Research clearly shows that people who feel gratitude and take time out to express thankfulness are happier and experience better health.

Concluding #TheActOfGratitude series, presenting you the compilation of all five activities to bring joy of Thanksgiving to you and your people!

Thanksgiving Wall

As the guardians of our workplaces, we can set up a ThanksGiving Wall by following these simple steps to conduct this activity:

• Space: Dedicate space on each business floor, with a white board or bulletin board. You can mark #Thanksgiving on it prominently.
• Announce on the floor about the Thanksgiving Day, its importance and about the activity. Send the email after announcement.
• The activity can remain open for one day or more or even for the week.
• Each of them can pen down their gratitude/appreciation for the co-workers/support staff, specially the unsung heroes and behind-the-scene-warriors.
• They can either write with markers or stick post-it on white board / bulletin board.
• Keep the Wall open for the whole day / week. However, announce a couple of time slots (lunch break, tea break), where they may even win some lucky draws.
• At the end of the day / week, organize a Happy-Hour event to reward some of the heart-warming messages!
• What do you need for the activity:
  • White board and / or bulletin board
  • Enough number of markers and / or post-it sticky notes
  • A few volunteers to create the buzz around
  • Gifts / Prizes
• Bonus idea:
  • You can share a teaser in advance to create greater excitement

GRATITUDE@DESK

It’s always fun to be old school and appreciate our team members with a genuine handwritten compliment.

This activity is for one day. Following are the simple steps to conduct this activity and spread the positive vibes:

• Announce the activity at least a day in advance and also circulate an email.
• Allot a colour to each floor / function / group – they will get sticky notes of the colour allotted to them.
• Distribute the sticky notes to all the people. You can also place a small guideline note along with it.
• Each person will pen-down appreciation message on these sticky notes, for people who have been helping them or have been a reason for their smiles.
• They can write as many appreciation notes as they would like to. They can write it for different floors / functions / groups.
• They need to place it on the desk of person for whom they have written the note.
• In the evening, let the volunteers go around and count the number of sticky notes of each colour. The group which has posted largest number of notes is declared winner.
• What do you need for the activity: Enough number of post-it sticky notes of colours you have decided.
• Bonus ideas:
  • Reward the person(s) getting highest number of appreciation notes.
  • Place a chocolate along with post-it and you will be delighted to see the happiness on their face.
  • Get specially designed sticky notes for this activity.

RECOGNITION THRONE

Recognition is a great motivator and fun exercise. This activity will not only make team members feel grateful towards each other but also encourage them to be more kind and helpful.

Following are the simple steps to carry out this activity. It can be easily carried out in an hour’s time.

• Emails can be circulated to the team members about this activity (including date, time and venue).
• This activity requires a single chair with possibly a banner that says, “Recognition Throne”.
• Have each member of the team sit one on Recognition Throne, one at a time, for 5 minutes each.
• While a member is seated, everyone else speaks about what they appreciate about this person and expresses gratitude for their work / helping nature / good qualities, etc.
• To make this activity even more engaging, a token of appreciation can be given to each member by the team leader.
• Bonus ideas:
  • Get the chair designed well to get special feel. You may even get it designed in the shape of throne.
  • Reward the most fun / heart-warming appreciations.

REFLECTION STONES

Gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. This exercise will help your fellow workers reflect about the things to be grateful for, in turn letting them feel deeper happiness and satisfaction.

This activity can be organized for 3 to 7 days. Following are the simple steps to carry out this activity:

• Make an announcement about the activity, followed by an interesting email for more details.
• Get a set of volunteers, who will move around with a box of attractive stones.
• Each person in the team / organization needs to pick a stone they really like.
• Ask them to look at this stone and think of a good memory. This is the happiness stone.
• Ask them to keep this stone with them in their pocket / purse for the duration of activity (3 to 7 days).
• This is where this activity gets interesting. Whenever their hand touches the stone inside the pocket / purse, they need to think about one thing they are grateful for. If possible, express the gratitude. For example, if you think of a person, then call them/meet them and let them know that you are grateful for them.
• On the last day of the activity, they need to submit a one page note about their experience with happiness stone.
• Reward the best happiness note on Thanksgiving evening.
• Things required for the activity:
  • Coloured stones of appropriate size, neither too small nor too large.
• Bonus Idea:
  • On Thanksgiving evening, ask few people to come forward and share their experiences.

Gratitude with Mindfulness

Research shows that Mindfulness enhances the overall sense of gratitude. So today, let’s help our people to experience authentic and deep gratitude with this brief but powerful exercise:

For this exercise:

• Schedule 15 minutes of time for this exercise on Thanksgiving Day. You can plan it at the beginning or at the end of the Thanksgiving Day events. You can also plan it as a standalone activity during any time of the day.
• Make an announcement about it (date, time and venue) and also circulate the email. It will be a good idea to block the calendars for easy reminders.
• As people will need to be seated, make necessary seating arrangements.
• Make necessary arrangements for playing the 12-minute audio, in a way that the sound is clear and audible to all.
• Ensure that there are no external disturbances or noises during the activity.
• You may want to share a quick brief about mindfulness and gratitude before you play the audio, to align the audience with this activity.
• After the audio is complete, ask people to move around in the room and thank as many people as they can.
• For this activity, you need:
  • Guided audio practice (given below)
  • Appropriate seating arrangement
  • Audio player and speakers
• Bonus ideas:
  • If possible, you may arrange for people to sit on mats for added feel. Have some chairs as well for those who can’t sit on the mat.
  • After the audio is complete, you may ask them to write down their experience in the given notebook / paper. This is for their personal recollection and need not be shared with anybody

https://soundcloud.com/user-357037983/gratitude-with-mindfulness-video

Hope these activities brought cheers and smiles at your workplace

Wishing you a warm and happy Thanksgiving !!

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