By Cathy Bussewitz
NEW YORK (AP) — The first thing Alison C. Jones does when she wakes up is to name three things she appreciates. It can be as easy as a breeze from the fan.
Organizational Development Consultant Jones said her daily practice helped her through the difficulties, anxiety and vulnerability of starting her own business as a single mother.
“When you practice gratitude, you train your brain to always look for anything positive. It just completely changes everything you’re going through,” she said. “You begin to see lessons in pain. You start to see beauty in very difficult times, as you realize, ‘Hey, I’m getting stronger.’ ”
Appreciation practice and encouragement are easy ways to boost morale when layoffs and financial uncertainties are causing stress and anxiety. Some employers found that workers receiving appreciation were more involved and willing to help others.
Other supporters say expressing gratitude and receiving it helps reduce stress and improve a person’s mood and outlook.
But despite its benefits, appreciation promotion is often overlooked as a valuable way to spend time and resources in the workplace.
Organizational change experts shared ways to incorporate more appreciation into their workdays.
Start small
If this is your first time practicing gratitude, you can start at home with routines such as Jones’ habits, expressing gratitude before you leave bed.
She made the appreciation practice easier, so it becomes a sustainable habit. Her one rule is to avoid repetition and develop her mind to find something new to thank each day.
Jones also recommends finding a “feeling of gratitude” to share. Your peers could be friends in your work or in your social circle, and ideas can be exchanged directly, text or email, or during a call. Many people find it helpful to list what they appreciate in their journals.
Developing gratitude at work
At work, team leaders can start staff meetings by expressing their gratitude for the steady progress last week.
As humans, we are often biased towards negativity, but gratitude “just gives us a huge amount of money to change the way people think and the way they engage with each other,” he said. “Thanks is especially strong like that. It doesn’t take long for people to notice the impact.”
The OC Tanner Institute, a software and services company, helps organizations find effective ways to show their appreciation to employees, including providing handwritten notes. The company helped American Airlines develop a system for managers and colleagues to recognize good work at the points that can be applied to catalog orders.
It also helped Amway create gift boxes to celebrate workers’ achievements and important personal milestones such as home purchase and child adoption.
“Awareness affects many aspects of an employee’s experience, and when you do it well, it connects people with a deep sense of purpose and meaning,” said Meghan Stettler, director of OC Tanner.
Some businesses donate their own products to thank nurses, doctors, police officers, firefighters and other workers who have served their communities. Frontline Builders, a nonprofit launched during the pandemic, connects donors of snacks, drinks and personal care items with recipients.
“We all worked in that job where we didn’t show gratitude and realized how foul smelled it,” said Jason Lalak, Partnership Director at Frontline Builders. “To show gratitude or gratitude to someone is not really costing anything and shouldn’t be that difficult, but it’s still rarer than it should be.”
Registered nurse Dennis Whitsel remembers how quiet the hospital she works has become during the pandemic. Usually busy with family and guests, Denver Health’s corridors suddenly became empty, reducing visits from outsiders, and patients fought only on illness.
Sometimes someone from the community offers a gift of gratitude. Delicious snacks and handmade cards from school children.
“These spontaneous perceptions were really sweet,” Whitsel said. “It felt really kind and it felt like there were so many wraps around us, it was a very supportive feeling.”
I’ll go further
Wittsell is part of the Denver Health Restore program’s volunteer team, combining frontline hospital workers and trained peer-responders with trained peer-responders to provide emotional support for the heart.
Program Director Tia Henry launched the program as a way for hospitals to improve and maintain emotional well-being in the workforce. Volunteers are taking shifts so someone can make it available around the clock and answer calls from hospital staff who are struggling with stressful events such as losing patients or witnessing violence.
Volunteers and staff regularly express their appreciation for the program, Henry said.
“I called on my way to work. “I’m struggling and I have to talk to people who get it,” Whitsel said. “It’s a good way to give back to the people I work with.”
Apart from peer support, Restore provides employees with training and education on the stress, burnout and techniques to eliminate violence, Henry said.
“We don’t do counselling or therapy, but we use the psychological first aid component to truly engage in a timely manner when our teammates are suffering, calming the nervous system and helping them get back to a regulatory location where they can go back and do what it needs to be. “That’s thanks from my lens.”
IndyPublic Safety Foundation, an Indianapolis nonprofit that supports frontline workers, has thanked police, firefighters and paramedics through award banquets, training and training, saying they appreciate award banquets, training, meals, handshakes and community tragedy.
Foundation staff will take a step further by providing tools and equipment, such as electric bikes for police patrols.
“We’re looking forward to seeing you in the future,” said Dane Nutty, president and CEO of the foundation.
Work for change
Practicing gratitude may create a more comfortable and practical environment, but it is not a replacement for better working conditions. It’s good to be grateful for the job of paying bills. It is also important to ask what is fair.
“What we absolutely appreciate doesn’t mean we accept the inferior or inappropriate,” Jones said, adding that people should advocate basic needs such as meal breaks. “It’s important not to confuse gratitude with passiveness.”
Share your workplace health stories and questions at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP coverage with a focus on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well.
Original issue: June 13th, 2025, 2:55pm EDT
