Developing Workplace Gratitude, Culture, and Well-being

Immerse yourself in a wealth of insightful articles designed to nurture workplace gratitude, enhance employee well-being, and foster a thriving workplace culture. This category presents innovative strategies and practical tips that will bolster employee engagement, encourage team building, and boost overall productivity.

Cultivating Connection and Positivity in the Workplace

Discover the transformative power of regular check-ins and small gestures of appreciation in strengthening workplace relationships. Explore how incorporating elements of happiness, like pet-friendly policies or the surprise delight of cat videos, can enhance employee well-being and inject joy into your daily work environment. Additionally, understand the role of nutrition in promoting both individual and collective happiness in the workplace.

Harnessing Gratitude and Celebrating Values

Uncover the profound effects of practicing gratitude in the workplace, from expressing heartfelt thanks to planning appreciation events. Get inspired by thought-provoking TED Talks that reveal how gratitude can rewire the brain, foster positive relationships, and increase happiness. Moreover, learn the importance of celebrating teams and organizational values to underscore that your business is about people and values, not just work and the bottom line.

Navigating New Ways of Working

With the evolving work landscape, learn how to adapt to new ways of working and retain top talent, particularly in remote and hybrid environments. Appreciate the significance of random acts of kindness and gratitude in creating a supportive workplace atmosphere. Furthermore, understand the critical role of mental health and well-being, especially in the current mental health crisis.

Reboarding with a Focus on Gratitude and Well-being

As you reboard employees, seize the opportunity to reinvigorate your workplace culture with a focus on gratitude. Find out how to make employee appreciation a central pillar in your workplace, fostering a positive and engaging culture as you navigate the new normal.

Embark on the exciting journey of cultivating a vibrant and grateful workplace, where every employee feels valued and motivated. Happy reading!



  • Family-Friendly Workplaces Have Happier Employees

    Wegmans shows how to inspire happier employees

    Wegmans employees say they feel like family and that’s because they are treated like family. Their motto: “Do What You Love.” Bravo, Wegmans!

    If you’re looking for the secret to happier employees, a reliable place to look first is Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.
    Fortune recently published its 2017 list, with familiar names like Google, Salesforce and Quicken Loans in the Top 10.
    But coming in at #2 is a company most Americans won’t recognize — unless they live in a handful of northeastern states, or they pay attention to Fortune’s annual “Best Companies” list.
    Wegmans is a small grocery-store chain with locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia. This is Wegmans’ 20th year on Fortune’s list. (more…)

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  • 9 Free Resources to Inspire Workplace Kindness

    Want to inspire wworkplace kindness? Read on for free resources to help.

    First step toward a kinder culture? Smile! And take advantage of the many free resources to help your organization build workplace kindness. (Photo via Kamil Porembiński, Flickr)

    Are you inspired by Random Acts of Kindness Week to build workplace kindness in your organization? Great! We can help with free resources to inspire workplace kindness – everyday!
    Now’s the time to start. Only one in four employees feel valued at work, a 16 percent drop from last year, according to the TINYPulse Employee Engagement Report.
    “Managers are falling behind in their recognition efforts,” the study concludes. (more…)

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  • To Build Workplace Kindness, Try Empathy

    workplace kindness all starts with empathy

    Kindness is a powerful way to break up workplace stress, and it starts with applied empathy. (Image via Sean MacEntee, Flickr)

    Random Acts of Kindness Week is here! In honor of the importance of kindness, let’s build more workplace kindness together this week.
    Kindness is a powerful way to build engagement, encourage well-being and break up workplace stress.
    Celebrating kindness reminds us to incorporate it more into all aspects of our everyday life — with family, friends and our communities. Ever tried sharing unexpected kindness? It’s contagious and creates a ripple effect of shared goodwill and feelings of appreciation. (more…)

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  • Gratitude: The Secret Ingredient for Brand

    Does your employer brand communicate employee appreciation?

    Does your employer brand send a strong message of workplace gratitude? (Photo via thedailyenglishshow.com, Flickr)

    Want to attract top candidates who’ll stay loyal to your company through thick and thin? You need a dynamic employer brand that immediately stands out to potential employees — the kind of employer brand that not only attracts the right people for the job but gets them excited and keeps them around longer.
    Talent sourcing is an increasingly complex undertaking due to advances in technology and access to big data, as recent Bersin by Deloitte research shows.
    But there’s one aspect of attracting great employees that will never go out of style: great communication. (more…)

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  • 365 Ways to Build Employee Happiness

    Happy New Year!

    The celebration-filled holiday season is over, party streamers down, gifts shared and game prizes won. Now what? How will you sustain that workplace spirit and employee happiness into the new year?
    If increasing employee happiness is one of your workplace goals this year, you’re not alone.
    Organizations big and small are re-evaluating their strategies as Gallup continues to report low employee engagement across industries. Gallup data shows Millennial workers in particular aren’t responding to traditional engagement. (more…)

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  • Why a Workplace Holiday Party Is Still a Good Idea

    workplace holiday party gthankyou

    Plan a workplace holiday party that sets the foundation for a more engaged workforce in 2017! (Photo via USACE-Europe District, Flickr)

    The new comedy “Office Christmas Party” is every HR team’s nightmare of a workplace holiday party gone bad. The movie has every poor-taste cliché going: drunken debauchery, regrettable social choices with bosses and coworkers, and a big mess of property damage to clean up the next morning. It’s enough to make any HR department want to cancel the workplace holiday party, immediately. (more…)

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  • Challenge: Raise the Bar on Volunteering

    Kick off a new effort today in honor of International Volunteer Day!

    Celebrate workplace volunteering today and every day! (Image via volunteeractioncounts.org)

    Happy International Volunteer Day! Today we’re celebrating the benefits of workplace volunteerism.
    International Volunteer Day is a UN-spearheaded effort to highlight and honor the work of volunteers around the world in areas such as education, youth engagement, health, poverty eradication and the environment.
    If you’re interested in celebrating the day in your workplace or sharing information about your company’s volunteer work on social media, be sure to check out these (more…)

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  • Turn ‘Sorry’ into ‘Thank You’

    Build workplace gratitude with simple gestures.

    Are you saying “Sorry!” when “Thank You!” would be better? It could be affecting your workplace gratitude culture.

    Sorry. It’s the one word that may be holding back you and your team from building a stronger culture of workplace gratitude.
    Apologies have their place. But you’re probably saying “Sorry” when “Thank You” would be better.
    “If you’ve truly done something to hurt or offend someone, an apology is best. But so often the things people apologize for in daily life are ambiguous,” Julie Beck, senior associate editor at The Atlantic, writes in her article “The Power of Casual Gratitude.”
    “A ‘sorry’ is a token offered to ward off guilt and to keep others from being irritated with you. But it’s just basic economics that the more of these coins you have in circulation, the less they’re worth,” she writes. (more…)

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  • Workplace Culture Aligned to Corporate Ethics?

    workplace culture gthankyou

    Ethical workplace culture depends on leaders who embrace an ethical “do as I do” model. (Image via nist6dh, Flickr)

    Workplace culture is defined in part by the corporate ethics a company practices. And when there is an ethical breakdown — such as the widespread fraud case reported by The Wall Street Journal at Wells Fargo — it can have a toxic effect on workplace culture.
    Employees and customers are paying attention. Ethics matter in every aspect of business now, from hiring talent to attracting customers, as more people demand corporate social responsibility. (more…)

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  • Empowering Employees Is Key to Happiness

    Build lasting workplace happiness: empower employees to be invested in their work.

    Build lasting workplace happiness: empower employees to be invested in their work. (Photo via Celestine Chua, Flickr)

    Workplace happiness depends on leaders who know how to empower employees. “The Arrival of the People-First Workplace” has begun, according to a recent PSFK editorial round-table.
    “It’s high time for all companies — whether operating in a converted loft or from the top floor of a Midtown skyscraper — to adopt a people-first workplace. Or, as our report tells it, ‘corporations run the risk of fragmenting internally if they continue to separate employees from the high-value service they provide customers,'” PSFK’s Bogar Alonso writes. (more…)

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  • How Everyone Benefits from Workplace Gratitude

    FREE eBook, "Transform Your Workplace with Gratitude" - DOWNLOAD NOW1

    Is your workplace grateful? Celebrate World Gratitude Day with a commitment to building workplace gratitude! Download our FREE eBook, “Transform Your Workplace With Gratitude” by clicking the image now!

    Everyone benefits from a healthy culture of workplace gratitude: employees, managers, company leadership and, of course, customers.
    World Gratitude Day is this Wednesday, Sept. 21, so we’re taking time this week to reflect on how gratitude in the workplace supports people and amplifies gratitude elsewhere in our lives.The origin of World Gratitude Day dates back to 1965. It was inspired by the all-American holiday of Thanksgiving!
    At an international Thanksgiving dinner in Hawaii that year, Indian meditation teacher and World Gratitude Day founder Sri Shinmoy “proposed a globally unifying holiday to formally express gratitude and appreciation.” The United Nations formally adopted it in 1977.
    In 2015, “Gratitude Diaries” author Janice Kaplan wrote a column for the Chicago Tribune on (more…)

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  • 5 Ways to Inspire Positivity in the Workplace

    Instilling positivity in the workplace

    Instilling positivity in the workplace takes more than a mandate — it takes a cultural shift based on values of gratitude, compassion, respect and generosity. (Photo via Hans Peter Meyer, Flickr)

    Happy Positive Thinking Day! Have you been inspiring positivity in the workplace lately?
    One of the most interesting employee engagement cases of the past year was related to positivity in the workplace — with some fascinating lessons in how (and how not) to pursue it.
    Explicitly mandating positivity in the workplace is risky, as T-Mobile recently discovered. The National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling against T-Mobile in April declaring that the telecommunications company had run afoul of the law by including a provision in its employee handbook requiring workers “to maintain a positive work environment in a manner that is conducive to effective working relationships.”
    Sounds harmless, right? It isn’t, legally speaking. (more…)

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  • Recharge Your Gratitude Culture with Mindfulness

    "Mind Full" or "Mindful": Building a workplace gratitude culture with mindfulness

    Guide your workplace from “mind full” to mindful” and recharge your workplace gratitude culture! (Image via Heidi Forbes Öste, Flickr)

    Is mindfulness the missing element in your workplace gratitude culture?
    A workplace gratitude culture that doesn’t sustain a commitment to mindfulness is like a flame without oxygen — it will quickly flicker out.
    Workplaces thrive when they support a culture of gratitude. According to the Harvard Medical School editorial “In Praise of Gratitude,” gratitude is “strongly and consistently” associated with greater happiness.
    Gratitude also “helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity and build strong relationships.” In the workplace, employees who hear gratitude (more…)

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  • What’s Trending? Welcome Gifts for New Hires

    Welcome gifts help new employees feel appreciated.

    Welcome gifts help employees feel appreciated from day one! (Photo via Alex Roberts, Flickr)

    Roll out the red carpet! Welcome gifts for new hires are trending as a way to help employees feel appreciated from day one.
    “First days are tough. You haven’t made ‘work friends’ yet so you feel alone, you don’t know the company culture or jargon yet so you feel confused, and you are quite literally lost (‘Where’s the coffee and bathroom?),” writes Forbes contributor and employee engagement expert Kevin Kruse in his article, “1 Thing Every New Hire Should Get On Their First Day.”
    Welcome gifts — accompanied by a nice introduction letter, as Kruse suggests — are essential to effective onboarding and making a good first impression. They send the message right away that new hires are welcome, needed and appreciated. (more…)

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  • Does Your Company Have Workplace Spirit?

    Workplace spirit is the day-in and day-out expression of a happy company culture!!

    Raise your hand for workplace spirit! (Photo via Ben Smith, Flickr)

    Remember “Spirit Week” in high school? It’s the week leading up to Homecoming that’s filled with fun activities, time-honored traditions and dress-up themes that celebrate school spirit and show support for your school.
    Workplace spirit is the grownup version, and it isn’t just one week a year.
    It’s the day in, day out expression of a strong and positive company culture. Employees are engaged, happy and productive. Excellent work is celebrated, and every employee understands and is committed to company goals.
    “The first time you step foot in a business, you get a feel for its spirit. A company can feel cold, stiff and tense, or to the contrary, it can feel (more…)

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  • Avoiding the Pitfalls of Chasing Employee Happiness

    building lasting employee happiness

    Employee happiness expert Alexander Kjerulf speaking at Hub SoMa in San Francisco in 2011. (Photo via Blue Oxen Associates, Flickr)

    Employee happiness is trending now as HR topic of discussion, and for good reason.
    We know happiness is desirable in the workplace because happy employees are demonstrably better employees by just about every measure.
    Yet we’ve also learned that pursuing workplace happiness as a goal to itself leads us in circles because happiness a side effect, not a cure.
    At the same time, some HR leaders are now criticizing the newfound focus on employee happiness as a substance-less fad, an obsession that verges on “happiness bullying” and an unreasonable and exhausting demand on staff. (more…)

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How gThankYou Certificates Work

Step 1

Order Certificates

Choose the gThankYou Certificates you want and order them online or by telephone.

Step 2

Ship directly to your business

Your order is delivered by UPS. Nearly all orders ship the day received. Overnight shipping is available.

Step 3

Distribute to your employees

Personalize your gThankYou Certificates with Giver name or logo (both optional) and give them to employees.

Step 4

Redeem at any grocery store

Recipients redeem Certificates at major U.S. grocery stores and select the items they want.