How Gratitude Makes Work More Sustainable

A simple thank you can change the feel of a workday. It can help someone feel seen or soften a hard moment. It can remind a person that their effort landed somewhere, helped someone, or mattered more than they realized.

Yet gratitude at work can also feel complicated. It can be distributed unevenly, with the same visible people receiving praise while quieter contributors remain unseen. In the wrong culture, gratitude can even feel like a way to smooth over deeper problems: unfairness, exhaustion, poor communication, or a lack of respect.

That tension sits at the heart of Andrew Soren’s conversation with organizational psychologist Ryan Fehr on Meaningful Work Matters. Ryan studies how people build positive, constructive relationships in organizations. His work focuses on gratitude, compassion, forgiveness, leadership, solitude, and social burnout. In this episode, he brings that research into a practical conversation about what helps people feel appreciated without making gratitude feel forced, hollow, or unfair.

The deeper theme is mattering. People want to know that their presence and contributions count. Gratitude is one way that happens, and social sustainability is another. Together, they point toward a more relational way of thinking about meaningful work.

What Gratitude Really Means at Work

Ryan defines gratitude as a feeling of appreciation for benefits that come from outside ourselves. That definition matters because it shifts gratitude away from generic positivity. Gratitude is not simply noticing that something good happened. It is noticing that someone or something beyond us helped make that good possible.

Most meaningful accomplishments are not solo achievements, even when organizations reward them that way. A project moves forward because someone answered a question, caught an error, cleared a path, offered encouragement, shared expertise, or handled a task that others barely saw.

Gratitude names that interdependence. When expressed well, it tells people: I noticed what you did. I understand that it mattered. I am better off because of your effort. That kind of recognition helps people feel that they are part of a web of contribution rather than a collection of isolated performers.

The Gratitude Gap

One of the striking patterns Ryan discusses is the gap between how much people value gratitude and how often they actually express it at work. Many employees believe gratitude can improve the workplace. Far fewer express it regularly to colleagues. That gap is not hard to understand. Workplaces can be busy, transactional, and cautious. People may worry that appreciation will sound awkward, too emotional, or unprofessional. Leaders may assume employees already know they are valued. Team members may intend to say something and then move quickly to the next task. Over time, the unsaid thank yous add up.

This is one reason gratitude practices can help. A gratitude journal can train attention, a gratitude conversation can turn private appreciation into connection, or short moment in a meeting can help people notice the contributions that normally stay invisible. Still, Ryan is careful about how organizations approach this. Gratitude works best when it grows out of real attention and care and it loses power when it becomes a checkbox.

Gratitude Cannot Replace Fairness

Gratitude doesn’t hide poor work conditions. If people do not feel respected, listened to, or treated fairly, a recognition platform will not solve the deeper issue. It may make things worse. Employees can tell when appreciation is being used to avoid harder conversations about workload, dignity, compensation, inclusion, or leadership behavior. Gratitude has to rest on a foundation of fairness.

Ryan also talks about the risks of uneven gratitude. When appreciation consistently flows toward a small group of people, others can begin to feel overlooked. Instead of strengthening belonging, gratitude can create resentment. People may start asking: Why does that person always get recognized? Why does my work disappear? Who gets seen here, and who does not?

A healthy gratitude culture is not only warm. It is attentive, it notices different kinds of contribution, and it recognizes visible wins and quiet support. It sees both the person who presents the final result and the people who made the result possible. For leaders, this may be the most practical takeaway: gratitude should widen attention, not narrow it.

Appreciation and Mattering

Meaningful work is closely tied to the feeling that we matter. Mattering is more than being liked or praised. It is the sense that our existence and effort make a difference to others. In workplaces, that feeling is often built through relationships. People feel they matter when others notice their work, depend on them, seek their perspective, and acknowledge their contribution.

A vague “great job” can feel nice, but specific gratitude is more powerful. It explains what was seen and why it mattered. That is especially important in large or busy organizations, where people can feel like their work disappears into a system. Gratitude can interrupt that disappearance. It can make the social meaning of work more visible.

Social Sustainability: Relationships That Do Not Exhaust Us

The second major idea Ryan brings into the conversation is social sustainability. It is a useful phrase because it names something many people feel but do not always know how to describe. A person can have plenty of social contact and still feel socially exhausted. They may sit in meetings all day, answer messages, manage relationships, lead teams, support clients, and care for family or friends. They are not alone in the obvious sense, but they are depleted.

Ryan distinguishes this from loneliness. Loneliness is often about not having enough connection. Social burnout is about feeling exhausted or frustrated by the relationships we do have.

Many professionals are constantly interacting and still missing the kinds of connection that restore them. Their relationships may be frequent but shallow, urgent, performative, or emotionally demanding. The result is a strange kind of depletion: too much contact, too little nourishment. Social sustainability asks a better question than “Do I have enough relationships?” It asks: Are my relationships energizing enough to sustain the life and work I want to do?

Rich Talk and Social Single-Tasking

Ryan offers several practical ways to build more sustainable relationships, and two stand out: rich talk and social single-tasking. Rich talk is conversation that moves beyond automatic small talk into something more interesting, honest, or meaningful. It does not have to be heavy. It simply has to create a little more real contact. A good question, a story, or a moment of curiosity can shift an interaction from routine to connecting.

Social single-tasking is another powerful idea. Many of us are physically present with people while mentally split across devices, tasks, and unfinished obligations. We are in conversation, but we are also checking, scanning, preparing, or half-listening. That kind of fragmented attention can leave both people feeling unsatisfied. It creates the appearance of connection without the full experience of it.

Social single-tasking asks us to do one relational thing at a time. Listen to the person in front of you. Have the conversation without also managing three other streams of input. Give the interaction enough attention that it has a chance to become energizing. It may be one of the most practical ways to make everyday work relationships feel more human.

Solitude Also Belongs in the Conversation

If relationships are going to be energizing, people need time away from social demand. Not all solitude is restorative, of course. Scrolling alone after a draining day may not replenish much. Ryan points instead toward higher-quality solitude: time that helps people recover attention, process experience, or return to themselves.

This is especially important for people whose work is relationally intense. Leaders, coaches, consultants, caregivers, educators, and people managers often spend their days responding to others. Even meaningful relationships can become draining when there is no space between them. Solitude gives people room to metabolize the social world. Without it, even good relationships can start to feel like demand.

Practical Takeaways: How to Build More Grateful, Sustainable Relationships at Work

Here are six ways to bring Ryan’s ideas into daily work.

1. Make gratitude specific.

Move beyond “thanks” when you can. Name what the person did, why it mattered, and how it helped. Specific gratitude is more likely to make people feel seen.

2. Look for invisible contributions.

Ask who is making work easier, safer, clearer, or more possible behind the scenes. Gratitude becomes fairer when leaders notice quiet forms of contribution.

3. Do not launch gratitude before addressing respect.

If people feel ignored, overworked, or treated unfairly, start there. Gratitude grows better in cultures where dignity and fairness are already being taken seriously.

4. Try one gratitude conversation.

Choose someone whose contribution you appreciate and tell them directly. Keep it real, specific, and grounded in something they actually did.

5. Replace one small-talk moment with rich talk.

Ask a better question. Share a brief story. Invite a little more curiosity. A conversation does not need to be long to feel more meaningful.

6. Practice social single-tasking.

In one conversation this week, put away the device, stop multitasking, and give the person your full attention. Notice whether the interaction feels different.

A Final Thought

Ryan Fehr’s work reminds us that meaningful work is relational. People want purpose, yes. They want autonomy, growth, and impact. But they also want to know that they matter to the people around them. They want relationships that restore more than they drain. They want appreciation that feels real. They want to be seen in ways that are fair, specific, and human.

Gratitude can help create that kind of workplace, but only when it is practiced with care. Social sustainability can help us protect the relationships that give work its meaning, but only when we are honest about what exhausts us and what restores us.

For leaders and teams, the invitation is clear: notice more. Thank more specifically. Listen more fully. Build relationships that people can keep coming back to with energy, dignity, and trust. That is the kind of social fabric meaningful work depends on.