The power of “thank you”: gratitude, recognition, and employee well-being

Informal expressions of gratitude - particularly the phrase 'thank you' - remain underexamined in organizational and HR research despite their widely reported impact on employee well-being. This study investigates how employees in the Saudi energy sector perceive and experience expressions of gratitude in their workplaces. Drawing on 238 naturalistic employee comments extracted from an electronic internal organizational system used across four large multinational energy organizations, and guided by Social Exchange Theory, the study employs thematic analysis to examine the mechanisms through which gratitude expression is associated with employee psychological well-being. The analysis yielded four themes: (1) gratitude as a psychological resource; (2) sincerity and relational authenticity; (3) hierarchical asymmetry in gratitude expression; and (4) cultural and organizational embeddedness. The findings suggest that informal gratitude functions as a symbolic social exchange resource, with perceived sincerity, hierarchical source, and cultural context moderating its psychological impact. The study extends Social Exchange Theory by theorizing the non-material dimensions of recognition. It provides empirical evidence from an underexamined non-Western organizational context and has direct implications for human resource management practice in Vision 2030-aligned organizations.