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Corporate Gratitude After a Tough Year

Gratitude is something often embraced during the holiday season. Companies host holiday parties that feature performance awards or kind gestures from management; offices send gifts to vendors and partners; holiday cards circulate and more. This year has been particularly hard for workers with many employees either trying to balance work from home with their actual home life or serving as essential workers out in crowded areas during a global pandemic. Employees and management alike may be feeling burned out, and gratitude can go a long way toward putting some wind back in the sails. Here are a few things to keep in mind about corporate gratitude, and how it can even help boost your holiday PR.

An attitude of gratitude
Corporate gratitude is about more than awards and performance-related accolades. It can be anything from thanking a co-worker for refilling the coffee pot to recognizing the consummate team player. The important thing to remember about corporate gratitude is that it starts from the top. To create a culture of gratitude management needs to lead by example. Their attitude and actions will trickle down and infuse the whole company with this positive habit.

Gratitude can take many shapes. For some companies, gratitude comes from positive feedback to individual workers from management throughout the workweek. Others may choose to have a weekly or even daily huddle (or virtual session) where employees can share their gratitude for their co-workers in a shared space. Still other companies may find that group acts of service are the best way to show gratitude and choose to participate in community initiatives.

A PR Boost
Good PR shouldn’t be the motivation for a corporate gratitude program. Authenticity is the key here! While you may want to share what’s going on within your company with your followers, if the actions aren’t authentic it could be a major turn off to employees and customers alike. So, make sure you talk the talk and walk the walk when it comes to gratitude.

Holiday CSR initiatives can be a good fit for media relations – especially when a large portion of the company comes together to advance community initiatives. You may also want to write blogs about your company’s gratitude and share them on owned channels. Social media is a great place to highlight employees and thank them for their work. Employees sharing their gratitude can be a strong source of user-generated content. If your employee shares something on their own page, you can ask them for permission to repost it and share with your followers.

It’s a mindset
While this holiday season may be the impetus of your corporate gratitude efforts, it shouldn’t end after the new year. The most effective corporate gratitude programs run year-round and provide employees with a sincere feeling of appreciation and knowing your gratitude is about more than their performance, but about them as a person. A year-round program will also fuel a PR boost at other times throughout the year.

Connect with a Beyond Fifteen Marketing Specialist today!

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