What a thank-you actually does to people at work

Saying thank you at work can feel too small to matter. One of the best-known studies on the subject suggests the opposite.

The fundraiser experiment

Adam Grant and Francesca Gino studied 41 university fundraisers, all on fixed salaries, whose job was to call alumni and ask for donations. It's repetitive work with a lot of rejection.

The director of the program visited half of the fundraisers in person and thanked them for their work. That's it: no bonus, no new target, no training. The other half got no visit.

In the following week, the fundraisers who were thanked made more than 50% more calls than they had the week before. The group that wasn't thanked made about the same number of calls as usual (Harvard Gazette; Grant and Gino, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2010).

Unlike most workplace studies, this was an experiment, not a survey. The only difference between the two groups was the thank-you.

Why it works: feeling that you matter

Grant and Gino's explanation was social worth. Being thanked tells people their work is seen and valued by someone, and people work harder for others when they feel valued by them. It wasn't that people suddenly felt more skilled. They felt that what they did mattered to someone.

That's a useful way to think about recognition at work. It isn't a reward for hitting a target. It's a signal that someone noticed.

What recognition is linked to at scale

Larger studies can't run experiments like that, but they show a consistent pattern.

In research covering more than 12,000 employees in 12 countries, Gallup and Workhuman found that people who get recognition that hits the mark are much less likely to feel burned out "always" or "very often," and much less likely to be looking for another job (Gallup and Workhuman).

The same research looked at belonging. People who were recognized well were up to ten times as likely to strongly agree that they belong at their organization. People without a strong sense of belonging were up to twelve times as likely to be disengaged (Gallup and Workhuman, 2022).

Yet only about one in four U.S. employees strongly agree that they get the right amount of recognition.

What makes a thank-you land

Not all recognition does this. A generic "great job, team" in a monthly all-hands is easy to give and easy to forget. The thank-yous that change behavior tend to have a few things in common:

• Specific. "Thanks for staying late to fix the export before the client demo" beats "thanks for your hard work." It proves someone noticed what you did, not just that you exist.
• Soon. A week later, it still means something. Six months later, at a review, it's a footnote.
• Seen. Recognition in front of peers tells everyone what good work looks like. Some people prefer it private, and that's fine too.
• From someone whose opinion matters to them. A manager, a leader, or a colleague who knows the work.

The cost is almost nothing

The fundraiser study's intervention took a few minutes. Most recognition does. That's what makes it unusual among things that affect engagement: it doesn't need a budget, a reorganization, or a new hire. It needs a habit.

Where Pulsido fits

Pulsido is built for the specific, soon, and seen kind of thank-you. A kudos names the person, the value, and what they did, in under a minute on the web or in Slack. It lands in front of the team as a card, and it can be private when that's better. Coins and rewards are there for companies that want them, but the thank-you itself is free.

Sources

• Harvard Gazette, The power of thanks (2013), on Grant, A. M., and Gino, F., "A little thanks goes a long way," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(6), 946–955 (2010)
• Gallup and Workhuman, Recognition in the Workplace research
• Gallup and Workhuman, Amplifying Wellbeing at Work and Beyond Through the Power of Recognition (2022)