Work Place Kindness - Seeing The Goodness In People

Work Place Kindness

It never ceases to make me feel good to see the nice things that people do for each other in the work place. I guess you might call me an optimist but I do believe that most people are just plain good folks, there are the few exceptions that can give everyone else a bad name but, for the most part they seem to be in the minority.

I feel lucky that I get to read really nice letters of sincere appreciation about employees; perhaps that accounts for my bias to seeing the goodness in people.

Here I'll share one of the letters with you:

Actual Letter to Management from One Employee About Another

"On Friday, Rosalinda saw me walking with my cane, hands full, and offered to help me out. Even though she was only planning on going as far as the employee lounge, she walked with me all the way to my office carrying a bag for me. This was a selfless act that demonstrated service, teamwork and all the positive attributes associated with deserving praise."

Caught in the Act of; Random Kindness!

By this I can see that this Rosalinda is a real caring and kind person. Little did Rosalinda know that this act of random kindness was to be "reported" the management!

Another funny story I'll share with you:

Complaint Department

I was referred to the "Complaint Department" of this company that had some strange policy that made absolutely no sense at all, I kept going around and around with the customer service person until finally she moved me on to a manager, this manager saw the error in their policy and went out of his way to get things straightened out for me, but we had to do this through the "Complaint Department" I asked do you have a "Praise" Department? The manager said "No he never heard of one there." I replied "Don't you think you could use one?" He laughed and said that would be something nice.

Yes, that would be nice.

Best in Employee Morale

A Positive Work Environment brings out the Best in Employee Morale, Productivity, and Job Satisfaction. They'll do a better job--and stay with you!

Those in the know can tell you that this can alone save companies hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year.

Be Careful Not to Insult Your Employees!

Be careful though, implementing a system can be tricky and some employee motivation programs actually are insulting to employees!

For example:

• Praise that is not sincere; Employees can tell the difference.
• A reward that does not reflect the employees perception of the employees value; this does not have to be expensive, just has to be valuable to the employee.

In the next article I will cover "Effective Employee Motivation Programs; Don't need to cost you an arm and a leg!"

Thanks for reading!

Steve Howard, President and Creator of PraiseStar™ Your Portal for Praise /