Some companies have  found a fun and innovative way to engage employees by providing an unlikely benefit: a vegetable garden. This growing trend was recognized as one of the best ideas in Human Resources recently.

Minneapolis PR and branding company Haberman & Associates  spent about $10,000 last year to start a garden for its employees.  “It’s creating that water-cooler effect,” the article quotes company co-founder and chief executive Fred Haberman “People have a greater excitement [about] working at Haberman.”

Haberman’s off-site garden, called the “Dude Ranch,” was recognized by Human Resource Executive magazine editors as one of the  “Best HR Ideas for 2010.” You can follow the company’s growing season, or get tips on how to start an employer-sponsored garden yourself, at the project blog.

The National Gardening Association says vegetable gardening is up about 20 percent, although it’s not clear how much of that is done by companies. But a growing number of firms have taken up the hoe including Google, Yahoo, Kohl’s, PepsiCo and Twisted Limb Paperworks, which began a 1,500-square-foot garden outside its offices to boost engagement, as this Washington Post story relates.

University of Maryland business professor Paul Tesluk says a garden can encourage camaraderie, help in recruiting and differentiate a business from competitors. Perhaps it’s time to plant a row for employee morale and engagement and, of course, to just say Thanks!

But, gift giving experience shows that there’s more to it than that. Following Part I of our guide to the Best Workplace Gifts,  exploring when to give, it’s important to now consider how you decide what to give, To wrap your head around that question, consider that the psychology of gift giving  suggests that “the nature of the gift, not its monetary value, determines the prevalence of reciprocal reactions,” according to researchers at the University of Zurich’s Institute for Empirical Research in Economics who in 2008 published a paper on “The Currency of Reciprocity – Gift-Exchange in the Workplace.”

In field studies, researchers found out that employees offered a gift performed better than if offered higher wages.

“…An increase in fixed wages only has a negligible impact on workers’ productivity. However, a gift in-kind of equivalent monetary value has an economically and statistically significant effect on productivity. Workers provide 30 percent more output on average. Moreover, this effect remains large and significant over the course of the entire working period…. Our main result remains largely unchanged if the price of the gift is communicated to the workers.”

Gifts are personal expressions and should be treated that way. But this suggests that small tokens can be more meaningful than big bonuses. Follow these simple guidelines to best determine what to give:

1. Consider any company policy or rewards program details first when looking at specific employee gifts. (If you don’t have a reward policy, it could be a good time to develop one.)
2. Your mission and culture can give strong clues to good gift fits. Family-friendly firms, for example, will reap great benefits form gifts that will be meaningful to entire families, rather than an individual tchotchke.
3. There’s nothing wrong with promoting your company with gifts, such as corporate logo goods, but stay away from anything that says “gag” gift. That sends the wrong message.
4. Fun is good. Enjoy the process and make the gift choosing and giving fun for managers and employees to create a positive, strengthening atmosphere.

There’s no need to wrack your brain about what to give. It is important to have a rewards program that emphasizes the mission and culture of your organization. Revisit it, evaluate it and tweak it when necessary.

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.

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.

Here at gThankYou we think celebrating in the workplace is a big deal; in fact, it’s critically important.

Many of us spend half of our waking days at work. We must find meaning and joy and personal growth in our work. If we don’t, it’s drudgery. It is essential for leaders to create real meaning in people’s work-lives. Often leaders make it more difficult than it really is.

OK. So what’s one easy way to bring meaning to work? Give up? It’s to say “thank you” often. Not just “thanks” or “I appreciate that”, say it forcefully, look someone in the eye and really mean it.

Yeah, I know this is simplistic and sappy and something your mother taught you. But, the truth is this: many business leaders don’t do it.

But Harvey Mackay does.

Harvey Mackay is one of my favorite business gurus. He is insightful, successful, entertaining — and on target. I read his column every week.

The Crux

As the consummate salesman, Harvey has an important motto: “Short Notes Yield Long Results”.

What SNYLR means is that “thank-you” notes are a time-tested way to communicate “recognition and courtesy, just as important as remembering names and taking a personal interest in people. And it’s not just for sales” (his words).

Twenty years ago, Harvey’s Mackay Envelope was already a huge success and Harvey was a business-guru-newbie. I had the good fortune to work with him on a couple projects. Afterward, he invited me to the launch party for his first book, “Swim with the Sharks, Without being Eaten Alive” , which became a smashing success and New York Times Bestseller.

At the time I was working around-the-clock on my first company start-up and Harvey was working long, long days to kick-off book sales of “Sharks”. I asked Harvey to inscribe my copy of his book. He did. I sent him a thank-you note. And what did he do?

He sent me a thank-you note thanking me for my thank you note!

Talk about Thank-You Best Practices! Here’s a guy whose book has praise from Gerald Ford and Lee Iacocca and he still has time to mail me a thank-you note.

And I’ve never forgotten it. (The note is tucked inside my copy of the book to this day).

Lessons Learned

You are never, ever too busy to say “thank you”. And the #1 way to say “thank you” with impact is by sending a personal note.

Jack Welch is famous for it; Tom Peters is famous for it; Ronald Reagan was famous for it.

Why don’t you become famous for it?

The positive impact lasts a long, long time.

The Bottom Line

Celebrating work is essential. Saying “thank you” with a personal note is one-to-one celebration. “Short Notes Yield Long Results” (SNYLR).

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