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.

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.

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.

As regular readers know, here at gThankYou, we’re all about gratitude.  So, when the research is published that supports what we feel in our hearts to be true, we can’t wait to read it.

And, here it is…

University of Washington Marketing Professor Robert Palmatier recently published  the “Role of Customer Gratitude in Relationship Marketing,” and the Journal of Marketing now has it up online.

Palmatier’s paper – cited in a recent New York Times Magazine article on how gratitude can create loyalty in the consumer marketplace – is interesting in lots of ways. It takes a look at this form of relationship marketing through the lens of social science research, explaining how genuine feelings of gratitude among consumers create a greater wallet share for companies. Then, Prof. Palmatier suggests three strategies to leverage customer gratitude.

The gist: reward customers on an individual basis when they most can use the benefit and give customers an opportunity to reciprocate quickly.

Palmatier admits that there’s work yet to be done on how thanks bonds relationships in the marketplace. Perhaps there will be additional studies in the field demonstrating just how the old fashioned practice of saying “thanks” creates goodwill (and better sales, and great employee loyalty) in the marketplace and workplace.

As my father always says, “study hard and learn a lot”!

Again: Generosity Inc. = Gratitude Squared (GI = G x G)

One of the really fascinating presentations in Seattle earlier this month in Seattle revealed the results of a new study on reward programs by Hay Group and WorldatWork.  The study: “Reward Next Practices: The future of reward programs” finds that in the next two to three years 57% of firms plan to increase focus on employee engagement in measuring reward programs. Also, 64 percent will increase focus on the “motivational value of reward programs” in the future.

Here’s what Tom McMullen, U.S. Reward Practice Leader for Hay Group says about these results: “The global downturn has prompted organizations worldwide to shift to an increased focus on how to engage and motivate employees. However, during times when budgets are tight, maintaining an engaged workforce is more difficult than ever. When times are tough, employers are looking for ways to improve engagement – and it’s essential they remember the motivational power of intangible rewards, the role of the line manager in establishing a great work climate and the importance of communicating effectively with employees.”

The study has stirred up commentary from HR bloggers, some of whom question how to go about measuring effective engagement and rewards. In Compensation Force, Ann Bares calls study findings “an interesting piece of news” calling for “some element of balance in our reward metrics – financial versus non-financial, lag versus lead.”

In his Strategic HCM Blog, John Ingham says it’s essential to be clear about intended outcomes first when measuring a reward program.

How are rewards currently measured? The study of 763 diverse companies in 66 countries found that reward program performance metrics weigh heavy on financial performance (71%) using employee engagement (40%) to a lesser extent. In the future, more companies report they plan to focus more on engagement.
Other key findings:

• Almost half, 44 percent, plan to increase their future focus on using reward to reinforce a culture of creativity and innovation.
• Two thirds, 67 percent, will focus more on improving the ability of line managers to effectively manage the overall pay-for-performance relationship with employees, and on the role of line managers in communicating total rewards to employees.
• Key components of the reward programs of the future will include leveraging important non-financial rewards including career and development opportunities, improving work climate and non-financial recognition.

In its recently released white paper, “Measuring Recognition: (How to Build the Business Case for Strategic Recognition in a Recession,” Globoforce advises businesses take these  steps to measure the success of “strategic recognition” programs”:

1. Decide how you’ll measure success before the program launches. Effective metrics should be based on factors including costs versus outcomes, gains in productivity and performance, and company values and strategic objectives. Stay away from simply counting the number of rewards given, which measures just that.
2. Next, set up a performance baseline for recognition. This gauges how the program impacts employee morale, productivity and performance against former and future Thank You programs.
3. Use employee surveys and the program itself to measure results regularly and consistently. This ensures that the program remains on target.
4. Look for trends in analyzing results. This analysis can uncover valuable information about who is using the program best, and who isn’t.
5. Share meaningful results with employees, managers and executives. Tailor the message to each audience, reporting relevant information to each group.

Engagement today is critical. Measuring the success of Thank You programs aimed at engagement just makes sense. Explains Globoforce’s Head of Global Strategy Derek Irvine, “When executed properly, strategic recognition holds the power to increase motivation, enhance engagement levels and drive bottom line results through improved productivity levels. With critical outcomes like this on the line, it serves all companies well to make a thorough assessment of how their programs are functioning and make necessary adjustments to maximize the return they get on this investment. In the end, it will benefit employees and management, and impact company performance.”

That’s powerful stuff, when done well.

“Accumulating evidence supports the idea that gratitude is linked to greater psychological and physical well-being helps build lasting, meaningful social relationships.” This, according to Todd Kashdan, an associate professor of psychology, who wrote the paper examining gratitude posted recently in the online Journal of Personality.

This is the Great News Bit of the Day. Talk about your potential to make a difference. So many simple acts can lead to gratitude, from simply stopping to say a heartfelt “Thanks” to putting those words in writing – hand-made cards from kids are my favorite; simple hand-written notes are often the most impactful. Successful organizations know the power of gratitude in the workpace: it’s a tool that has a motivational multiplier.  (Should be plenty of opportunities to evoke that feeling of gratitude as the spring gifting season approaches, too.)

I’d love to get more into this idea of gratitude: what it is, how to express it and why it’s seen as one of the key elements to leading a happy life. But that’s for another day.

: : : : : : : : : : :