Growing Gratitude

When we express gratitude, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin — two hormones that make us feel good and happier inside. But did you know, practicing gratitude regularly can help manage anxiety, feelings of inadequacy and self doubt? In fact, finding ways to promote gratitude in your workplace can be an important component in managing workplace happiness, engagement and tenure.

Scientists have documented that people who have regular gratitude practices are healthier, happier, and have better relationships. Further research suggests that gratitude is also key in helping individuals and teams persevere and have greater success in challenging tasks.

Asking your team to live each day with gratitude is not always realistic. In fact, it can be very challenging. We all tend to be under the microscope from managers, employees, customers, vendors, and in some cases, the community at large.

It is human nature for us to occasionally be angry or upset because of drama on the home-front or a co-worker’s bad decision. However, when we are in that negative place, we can’t be grateful. In order to be at our best as leaders, we must set an intentional mindset of living in gratitude.

There are a plethora of studies and articles about gratitude: habits to employ in order to foster it and such. Most focus on being thankful for what you have, counting your blessings, making notes and journals to document good fortune. And while these arguably create space for gratitude on a personal level, they must be adapted to effectively promote corporate gratitude to our team, our partners and Clients. Corporate gratitude is not all reflective. It’s creating the boundaries and supporting programs that foster thanks, kindness and gratefulness amongst your team and outside partners.

At Bennett Design, we work to create a forum for gratitude internally with the hope that this practice lays the foundation and discipline needed to grow gratitude externally. This starts with a deep respect for one another’s roles and work. It’s supported with courtesy, manners and kindness. Of course, respect for your peers cannot happen if you do not respect your own contributions and are unkind to yourself – so fostering an organization with clearly defined responsibilities and goals is key.

At Bennett, this mutual respect and gratitude is promoted with the following formal programs and protocols:

Giving time for Volunteer Service

Allowing time for employees to give service to that which they deem personally relevant is incredibly important. Bennett Design gives each employee 7.5 hours to be used either all at once or in increments for an organization of their choosing. Giving back to our community and volunteerism are major pillars of Bennett culture. Extending the chance for service to our team supports this and breeds gratitude.

Standardized recognition programs

Knowing what it takes to succeed and being recognized for these successes not only demonstrates company gratitude – the acknowledgement fosters a sense of belonging, pride and accomplishment in the recipient that then fuels reciprocal effort in other team members. When people are empowered to do their job to the best of their abilities and the effort is recognized, it resonates and inspires others to do the same.

Furthermore, having awards that celebrate a variety of values (not just the bottom line) deepens the opportunity for everyone to participate. After all, not everyone is in a role that can contribute to conventional markers such as profitability. Broader awards applied to all roles such as: recognizing innovation, creativity, spirit make participation accessible to all.

Formally Calling out Greatness

How you recognize everyday accomplishments also sets the stage for intentional gratitude. At Bennett Design, we have a company intranet where you can issue a “KUDOS” to anyone in the company. There are fields not only for what this individual did but to link the accomplishment to one of our corporate priorities.

Sincere, small acknowledgments – often and from all – fosters inclusion and drives a general sense of gratefulness.

Empowering Generosity

Generosity and giving are tenets of gratitude. Allowing your staff permission to “gift” is a fantastic way to make them feel empowered, generous and, in return – grateful. Upon completion of projects Bennett Design allows the team lead to appoint an appropriate member to present the client with a gift: usually something small, useful that contributes to the space we’ve created. This act of subsidized gifting allows the team to take responsibility for the close – and also the accomplishment. Having a supply of giveaways such as gift cards for staff to issue internally has the same effect with little investment.

Reciprocal Support and Referrals

Our industry, like many, is founded on references. In fact, the majority of Bennett’s business opportunities have come from a client or partner referral. Our reputation is incredibly important to us – but we’re deeply indebted to those who so generously pass it along. This means everything to us. In return, we openly offer you the same benefit. We support our partners and share your successes as we would our own. We like seeing good people do well and will prioritize reciprocity in anyway.

Saying Thank You

From Bennett Design, we’d like to practice gratitude today by formally saying thank you. We hope that the respect and admiration we hold for each of our partners, clients and staff brings the feelings of support necessary to fuel your drive for amazing work. We’re blessed to have access to the talent we do and for that, we’re grateful.

We hope this stimulates all the dopamine and serotonin you need to keep being awesome. #grateful.