Meet Cindy Elizabeth

I am obsessed with organizational culture. I am pretty sure that using the word obsessed is putting it too lightly. Regardless, I love the work that I do around culture and inclusion at my employer. I currently lead a team discussing topics around inclusion in the workplace. These topics range from setting the foundation of what the 12 inclusive behaviors are and goes so far as to discuss homosexuality in the workplace. We get deep. We sit in a circle and sing songs while holding hands. Okay, fine, we don’t do that last piece.

In any case, we’ve been meeting for a year now and we’re about to expand and it only seemed natural to celebrate our successes up until this point. It was really a fun celebration of lunch, discussing “ah ha!” moments and me giving my team a little gift that they would always have as a reminder of our time and progress together.

But, I think there was something they loved the most: Appreciation Wall. I cut up large pieces of paper and wrote everyone’s name on the top of their sheet of paper. I taped these pieces of paper on the wall in the conference room and handed everyone a stack of post-it notes. “We’re going to write appreciations for each other.” I went on to explain that we did this in another group of mine and everyone just loved it. I always hang mine up in my lovely cubicle and when I’m having a bad day, I just look around at my reminders. “I love your energy.” “Your passion is contagious” and so forth. You can’t help but smile and be reenergized.

Everyone had so much fun with it! And I think the best thing is, you can never appreciate your co-workers, teammates or friends enough.

Recognition and appreciation in the workplace could quite possibly be the tipping point for a more engaged workplace.