One of our favourite websites, Switch and Shift, has a great idea for holiday gifts for your staff this season. Best of all? They’re free. This article suggests the idea of giving “brainy benefits” that leave staff feeling happy and valued in the workplace. With a few days left before Christmas, give some of these ideas a shot!
Give Priceless Holiday Gifts to Staff for Free
Precious gems that leave staff feeling valued, also make work a fun a place to be. Few can afford priceless gifts for everybody at work, yet everybody can ring in holidays at work with lasting takeaways in bright packages. To create holiday extras that others will find festive—yet you can afford—consider the brainy benefits within your own mental DNA warehouse.
How does it work?
Choose holiday game-changers, from supporting another’s idea at a meeting to affirming a colleague’s talent on a Monday morning project. When even one or two give, whole teams begin to see gloomy, tired minds fade and new adventures spring into sparkling workplace creations. Workers’ minds come equipped with mirror neurons, which means people tend to mimic what they observe in ways that light up entire teams. See why giving holiday cheer spreads faster than rumors of a raise, or even doughnuts placed on staff room tables for that matter?
Holiday magic can lighten moods whenever we rebuild trust across differences that emerge. How so? When frustrations get fueled by disappointments at work or when one person’s interests seem to block another person’s progress, try tossing a cheery surprise to somebody with less to look forward to this holiday. It can be as simple as laughing at little things, or poking fun at yourself. Did you know that humor actually changes the chemistry of brains? Show the funny side of a thing in a way that all can laugh and serotonin drugs, light up a workplace like colorful flames in a holiday hearth. Dangerous cortisol chemicals fade when holiday hilarity hits – even with something as simple as an invitation to a fellow worker to recount a comical personal story.
Few would deny that creativity is most joyous when it celebrates another person in ways they value. And most agree that workplace spirits lift if you simply encourage that person who least expects it. We now have research to show why simple expressions of joy can light up your entire organization. Those mirror neurons – or a mimicking devices operate to spread joy or humor – in spite of the chilly climate many face at work.
Start Small
One department head and his assistant created a simple card that illustrated staff names and shaped joyous celebrations for the entire floor. They did this by adding a meaning beside each person’s handle. No accident – that wellbeing toppled tedium during that entire week. Did you know that to use a person’s name with respect spikes personal wellbeing in that person’s brain? We now see how PET scans show a strong cerebral flow change when folks hear their names, so imagine the card you could offer that person for a finer holiday season
Even the least paid can give the most priceless holiday cheer through animated offerings that capture seasonal strengths at work. Nab possibilities than other workers miss and your holiday offerings are certain to reach festive heights.
Since the brain’s frontal region switches between “difficult times” and “magic moments,” you can also hook wonder onto the hat rack to replace worry. Let’s say you invite a peer to a holiday luncheon and brighten a difficult situation that person faces, by asking what if questions about that person’s love for pretty much anything they do or lead at work?
Survey your Strengths
Start with a quick survey of your best intelligences here, and you have already begun to capture seasonal spirit in strengths that many miss from gems that few workplaces consider. Watch this homeless man sing of hope and holiday “diamonds in the sky,” and see what’s possible! What if you valued and spread a holiday gift from an unlikely person where you work? Or what if you diffuse a Grinch’s poor tone practices by tossing in a new tone for holiday cheer into ordinary workplace settings?
Thank somebody, encourage somebody who least expects it, or create an email one-liner that shouts you care, and you turn your talent (however its size) into a priceless offering at work.
The good news is, as long as serotonin well-being drugs get generated by people who give, and as long as dangerous cortisol chemicals fade whenever holiday hilarity or goodwill appear, you have a shot at giving enormous festive favors to all without breaking the bank.
