Readers share their approaches for saying thank you to colleagues, co-workers, and clients. These suggestions followed the post “The Imperative to Say Thank You.“

I posed the question to a community of people who care about healthy workplaces: How do you express sincere thanks to colleagues, co-workers and clients? Here are some responses:

• ...Take that person out for breakfast or lunch. (C. Gosenheimer)

• ...Taking someone out to lunch to thank them is a nice treat…for both the sender and the receiver. (M. Best)

• Lovely cards…food, of course that matches the individual’s tastes… (C. Compton)

• The “TY” award. This is an object that denotes “thankfulness” or something special that symbolizes the group. Pass it around at each team meeting as a special “thank you” to a team member. For example, the TY object could be a trophy with a special team inscription on it. Sue received the trophy last week for something special that she did. Sue now passes it on to someone she thinks deserves it. Everyone gets involved and it encourages everyone to look for special things about team members that should be recognized. (G. Pursell)

• Have self-stick notes printed with a customized message or picture and space for a personalized message that you can use for special “thank you” notes. For example, the message I used was “For all you do…“ (at the top of the note) with “This bud’s for you” and a graphic of a rosebud at the bottom of the note. My personal message was written in the middle (G. Pursell)

• Whenever I’m in contact with an employee, subcontractor or vendor, I always try to be in an “upbeat”, “everything is possible”, “we’re in this together” frame of mind. We all respond better to sunny people. We all hate to let a sunny person down. If they have bad news or make a mistake, I let them know the impact without overreacting or belittling them. I help them look for options to make things right. I make mistakes, too. I know how it feels to make an unintentional or silly mistake. I let them know when they do a good job because I like my work to be appreciated, too. I show appreciation by learning about and showing interest in their personal lives. I try to remember special events in their lives as well. I, also, show appreciation through work lunches, flowers, small gifts, birthday dinners and special vacation bonuses. But these are worth nothing without a liberal use of the words “Thank you”.... (M. Webster)

• I have trained myself to be cognizant of the greatness of others. I have found that acknowledging and thanking people for their efforts is most powerful when said right in front of them and looking into their eyes. I let those in upper management know the people responsible for our team’s successes as well as celebrate with my team in meetings where we are all present to share triumphs. (D. Lautenschleger)