How Gratitude & Celebration Can Connect Your Staff Back To Their Why
The biggest reason employees leave organizations is that they don’t feel seen, heard, appreciated, and valued. How managers communicate their appreciation to their employees establishes how successful a team will be.
What are your leaders doing to communicate their gratitude towards their staff? How can recognizing and celebrating your employees’ successes dramatically improve team chemistry and build psychological safety? Consistent gestures of gratitude towards staff have proven to improve productivity, strengthen relationships and subsequently build a happier workforce. Gratitude, among other emotional intelligence skills, typically does not get the credit they deserve in establishing the culture of an organization.
In this talk, we will explore the impact gratitude and celebration can have on a team, examine the psychological ripple effects gratitude can have on an entire company, and break down what actionable gratitude exercises can be implemented in real-time at your organization. It’s incredible how powerful a simple thank you can be, especially during these tumultuous times.
Learning Objectives
- Learn the psychological benefits of gratitude and celebration that help build more cohesive, productive teams
- Reflect and celebrate successes made throughout the year and identify how to communicate gratitude in your staff’s language of appreciation
- Identify and practice actionable gratitude exercises that communicate genuine appreciation that can be implemented in real-time at your organization
Retain Staff By Rediscovering Their Why With Play
We often measure our self-worth through achievements and external results, focusing on hitting goals rather than enjoying the journey. This same mindset spills into the workplace, where success is often defined by productivity at the expense of well-being. But what if the secret to retaining staff isn’t about pushing harder, but about rediscovering joy and connection through play?
Research shows that play is a powerful tool for unlocking creativity, focus, and engagement—key drivers in creating a thriving workplace where employees want to stay. When people tap into their play values, they connect with their work on a deeper level, reducing burnout and increasing loyalty.
By embracing play, organizations can build workplaces where employees feel valued, engaged, and inspired—leading not only to better results but also to stronger retention. Rediscovering play might just be the key to keeping your best talent.
Learning Objectives:
- Help your team identify their unique play styles and discover how play fosters belonging and purpose.
- Learn the science of flow and how play enhances focus, productivity, and satisfaction at work.
- Practice positive psychology techniques that help employees connect their roles to their intrinsic motivation.
Building Psychology Safety At Work Through Play
Managers often associate “playing at work” with goofing off or wasting company time and money. But what if play was a crucial component to building a solid foundation for your team? What if it could help create a sense of belonging and psychological safety in the workplace and rekindle morale — especially surrounded by all this uncertainty?
In this workshop, we will explore how play is vital to building
camaraderie in this surreal new reality of work. We will analyze what is currently missing from your workplace that would create the psychological safety your staff is looking for to feel comfortable playing. Finally, we will determine what are the initial steps you need to take to create an environment where staff can do their most vibrant work.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the traits of psychologically safe workplaces & why it’s important
- Explore the steps necessary to build psychological safety and how to show up as a leader that is fostering an inclusive workplace
- Determine strategies to implement psychological safety techniques within the team in real-time
Work Is Broken…Play Can Fix It!
Why does work feel worse now than ever? 85% of workers are disengaged, 81% are job-hunting, 72% feel underpaid, and nearly 80% struggle with work-life balance. These are more than just numbers—they’re the sign of a workforce barely hanging on. Businesses are losing almost $500 billion, with absenteeism, turnover, and accidents spiking.
But wait—aren’t there more leadership books, consultants, and workplace experts than ever? Yet it still feels like we’re just spinning our wheels, hitting productivity goals while employees are left out in the cold. The truth? The system rewards mediocrity and penalizes playful innovation.
Steven Johnson put it best: “You’ll find the future where people are having fun.” This talk is a call to action for leaders who want to embrace a play-oriented mindset—creating a work environment that celebrates risk, failure, and joyful experiments. We’ll dive into dismantling the patriarchal, outdated work environments of the past and building a culture driven by empathy, compassion, and shared humanity. Let’s turn work into a place where people want to show up—and where they can do their most vibrant work.
- Challenge outdated workplace norms prioritizing productivity over employee well-being, engagement, and innovation
- Discover transformative, play-oriented approaches to foster psychological safety, risk-taking, and genuine connection in the workplace
- Equip leaders with the tools to replace rigid hierarchies with empathetic, human-centered practices that inspire collective growth and creativity
