By Bimba Gunatilke
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all the others”. – Marcus Tulliuss Cesero – Roman philosopher (1st century BC)
Gratitude is one of the perennial wisdoms that has been passed on from generation to generation since the beginning of people’s existence. It has no boundaries. Irrespective of ethnicity, gender, level of education, wealth and age of mankind, gratitude is a fine human quality that brings a range of benefits to everyone who continuously practices it.
The practice of gratitude has been one among the key linkages to generate and strengthen healthy relationships through connecting each other in a society. Historical evidence shows that, gratefulness significantly contributed for the survival and sustainability of a blissful society and maintaining a respectful civilization in the long run. There are perfect instances to show the close connectedness between gratitude and civility in ancient Rome, Greece, India and some other Asian lands including our own motherland.
The word Gratitude simply means the practice of gratefulness through expressing acknowledgement and appreciation by the recipient for a valuable help done by another person. People in a community cannot exist alone. They require varying types of assistance from the rest of the society. This relationship commencing at home spreads across a range of areas. Accordingly, the virtue of gratitude is practiced in different state of affairs of individuals’ life, starting from personal transactions and widen through social affairs, official and business settings, regional and national relationships and up to even international heights. In all these levels a grateful benefit receiver recognizes, admires and congratulates back the action and the person who perform the action.
The practice of gratitude is a two way process. We extend help, offer advice, gifts and rewards which are valuable to others in day to day life. On the other hand we entertain help, guidance and different kinds of generous offers from our acquaintances, relatives, co-workers and even from unknown people. These actions vary in producing benefits to the recipient. Some actions may not involve any monetary value.
” Spiritual leaders have advocated the merits and benefits of showing gratitude even to non living beings like mother nature that provides our basic needs and facilities to make our living comfortable “
They can be tangible or intangible. Yet they would have become the turning point in the success of one’s life.
The help extended and the task carried out either significant or trivial, genuine and warm appreciation of it by the receiver is highly beneficial to both the giver and the receiver. True appreciation of even a small help someone made to us can lead to the advancement of our life. It makes a positive difference for givers as well by enhancing his generosity and pleasure. Cultivation and regular practice of this virtue will make both parties happy and help convert society to a beautiful place to live. In essence, thankfulness is to recognize, appreciate and respect the action someone has performed for the good of our lives and finally demonstrated in words or any other form of action by the receiver.
Spiritual leaders have advocated the merits and benefits of showing gratitude even to non living beings like mother nature that provides our basic needs and facilities to make our living comfortable. When people demonstrate a conserving and conducive attitude towards the natural environment, its assets become healthy, wealthy and thrive to be grateful to people. At the same time nature would never hesitate to take revenge from living beings that ill-treat it. Since recently, we have been observing a vast number of natural calamities experienced by communities owing to their ungrateful handling of nature through destructive exploitation. Behaviour of natural features in the face of gratefulness and ingratitude is equally relevant to human kind.
A considerable body of modern research has established that benefits of gratefulness in cultural, psychological, physical, spiritual and financial perspectives of individuals are tremendously effective in living a pleasurable life. Apart from that, they found that gratefulness stimulates other virtues like compassion, generosity and trust among individuals so that everyone in a society would be contented and be able to live happily and peacefully. Ingratitude in turn, leads to shatter trustworthiness among each other and collapses the unity of any society.
Psychologists suggest that the social emotion of gratitude has three components
• Good actions and behaviours bring benefits to people.
• There are people carrying out such beneficial actions towards others.
• Grateful receivers recognize and appreciate that they are being benefited from them.
One person receives the benefit of a generous act of another person. The recipient becomes kind and generous towards the giver. The more this practice grows among people, the more the whole society gains benefits experiencing strong social bonds, strengthening mutual trust and willingness to help each other.
Gratitude in the workplace
Societies widely practice gratitude in personal affairs and social transactions. Unfortunately, it is less likely to practice this benevolent virtue in public offices, business settings, private entities and voluntary organizations. Same individuals who show thankfulness in personal and social affairs do not practice it in their official conduct as they do in other places. This fine virtue has become a quite forgotten practice among workers at almost all levels in office environments.
Researchers have established the fact that ingratitude has made damaging consequences in the performance of work place and its work force. It is observed that, leaders and managers in public/ private organizations find it difficult to retain competent employees in organisations for a reasonable number of years. Employees tend to leave their respective places seeking better opportunities. As a result, organizations are left with inefficient and an incompetent set of workers. The absence of committed workers badly affects the overall performance of organizations. This is a common phenomenon in the business and public sector work places equally.
The issue of quitting employees from the work place centres on a number of reasons. Dissatisfaction and frustration of employees arise due to:
• Unpleasant environment in the work place
• Ill treatment and partial treatment by managers/leaders
• Inadequate employee motivation
• Lack of career advancement opportunities
• Poor employee recognition and appreciation
• Inadequate attention to employees’ personal problems and grievances by managers
• Excessive volume of work
• Poor financial gains
• Monotonous nature of duties
In the concept of gratefulness one can find ways and means to arrest leaving employees. Psychologists strongly believe that introduction of gratefulness in to organizational culture and gradually get the employees also to cultivate the practice is a feasible solution in retaining members of a work force.
According to them workers become frustrated not merely because of inadequate salary, lack of various incentives and heavy volume of work.
Especially, the young generation is very enthusiastic, innovative and does not much care about monetary compensations. They are keen to work, meet deadlines and undertake additional responsibilities and shine.
Most research confirm that non adoption of adequate and appropriate employee motivational strategies have been the major shortcoming that leads to employee displeasure in work places.
Motivation of employees
The most significant asset in an organization is its work force. Employees’ efficiency, commitment and perseverance are directly linked with successful completion of organizational targets. The more they are happy with the environment of work place, the more they contribute to the accomplishment of organizational objectives. Employees are human beings having feelings, sensations and emotions. Every one of them has a self esteem. They expect something more than financial and material gains from their leaders. Nobody is willing to get ill treated and undervalued. As human beings, they are happy to be valued themselves and recognized as essential individuals to the organization by superiors. In the absence of motivation programmes workers feel sad and frustrated.
In order to enhance the interest of employees, implementation of motivational programmes are quite essential. Embedding the practice of gratefulness into organizational culture is one significant approach to intensify employee interest. In this regard, the top management needs a thorough understanding of personal attributes and mind sets of each worker. They differ in attitudes, skills, capacities, commitments, and approaches.
Some of them are efficient and highly committed. There is however no doubt in any place quite a good number of workers showing less commitment. Productivity of individual employees therefore takes different levels. In this scenario, what we widely see in official settings is praising efficient workers and criticizing or ignoring low performers. In the meantime, certain organizations do not bother about motivational practices. The management is of the view that employees are adequately compensated through monthly remuneration. Monetary gains are always not the key factor for employee satisfaction. They must receive recognition and appreciation.
How to implement gratitude in the work place
In an organizational setting managers have a leading role in the practice of gratitude and embracing it in to the official culture. They can initiate a series of programmes by which the mindsets of employees can be gradually changed as constructive players of the workforce. A programme may include both formal and informal interventions. Initial phase interventions do not involve any financial cost.
• Greeting employees
Managers could treat workers as members in one unified family. They can begin daily work with pleasing and appropriate greeting words with a genuine smile giving confidence to all employees.
Then subordinates will have exciting feelings to open the day and commence work with enthusiasm. Similarly, thanking and appreciating employees for their dedication at the end of the day can make them leave the place with no stress and resentment. It is far more difficult for superior/s to allocate much time, but a few seconds in the morning with an employee would be sufficient to do so. When employees meet you individually or as a group for a particular purpose, no matter how busy you are, allocate a few minutes, welcome them politely, listen to them and try to learn from their ideas and experience. At the end of the discussion you can appreciate the value of their ideas and experience. This kind of interventions involves no cost. If they can be continued regularly, the practice become a part and parcel of the organization’s normal operations.
• Celebrating accomplishments
There are individual achievements, collective achievements and innovations. These successes absolutely should deserve recognition and appreciation.
A few minutes meeting of the entire staff can be organized to show appreciation of achievements and those who are responsible for hard work. This will be an inspiring exercise to all workers. In certain occasions employees have to work under difficult circumstances.
Recent Corona pandemic, transport issues and scarcity of basic requirements have created severe hardships to the working population. Such adversities did not allow employees to perform satisfactorily. Achievements might have been zero. Still their efforts can be appreciated. Employees expect such recognition from superiors.
There are occasions where things go wrong even under normal circumstances due to some oversights and omissions. Yet the attempts made can be recognized and respected. Thanking verbally, handing over a note of thanks or and email makes the team satisfied. Another way of appreciation is to offer a certificate referring to hard work an employee carried out in gaining specific achievements. Such treatments help to bridge the gap between higher management and fellow workers.
• Attending employees’ grievances
As human beings, employees come across grievances owing to official issues as well as personal hardships. This disturbs the employees and concentration on his duties which will have negative effects on his productivity.
Usually people are reluctant to speak out whatever issues they have in front of others. If a manager or a similar office holder can give them a patient listening and a feasible response to console them that would be a great relief for them to get out of the problem. Listening alone can make people happy. Managers can intervene in different ways to lessen mental agonies of subordinates due to certain personal matters. Approval of leaving the office few minutes early, providing transport, counselling if necessary and other kinds of assistance depending on the matter make troubled employees comfortable. Later, a feedback from them brings about employee satisfaction on sympathetic concern by the management on them.
In many work settings, there are members pertaining to different ethnic groups, religious groups, etc. Appreciation of such cultural dynamics of employees is also equally important to win their hearts get them work .
• Arrangement of career development opportunities
Employees are willing to climb the ladder with the passage of time. Efficient workers in particular, like to undertake demanding responsibilities rather than stagnate in the same position for years. In order for them to enjoy challenging experience under new positions, organizations can arrange career development opportunities beneficial to organization and workers concerned. They can be rewarded by offering skill development programmes that help improve their knowledge, skills and capacities. Selection of participants could be carefully made not to hurt the feelings of those left out. Such programmes need to be designed on an annual or bi annual basis providing chances to all the workers to participate. Programmes should be appropriately designed for different categories of work force. They should aim at improving both orgnisational performance and developing the career path of participants.
• Role of co – workers/subodinates
The practice of gratitude is not limited only to leaders. Co workers also have an important part to play in respect of seniors and superiors. Workers too must respect and be grateful to their superiors through commitment and dedication. Timely completion of assigned tasks at their best and polite beaviour strengthen close relationship between them and lead to organistional success.
During working hours, co workers work as a team helping each other and they are closely connected. In difficult situations, one can be of help to his fellow worker. Acting arrangements are made among them when some of them go on vacation or leave . Their relationship is stronger than that existing between leaders and subordinates . Gratefulness can be practised among them as givers and receivers.
Once and organization introduces this practice in a small way, workers begin to show their interest and commitment progressively. Organizational performance will be improved. At this stage, managers can consider about some costly interventions like offering refreshments , lunch and dinner etc., once in a way, arranging trips/camps, offering scholarships abroad depending on the financial strength of the organization as an appreciation of employees hard work contribution for success are positive.
Benefits of gratitude at work place
Gratitude bring benefits to both, leaders and subordinates as givers and receivers. When management recognizes the value of workers, they are prepared to contribute more of their energy and time and to work harder to achieve organizational objectives. Motivated employees are invaluable assets to an organization. They increase morale, grow in experience and begin to enjoy their work . Improved relationships through practising gratitude create better mental and physical health reducing stress and dissatisfaction among the entire staff in an organisation. Practice of recognition and gratitude in the work place among the staff, irrespective of hierarchical orders is one of the best approaches to achieve work place success and enrich its culture.
Bimba Gunatilke is a former Director of the Ministry of Nation Building and Infrastructure Development. She had been working in the Ministries of Planning, Plan Implementation and Regional Development in different capacities over a period of forty years. During the period her main responsibility was to planning and executing of foreign funded projects related to regional/rural development in the country”