You are never too old or mature to express true kindness and appreciation. No matter how far along you progress up the corporate ladder, your job will never be to stop appreciating those around you. This is social etiquette in its workplace form. The more progress you make in the corporate world, the more people who are assisting you in doing your job well (that is, if you do your job well).

And a job well done means you need to look around you and see who made this possible. There are people all over the world irritated at how hard they work and convinced that their boss has no idea what they give up in order for them to look good. How long do you think that lasts before the hard worker takes off and the manager is left to figure out how to do things on their own? It’s a hard lesson to learn and one that happens every day. To think that simple “Please could you do this?” or “Wow!! Thanks. I couldn’t do it without you” not only would make that person feel acknowledged but they’d probably stay.

That means the more people you have working for you in your office, the more opportunity you have to let them know they are appreciated for what they do. And the more you do this, the less you have to worry if they are going to continue to do well.

If it’s someone’s job to stuff envelopes, answer phones and do mailings, you as a boss are not doing anyone any favors by withholding a thank you because they are just doing what’s in their job description. They are part of your team and if they don’t feel appreciated it’s you who will suffer when their enthusiasm for work goes down.

Please equates with polite expectations. Expectations allow others to be helpful. Being helpful deserves thanks.

Thank you equates to grateful. Grateful means you are recognizing and acknowledging how important they are. Acknowledgement makes them part of a team. And a team can do so much more than a few individuals in an office.

If acknowledgement of work happens, the team gels. If the team is solid, the company soars. Everyone has a stake now that polite expectations met gratefulness. It’s a pay-it-forward scenario with cubicles. The aloof manager, who is too busy to see how hard everyone else is working so they look good, suddenly notices that without everyone else they are nothing.