BUILD YOUR SKILLS

Challenge #17- Gratitude Challenge

15 points

Challenge begins: November 6, 2023

Challenge ends: November 16, 2023

What to Submit

Reading the following short case study regarding a scenario in the workplace, and corresponding questions about gratitude in the workplace.

Case:

Jane Shoemaker is the CEO of a west-coast based online-only sustainable shoe company, BetterSoles. BetterSoles is all the rage among young professionals on the West Coast–the shoes are perfect for hopping from the office to a bike ride around the city to a dinner celebration.

BetterSoles employs 1200 employees across 3 states–production is done in Washington, the executive office is located in San Francisco, and the company design facilities are in Oregon. The company has received massive popularity over the past 12 months through social media, and thus has seen a great rise in demand for their products. As a result of the powerful marketing team, employees are working hard to meet new orders, design new products, and meet the overall pace of production. Everyone wants a pair of BetterSoles!

Lacey Xi is the current VP of People and Culture at BetterSoles, and has recently received feedback that employees are feeling dejected about their work. Although the company is receiving great success, employees are not feeling that their contributions are being noticed, and that there is a lack of gratitude between employee teams for the work everyone does.

This has led to employees not wanting to innovate anymore, or contribute much more to the company. The company needs 3 new product designs for their upcoming summer line of shoes, but employees’ quality of work is being impaired by not feeling valued.

Questions:

For each question, brainstorm a minimum of 5 solutions, and make sure to document the process of your brainstorming. This can be anything from a mind map, a brainstorming diary, or document!

Question 1:
What can Lacey do or encourage Jane to do in order to encourage gratitude within the company across all departments (production, design, exec)? How would this solution spark innovation again?

Question 2:
Grateful@Work is an external company that aims to promote gratitude and culture within corporations big and small. Grateful@Work sells products (both software-based and physical) to companies like BetterSole to encourage gratitude in the workplace. What kind of product could Grateful@Work develop and pitch to Jane and Lacey that would alleviate some of the issues that they are facing around gratitude in the workplace?

Question 3:
Select one out of the five solutions from Question 1 and Question 2 (two total). In a deliverable of your choice (video response, written response, drawing), present these solutions along with answers to the following questions:
1. How would these ideas come to fruition?
2. Why would these ideas be successful? What core issue from the case do they tackle?
3. How feasible is this solution? How much effort does it take?
4. Is this solution scalable to other companies?