
Exhibit A: American Airlines runs a program called “Rounds of Applause.” The Program enables American Advantage frequent flyers to give a personalized certificate to AA employees who go the extra mile.
Exhibit B: Anyone who travels by highway has seen those signs on trucks asking, “How’s my Driving? Kelmar Safety runs this “How’s My Driving?” for companies with driving fleets in industries including trucking, law enforcement, education and delivery services. It encourages feedback from the public, which in turn provides some positive comments for employees.
Exhibit C: Internet appliance and electronics retailer ElegantAppliance.com is using social networking site Twitter to get customer feedback about its customer Web experience.
Some business to consumer companies, through their culture and way they relate to customers, generate feedback without even solicitation. One example is Wisconsin-based Lands’ End ( part of Sears Holdings) which at one time had a band of employees who volunteered to read and respond to customer letters and emails. The benefit was mutual for the customer and employee in creating loyalty and that intangible feeling that one gets from making a difference.
Know of any other company that has a good customer praise program for employees?
We’d love to hear about it!
Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to employees’ great work. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Management & Leadership · Showing Gratitude to Employees · The Art of Thank You
Tagged: Fast Company, Made to Stick
It’s a fact: simple measures work best these days, particularly when it comes to giving genuine thanks to employees. Gone are the days where employees expect a lot of extras and companies use less complicated and creative ways to engage employees.
Drawing on examples from my own career as well as stories from others where bumpers stickers and sticky notes became treasured badges of thanks for a job well done, it’s apparent authentic praise, in whatever form, goes a long way toward creating engagement.
Amazing as it may sound, giving simple thanks can be less than easy in some companies. In a 2007 article. BusinessWeek careers columnist and author Liz Ryan asked: “Is Praising Employees Counterproductive?” Some managers have an irrational fear, Ryan writes, that too much praise can “spoil” a good employee.
After exploring what she sees as the basis for some of this fear, Ryan concludes this: Praise is a key motivator but effectiveness hinges on the praise being credible.
“Of course, you can’t go around praising people all the time, even when they’re doing a great job, and you should never praise people when they don’t deserve it. If you praise people nonstop your complimentary words will lose their effectiveness as a motivator. If you give praise when it’s not deserved, you’ll lose your credibility and undermine the whole group’s efforts.”
It’s all a matter of style, of course. But the following examples provide some solid tips to get HR managers and company leaders started on developing a program that gives well-deserved and credible thanks to employees:
- Don’t praise the employee, praise their work. Gary Vikesland writes on Employer-employee.com that it’s important to be specific and target abilities or work when handing out compliments. Furthermore, it’s best to be specific and make you’re your praise has a purpose. (http://www.employer-employee.com/praise.html).
- Work to build an organization that has a “climate of positive reinforcement”. Bruce L. Katcher, president of The Discovery Group, says a healthy organization makes praise part of the culture. These companies have supervisors frequently overheard saying: Good point! I’m glad you brought that up! I really appreciate that! Good job! Well done! (And my favorite
Thank you!
- Praise in public, advises the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness (CMOE) in its five tips for praise “Acknowledging people in public accomplishes two important things. The employees feel even better as they are recognized in front of their peers. In addition, public praise is one way of reminding other employees of what you want from them.”
Great insights indeed!
One past employer never praised anyone. Anyone. He thought praising good work would make other workers envious and feel left out. Ya think?!?!? Of course it would! That’s the idea.
- Praise good work and everyone wants a piece of the action.
- Praise good work and then employees know what you value.
- Praise good work and employees want more.
- Praise good work and everyone gets in on it.
- Praise good work and employees praise each others’ work.
To paraphrase that great American sage, Forest Gump: “Praise is a praise does.”
Or, to repeat one of “One Minute Manager” guru Ken Blanchard’s basic tenets: “catch someone doing something right”.
That’s it: catch someone doing something right = praise.
Do it. It’s free; it’s appreciated; it builds great organizations.
Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, based in Madison, WI. gThankYou® Certificates of Gratitude™ are one way savvy companies demonstrate commitment to employees’ great work. The company is best known for its Turkey Gift Certificates, Ham Gift Certificates, and Grocery Gift Cards.
Categories: Gratitude · Management & Leadership · Thank You Power
Tagged: Ken Blanchard, One Minute Manager, Praise
