How Construction Paper and Tape can Improve Your Workplace

By KCY

Most people don’t love to go to work. That’s why it ‘s called work. We look at work as a way to make money. We value our days off, our vacation days, even sometimes, our sick days! Most of us can’t wait to leave work.

But it shouldn’t be this way. After all, most of us spend more of our waking hours at work than any other place, including home. So, we need to find ways to make work more enjoyable.

I’m going to tell you one such way you can make your workplace more pleasant and fun!

Make a Gratitude Tree.

Now, we have all heard of Gratitude. It’s a big thing now. To be happy, you have to be thankful. And you have to acknowledge being thankful. I know it sounds really cheesy, but, honestly, it actually does work.

A Gratitude Tree is a way to do this. It’s a way for people to acknowledge their colleagues and recognize all the wonderful things done in our workplace.

Trust me. When we did this where I work, smiles on faces increased one hundred fold.

How to Make Your own Work Gratitude Tree

Step 1:

Pick an empty wall/bulletin board in the center of a workplace. Make sure you pick a place where everyone can see it. Whether it be, the break room, on a wall in the center of office cubicles, make sure the space is central!

Step 2:

Gather construction paper: brown for the trunk and green for the leaves. I also like to gather pink paper (optional). The pink makes for a nice, warm background.

Step 3:

Cut out a shape of a trunk and also branches of the tree.

Step 4:

Tape them all together, forming a tree with branches.

Step 5:

Attach the pink paper to the location you have chosen to place your gratitude tree (optional). Attach this tree to the wall.

Step 6:

Using the green construction paper, cut out leaves.

Step 7:

Distribute the leaves to everyone in the workplace.

Step 8:

Have each person write something they are grateful for that week about being at work. Some examples include qualities you admire in a colleague, acknowledging a colleague’s good deed, what you find meaningful at work that week.

Step 9:

Attach the leaves to the branches on the tree.

Step 10:

Distribute the green leaves once a week to each person in the workplace and repeat Step 8 and Step 9.

Make sure to read the leaves every week.

Then watch your Gratitude Tree bloom.