Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to just be a holiday for lovers — it can be for the workplace too.
Business consulting firm Mindvalley began Love Week — “five days of amazing giving and receiving at the office” a week before Valentine’s Day — several years ago and they’re now encouraging other companies to spread the love.
The point of Love Week is to bolster giving and receiving of support and appreciation at work, which ends up increasing productivity and fosters stronger friendships among co-workers. “I’m not here to make friends,” you might say, along with every reality TV star ever. Well according to Mindvalley’s research, if you really care about doing better at work, you should be there to make friends:
“A 2008 Gallup Consulting study concluded that employee engagement is a force that drives business outcomes, and engaged employees are more productive, profitable, customer-focused and safer.
According to Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, 95% of people who provide no social support at work have no work engagement. True work altruists [those] are about 10X as likely to be highly engaged.
Tom Rath, the author of the best-selling Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without, found that people who have a best friend at work are seven times as likely to be engaged in their job.
Another study by Gallup Consulting discovered that 75% of participants who had a best friend at work planned to be with their companies for at least another year.”
So once you’ve grudgingly admitted that having better relationships at work will make a positive difference, how do you go about Love Week?
The guidelines are simple: Everyone’s name goes in a hat or other container, and each person draws out a name at random. The person you draw is then your “Human” to which you will be their “Secret Angel.” As their Secret Angel, you are then to anonymously show “love and appreciation for your Human throughout Love Week in creative, mysterious and secretive ways.” Your identity as their Secret Angel is only revealed after Love Week ends.
If you’re ready to share the love with your Human but don’t know how, you can check out some of Mindvalley’s suggestions and tips here.
