One of my early memories of my first job after graduating is that working life was terrible. Why did I feel that way? Because of the place I worked at and who worked for. I worked six days a week. We worked the maximum number of hours allowed under the labour law. Sometimes, the nature of work required us to work very late into the early hours of morning and we were expected to clock in as usual the next day. On occasion, we sometimes were allowed to come in slightly later. In short, working there was a nightmare. I would even say that it felt like hell. We were micromanaged every moment and no email or documentation could go out without approval.

Now, I am one of the most blessed beings on earth as I also experienced working in heaven. Why? The next place I worked at was the total opposite. Never have I even thought that I would fall in love with my work, my colleagues and love working for my employers. Well, actually I can’t even say it felt like work. It felt like I was given a second chance at love. I may sound dramatic, but after working with my first employer, you will get what I mean.

This place was so different. You may wonder, how? Simply because the leadership of the organization created a beautiful and harmonious working culture. I will tell you this, we had our share of fire fighting for due dates, rushing work out for projects, we had problems to tackle and our own stressful moments at the office. But the difference was that our bosses never left us alone to handle everything. They would be there every single moment and once everything was over, we would have a little post mortem to see what went well, what didn’t and what we could improve on. It was empowering to be there. No one looked for someone to point their fingers at but rather, how we could solve it.

And I realized that the other important aspect of all this was the power of appreciation. I was doing admin work and without fail, everyone in the office would remind me of how important my role was and how much it contributed to the success of our work. And they didn’t say this because they were buttering me up, they said it because they meant it. And it was something everyone embraced and we were never left without knowing how much we were appreciated.

We work very hard in what we do. But knowing our efforts are appreciated and when leaders make sure we know and feel it, it certainly makes a big difference to us. Appreciation at workplace is a must.