Making the tea, giving compliments and feeding people are all excellent examples of random acts of workplace kindness.
Being kind in the workplace creates a ripple effect. It impacts the general level of positivity, boosts your mood and it’s contagious as the good feelings it promotes make people likely to ‘pay it forward’. Plus, it’s officially good for your health!
How random acts of kindness can affect your health
According to the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, carrying out acts of kindness can:
- Reduce blood pressure: Acts of kindness create emotional warmth, which releases a hormone known as oxytocin. This helps to lower blood pressure and improve overall heart health.
- Reduce pain: Kindness produces endorphins – the brain’s natural pain killer.
- Reduce isolation: It can encourages others to make human contact.
- Reduce anxiety: Kind actions can lift our mood because they stimulate the production of serotonin. This feel-good chemical heals your wounds, calms you down, and makes you happy!
- Reduce stress: Kind people have 23 percent less cortisol (known as the stress hormone).
This year, National Random Acts of Kindness Day falls on February 17th and encourages individuals, groups and organisations nationwide, to perform good deeds.
The average worker spends up to 90,000 hours of their life with their work buddies, so why not brighten up their day and reap the benefits from doing so?
How to perform random acts of kindness in the workplace
Be a feeder!
Jo, our lovely office manager at WPG, is the first to notice when co-workers are feeling stressed and always quick to offer a much-appreciated cup of tea. There’s not much that can’t be fixed by a good cuppa, or food generally.Baking (or buying) snacks for the office will always go down well and is our number one random act of workplace kindness.
Say ‘Thank you’ – and mean it!
Has someone done a good job? Or perhaps they’ve done you a favour? Show your gratitude by saying it out loud or better yet, send them an email they can reread when they need a little positivity. Perhaps you could consider letting their boss know too?
Give a compliment or two
A compliment can leave a lasting impressing on those on the receiving end and injects a little dose of feel-good. Try to focus on personal qualities or workplace achievements rather than appearance or outfits though.
Actively listen to your colleague
- Defined as giving your complete, intentional focus to what someone is saying, active listening can improve the rate of workplace performance and is key to strong workplace relationships and productivity. And, as a bonus, you can make an employee feel respected by knowing they are being listened to.
Spread messages of kindness everywhere!
The quickest and, perhaps, the easiest way to brighten up someone’s day? Say it with a Post-it note. Jot down a few positive, feel-good messages you’d like to read yourself and stick them up around your workplace for your co-workers to see.
Please do let us know about your own random acts of workplace kindness. We’d love to hear from you!
