Self-awareness can be a very valuable leadership tool, but a recent survey shows that the C-suite in the U.S. could use a smidge more. Thnks recently surveyed over 250 CEOs and employees to understand the importance of gratitude in the workplace. Results showed that 88% of CEOs thought their employees would give them high marks for giving adequate gratitude. However, only 37% of employees felt that their CEO’s had a satisfactory level of gratitude at their organizations.
Furthermore, 96% of employees said that such gratitude was either somewhat or very important in order to feel appreciated at work. “The divide between the way CEOs and their employees view gratitude in the workplace is striking and it is clearly something business leaders need to address,” said Larry Rubin, executive chairman and founder of Thnks. “This survey clearly demonstrates that employees want to be shown gratitude and CEOs want to express gratitude as both feel it’s highly important. Despite this, 55% of employees say that they are thanked either a few times a year, once a year, or never. At Thnks we are building systems that enable enterprise team leaders to more easily and consistently build these relationships both internally as well as with clients and prospects.”
The survey suggests that business leaders may benefit from expressing their gratitude more routinely. This is underscored by the fact that nearly 50% of the employees surveyed said they’d leave a job if their bosses didn’t show them enough appreciation.
“In a time of drastically low unemployment, it is more important than ever for business leaders to retain talent,” said Brendan Kamm, CEO, and co-founder of Thnks. “While a summer outing or a year-end gift is nice, smaller, more frequent expressions of gratitude and individual recognition can be more impactful, especially in establishing a company-wide culture of appreciation.”
Thnks provides business professionals the ability to send gestures of appreciation that are timely and thoughtful, instantly from a mobile device or desktop. For instance, a CEO might use Thnks to send a bottle of wine to an account executive that created the perfect sales deck, or a Starbucks coffee to a tired employee whose baby cried through the night. Sales teams also utilize Thnks to foster relationships with clients and to increase the efficiency through which prospects are moved through the sales funnel.
Roughly 80% of CEOs surveyed stated that customers would give their company high rankings when it comes to gratitude, and this is balanced by 70% of employees who feel their company does a good job expressing appreciation to customers. Even though the large majority of CEOs surveyed feel they express gratitude well, 80% said they intend to improve on the way gratitude is expressed in their workplace. In 2019, these CEOs resolve to advance a culture of gratitude as an important aspect of their businesses.
The Thnks Corporate Gratitude Survey was conducted in December 2018 by 1Q, a cloud-based service that provides instant insight from highly targeted demographics. The survey gathered responses from 250 CEOs and 250 wage earners, the majority of whom identified as middle managers. 1Q’s respondents are curated based on a GDPR compliant, double opt-in system and verified through cell data, IP validation, and other metrics.