Workplace celebrations aren’t just a great opportunity to show off your karaoke skills. Benefits of workplace celebrations include boosting morale, team building, and an improved culture of gratitude. All that leads to happier, more productive employees who are more likely to remain with your company for the long haul.
Whether it’s getting a cake for someone’s birthday, bringing in tacos every Tuesday, or throwing a huge end of the year bash for the whole company, workplace celebration benefits can be long-lasting and incredibly powerful.
Consider this study done by Dr. Robert Emmons from the University of California Davis. Emmons split several hundred people into three different groups and had them each keep a daily journal. The first group was asked to simply write the day’s events without any other qualifications. The next group was asked to specifically write down the negative things that happened each day. The final group was told to make a daily list of things that they were grateful for.
At the end of the study, the final group reported higher levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, energy, and optimism. They also had lower instances of depression and stress, exercised more regularly, and were more likely to help people around them.
This is the effect of celebration. Taking time to focus on the good things accomplished at the office helps remind people why they come into work every day. It’s a chance for them to boost their self-confidence and self-esteem while also helping improve those qualities in the people around them.
Workplace celebrations don’t have to be huge. Even taking the time to say “thank you” at the end of the day is a small celebration of each employee’s contributions, and it won’t go unnoticed. Bigger things that you can do to celebrate your employees include throwing an end of the year party, rewarding teams that meet goals with nice dinners or a few vacation days, or calling out the exceptional contributions of a specific employee in a company-wide email.
When you’re celebrations are personal and sincere, your employees will appreciate the effort and inevitably respond with greater dedication to and enthusiasm for their work.
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