Show Gratitude and Raise Your Bottom Line

Show Gratitude and Raise Your Bottom Line

Training costs, lost skill, lowered productivity, and disgruntled staff who are wearing too many hats are just a few of the hidden costs of unhappy employees. A New York Times article reported a Gallup poll that estimated that when employees are unhappy, lost productivity costs employers up to $300 billion a year! A study conducted by the American Psychological Association observed more than 1,700 employees and concluded that half of all employees intended to search for new jobs because they felt underappreciated and undervalued. Further, a CAP study found that high turnover makes employers eat 16 percent of the annual salary for low- paying jobs. For instance, replacing a $10-per-hour worker costs $3,328. Further, high turnover in mid-range paying positions cost employers 20 percent of the annual salary, meaning the cost to replace a $40,000 manager would be $8,000.

One of the benefits of showing gratitude, as touted by an article on feelhappiness.com titled “Gratitude and Paying it Forward,” is that it usually inspires the recipient to show gratitude to someone else, and in a company or small business, this can lead to something called upstream reciprocity, which strengthens the culture of the business and affects customers and clients. Upstream reciprocity is the propensity of those who have been helped by others to pay it forward by assisting another person who needs help. “Therefore, an individual with a high propensity towards gratitude is likely to act in a similarly helpful way both to their benefactors AND to others,” the article said. So, is it really that easy to keep people happy by showing a little tenderness, saying a heartfelt thank you, giving a pat on the back, or even shooting off a quick email? You bet it is!

Several studies have concluded that employees are not motivated to do great work and stay loyal by extrinsic motivators like money or annual cash bonuses. Being generous and showing gratitude tap into the intrinsic motivators that we have been developing all of our lives, the ones that feel good because they accommodate our core values. The following list contains a few ideas on how to be generous with your time, your gratitude, and your skills to create and instill a culture of kindness:

• If you see someone struggling, offer to help them. All too often we are struggling with our own stresses and time crunches, which is the reason this act packs a lot of punch.
• Offer handwritten notes of recognition. The time spent getting a card and writing it out makes a lasting impression.
• Be generous with praise. Have you heard about the five-to-one rule? It is a fundamental rule for parents, teachers, and businesses. Harvard Business School says that top performing teams are ones that give each other more than five positive comments for every critical one.
• Be a mentor and share your knowledge. In our highly competitive world, we tend to keep our cards close to our chests. We don’t want to share what we have spent our hard years learning and “give it away for free.” But in the long run, helping someone by offering wisdom and insights (solicited, of course) will instigate the upward reciprocity that makes business thrive. It also eliminates the rivalry between colleagues that can make an environment toxic.
• Publicly acknowledge your gratitude. Whether through an appreciation program, monthly announcements, or by bragging about your employees to customers and clients, public acknowledgment feels good.
• Individualize. In Siblings Without Rivalry the authors Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish talk about the importance of individual attention, praise, and rewards. To do the same for children and treat them “equally” actually backfires. This is the same in business. If you want people to know they have value and their contributions are important, the praise and recognition you offer must be tailored and suited to their unique personalities, character, and needs, or else they’ll feel unnoticed. Individualized attention is the difference between people perceiving your praise as hot air or as a motivator that, over time, will bring returns to everyone.