If you send this type of note in the office, productivity will skyrocket

Hand-written thank-you notes are now more than just a boring obligation in response to an ill-fitting Christmas sweater, or a last-minute errand rushed through hastily after your wedding.

They’re now an integral part of your office culture – if you’re a better boss than most, that is.

How important are thank-you notes?

A study from the USC Marshall School of Business recently collected data from 58 employees who journaled about their experiences over the course of a month, and another 1,200 who reported their experiences with gratitude with surveys.

For the most part, people seem to experience more thank-yous and you’re-welcomes from their coworkers than their bosses; 75.1% say that at least once a week they receive a thank-you from a coworker, either in writing or in conversation. But only 52.9% report that they’ve been thanked in the past week by a supervisor.

So what does a stand-out boss do that others don’t? They don’t just thank their employees, they send hand-written thank you letters — and the research proves that this thoughtful expression of appreciation can get you further with your team, make those around you more productive, and even make you a little happier.

Thank-you notes can help you in the workplace?

If you’re skeptical about the impact of a handwritten thank-you note, you’re not alone — researchers at the Booth School of Business realized that people were so unsure about the effects of a thank-you note that they conducted a study on it.

This 2018 report from the University of Chicago proves that the art of handwritten notes is severely underestimated in the workplace. Over the course of three experiments, participants wrote gratitude letters and predicted how “surprised, happy, and awkward” the recipients of the notes would feel. The recipients then reported their feelings upon the reception of the note.

Ultimately, the authors of the notes not only “overestimated how awkward recipients would feel,” they also “underestimated how positive recipients would feel.” This means that while you might think that sending a hand-written thank you note would end up awkwardly, the person on the other end of the note might appreciate it more than you’d think.

How can they increase productivity?

In fact, recipients might enjoy a thank-you letter so much that it’ll help their work performance. A recent Gallup Poll states that even if you don’t think that thank-you notes can be that helpful, you should never assume that employees already “know their strengths.” More often than not, they take their most “powerful talents” for granted. Even a simple thank-you will increase the productivity of your employees in untold ways.

In a sample of 1,000 employees, 25% of American workers felt ignored by their employers, as they didn’t receive either positive or negative feedback. Another 40% were “actively disengaged” from their workplaces due to this lack of feedback.

However, another 37% found that their supervisors focused more on their strengths, positive qualities, and provided consistent encouragement. Of those, a whopping 61% of employees stated that they were engaged in work to a more substantial degree, more than twice the nationwide average of 33%.

“This suggests,” the Gallup Poll states, “that if every company in America trained its managers to focus on employees’ strengths, the U.S. could easily double the number of engaged employees in the workplace.”

What can it do for your own self-esteem?

Writing a thank-you note isn’t just for your employees, colleagues, or bosses, it’s also for yourself. The model of the traditional Good Samaritan isn’t just someone who does good for other people, but it’s someone who’s generally at peace, filled with compassion and joy. This is because when one performs acts of kindness, it’s scientifically proven to make them happier as well.

One final study from the Journal of Positive Psychology notes that performing acts of kindness is more likely to make someone happier, regardless of how their activity is perceived.

This amalgamation of reports contains five separate studies that all prove this notion, involving everything from questionnaires to asking participants to feed the parking meters of strangers. No matter the task, if one believes that they did a good thing for someone else, they end up happier.

Hand-written notes in particular foster a sense of synergy, appreciativeness, and friendliness. The meditative act of writing a note combined with the emotional vulnerability needed to make it personal is an exercise in connectivity, one that will ultimately aid the writer as much as the recipient.