Sometimes decisions made about what a company’s culture is going to be like are significant. Will we or won’t we allow employees to work remotely? What does our managerial structure look like? How do we communicate?
Each one of those decisions can make a critical difference in what it’s like to work within a business. Many times, though, culture consists of small repeated actions that most or all employees make on a daily basis.
One thing I’ve noticed at The Iron Yard is that we say “thank you” incredibly often. I’m not positive, but I think the habit grew out of the partners of the company agreeing to act on the things we thought should have been different at previous companies we’d worked at. One thing we wanted to make sure of was that people felt appreciated. We’ve all been in situations where we feel like we are working hard, but no one notices. People leave jobs because of a lack of appreciation.
Saying a simple “thank you” to someone who has done a good job, both privately and publicly in your company, shows people that you notice and appreciate their work, which goes an incredibly long way.
The best part, at least in the trend that I’ve seen at our company, is that if you make a habit of saying thank you, other people will as well and the sense of appreciation will spread.
Everyone has different emotional needs, but all of us are more energized to do great work when we know that people notice and appreciate that work.
