Driving a happy work environment with #Daily_Gratitude — From the COO’s office at Freshdesk
On October 13th this year, Freshdesk celebrated its sixth anniversary (as a company we just celebrated it this past weekend). It’s been a great ride for us till now, growing from a team of five to 850+ across five offices around the world! Though I joined the company in late 2015 (can’t believe it’s been over a year already :-D), I’d heard a lot about the kind of culture and values that Freshdesk thrives on. That in fact, was a key driver for me to join Freshdesk. As a team, we always emphasise how we ought to maintain this employee and customer-centric culture as we scale. Being on a hyper-growth trajectory makes this even more important for us.
At every one of our monthly All-Hands (this is where the whole office comes together and the leadership presents Freshdesk’s North Star metrics and is most often theme-based, e.g. the last All-Hands focused on OKRs), we speak about how we drive a positive-reinforcement culture over a negative, competitive one.
A fun, inspiring and positive workplace you love trumps a dog-eat-dog environment any day, don’t you think?
When I thought about how I could get folks at the company to really internalise this idea is when I decided to start my #Daily_Gratitude series. This self-reflection turned deliberate act of gratitude has its own benefits.
It reinforced Freshdesk’s non-hierarchical structure
In most companies, employees tend to find it difficult to access the CEO or COO or any of the senior executives. This may be because leadership often translates to being unapproachable or intimidating. With #Daily_Gratitude, I take time off each day to reach out to my team and say thank you for the great work that they’ve done and celebrate the small wins. This daily interaction helps us come closer together (even if it’s remotely) and keeps us from working in silos. The real fun is when I can spend quality time with folks at the office and catch a movie or get dinner together.
This goes a long way in terms of open communication and honest criticism and ultimately builds stronger relationships at work (one of our core values is #Build_Genuine_Relationships). It also helps us all celebrate our unsung heroes — at every company it’s easy to see the success that the product or sales teams are driving (revenue and product launches). But there are many other partner teams working silently in the background…such posts help us call out and recognize their impact as well. Because it’s also important to celebrate the small wins along the way (like our HR and Facilities team working around the clock to keep us safe during the cyclone).
Being grateful became an infectious habit
When I look back now, after over 4 months of #Daily_Gratitude, I realise more and more people have taken to the habit. Now it’s not just my post that goes up on Workplace each morning, there are posts from multiple managers and teams appreciating their peers at work. This reinforces our open culture with high visibility and recognition for stellar work.
Being grateful made me (us) feel more energised and positive
When you start your day with gratitude, it’s amazing how (subconsciously) it helps you begin your day on a positive note. The glass is half full vs. half empty this way. Hey, it even reminds you to smile more often! Isn’t that how we should tune ourselves to spend 8+ hours of our day than just chase deadlines and attend meetings that will inevitably be there in a hyper-growth environment? No one said building one of the fastest growing SaaS businesses would be cakewalk, but we can have fun while we’re at it, right?
At Freshdesk, we’re on a mission to build a lasting company, one where we appreciate great work and laud team players, making genuine friends along the way — #Daily_Gratitude is just one way we go about doing this! :-)
P.S. We’re a driven bunch of over 850+ passionate folks here at Freshdesk. Get to know us better here!
