Break down Emotional Barrier at Work
WHY
OpenIDEO highlighted that a difference exists between how people expressed gratitude in and outside of the workplace. We were also told that there is a difference between appreciation vs. recognition.
So we decided to crowdsource through a survey to understand:
1) the difference in how people expressed gratitude in/out of the workplace
2) the motives for why people expressed kindness in/out of workplace
3) the emotions that were evoked through the exchange of kindness in/out of work place
WHO
We received results from 42 people whose ages range from 22–58 from diverse industries including non-profit, education, financial services, technology, to homemakers, etc. Participants’ geography is across the US.
HOW
We used Gary Chapman’s 5 love languages to categorize how people showed gratitude:
- Acts of service 2. Gift 3. Time (quality) 4. Physical expression 5. Words of affirmation
We found motives to give outside of work were often related to a sense of connectedness, to repay kindness, or for self-worth. The motive to give at work were often from a place of matter of fact, obligation, organizational incentives, and also a need for expression of appreciation. Connectedness as a motive to give was reported 2x for outside of work than at work.
Sample work motives included, “they asked”, “it is my nature and my success depends on it”, “I thought it deserved to be highlighted and no one else was going to do it”, whereas outside of work motives included “I was concerned about her wellbeing”, “they were not feeling well”, or “I wanted us to share this time together”.
Our research found the most common love language received outside of work is acts of service. For work, it is words of affirmation, where it is used 1.5x more than acts of service, and acts of service is used 1.5x more than gifts.
We found time is a common love language outside of work, but never at work. It made us think that people did not like to spend more time necessary with coworkers.
We noticed a release and control situation at work which highlights work power dynamics. An example is when someone felt grateful when their manager let them go early. This would not exist between friends and partners, where power is ideally more balanced.
We saw a cyclical “learned behavior” at work, people tend to pay it forward with a similar act of kindness when a superior gave them kindness. So it’s evident that leaders play an important role in setting precedent for acts of gratitude.
Both in and outside of work, the most common way others show gratitude is through words of affirmation, verbal or written. Sometimes the act stops there, other times it cycles to more kind acts. We are curious how to propel the second.
We found a lot more variety in how others express gratitude to us outside of work than at work. This begs the question: why is work place gratitude expression so limited, and how do we expand it?
When we self report on how we give love, act of service is number one and gift is number two, for both in and outside of work.
There were discrepancies of what people self reported to give(acts of service) vs. receive(words of affirmation) the most frequently at work. This could be a perception discrepancy where verbal expressions of gratitude are not consciously considered an act of kindness as “thank you” is a part of the social norm.
People self reported words of affirmation as the most frequent way to express gratitude in and outside of work. Outside of work, we see more variation pairings of words of affirmation with another act of love, and physical expression is used more often.
Our findings have triggered us into thinking more about the practices we can create. We like to tackle authenticity, pay it forward gratitude cycles, and variegating ways of expressing gratitude in the workplace.
Cheers!
[team includes: Abby Wen Wu, Kimberly Li, and Stephanie Harrison Bailey]
