Can improving workplace culture be as simple as saying "thank-you" more often to your co-workers and being grateful to those around you?
A Harvard Review study suggests that engaging managers and employees in exercises designed to increase gratitude can serve to:
-Strengthen motivation to behave prosocially;
-Foster close interpersonal relationships;
-Improve self-control;
-Enhance feelings of support.
The exercises also decreased the amount of gossip, harassment and isolation experienced by employees, which presumably would extend to SHIW.
Suggested exercises to improve gratitude include gratitude groups, gratitude journals and letters of thanks. Other creative ways to improve the positivity in your workplace are to create an appreciation wall that employees, management and even customers can participate in and a "slack channel" where employees are encouraged to give each other Kudos for jobs well done.
The author emphasizes the importance of managers acting as role models and buying into the process in order for it to be effective. It is also important to create time and space for these activities within the workday and to actively engage employees and customers in the process.