What the Evidence Says About Gratitude and Retention
By FairShare Team · · 3 min read
Unlike generic wellness programming, gratitude and recognition research has a more encouraging track record — with a specific, important caveat about how it needs to be delivered to actually work.
A Harvard Business Review study found that structured gratitude practices — specifically, encouraging colleagues to express thanks to one another and reflect on what they're grateful for — measurably decreased workplace mistreatment on teams where it was introduced. A separate, more recent Harvard Business Review study on timing found that expressing gratitude to employees before a distressing or demanding task, rather than only after, helped counteract negative emotions associated with that task and made people more likely to persist through difficulty and recover from setbacks.
The industry data agrees
Industry research backs this from a different angle. A joint Gallup and Workhuman analysis found that employees who receive the right amount of workplace recognition are up to 90% less likely to report being burned out "always" at work, and roughly twice as likely to report experiencing genuine gratitude the previous day, compared to employees who don't receive adequate recognition.
The caveat: this research consistently distinguishes genuine, specific, peer-driven gratitude from generic recognition programs bolted onto an HR platform. One frequently cited psychological finding notes that recognition has a measurably greater positive impact on wellbeing when it comes from peers rather than supervisors — which lines up closely with the principle that the team, not a platform or a manager, should be the one doing the thanking.
For a specialty built on high-stakes teamwork under pressure, this isn't abstract. A colleague quietly covering a case, a note left after a hard shift — the research suggests these small, specific, peer-to-peer moments of acknowledgment carry real, measurable protective weight against burnout, not just a nice cultural touch. That's the design premise behind FairShare's gratitude features.
Sources
- Building a Better Workplace Starts with Saying "Thanks." Harvard Business Review. November 2020.
- When Expressing Gratitude to Employees, Timing Matters. Harvard Business Review. November 2024.
- Gallup/Workhuman, From "Thank You" to Thriving report.