World Kindness Day 2018 #HRactsofkindness

It’s 13th November which means that it is World Kindness Day! This is one of my absolute favourite days of the year, it is so much better than the other random days such as national donut day (yes there’s actually a day for that!)

World Kindness Day is celebrated annually on 13th November. On this day, people from all over the world attempt to make the world a better place by celebrating and promoting good deeds and pledging acts of kindness, either as individuals or as organisations. The day was was first launched in 1998 by The World Kindness Movement. The mission of the World Kindness Movement and World Kindness Day is to create a kinder world by inspiring individuals and nations towards greater kindness.

Whilst an act of kindness may sound like a great marketing campaign, it is something that everyone can get involved with, after all, every small act of kindness you do can make a big difference to someone’s day or even their life. I believe that kindness is absolutely essential to positively contribute to society given the tragedies we too often exposed to and most of all sometimes, it is just nice to be nice.

There are plenty of benefits to doing a random act of kindness and as well as making someone else’s day, it can really boost our mental health too.

Last week at CIPD ACE, I hand wrote 50 different cards with positive quotes and placed them all over the exhibition area, the purpose was to spread kindness throughout the event and to continue doing the acts of kindness in different ways. The people who found them, did get in touch and say how much they loved them and that it had made them mile. This is what HR acts of kindness is all about.

So in the spirit of HR acts of kindness and World Kindness Day; here are some ideas you can do to brighten your day today:

1. Be kind to your colleagues, stop and genuinely ask them how they are
2. Smile at strangers on your commute, kindness is contagious, spread as many smiles as you can so they pass the kindness on!
3. Donate some unwanted items to a charity shop – we call have those, it doesn’t have to be bags full, it can be just a small selection of items which could help a great cause
4. If you see a homeless person, make sure you stop and talk to them, often they are not even noticed or spoken to, a few minutes can make a world of difference to them
5. Be kind to yourself; put on that outfit you like, take a lunchtime walk or treat yourself to an early night with a book. Don’t forget to be kind to you
6. Give your network some shout outs, I’ll be doing this on Twitter later so do join in and give out virtual smiles