The Peer Appreciation at Work Tool Any Team Can Build Today (with Krista Kindley)

Recognition tells your team they performed. Appreciation tells them they matter. If you’ve been leaning on one and wondering why culture still feels hollow, this episode is for you. My guest today is **Krista Kindley**, a training and development professional with the Family and Children’s Resource Program at UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work. With 16 years in child welfare, Krista has seen some of the most burnout-prone, resource-stressed workplaces in the country, and she’s been quietly building a culture of genuine peer appreciation at work from the inside out. In this conversation, Krista shares the “Appreciation Station,” a simple, zero-budget tool built inside Microsoft Teams that allows any team member, at any level, to express appreciation to anyone else on the org chart. No management approval required. No formal authority needed. And she walks us through exactly why that matters. If you’re an HR leader, manager, or business owner who wants your people to feel genuinely valued, not just evaluated, this one will stay with you. **Books Mentioned** \- *The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace* by Gary Chapman and Paul White \- *The Five Love Languages* by Dr. Gary Chapman \- *A Culture of Appreciation* by Frank DiMazio Krista is doing meaningful work in the human services space through the Family and Children’s Resource Program at UNC Chapel Hill. You can connect with her and learn more at the UNC Chapel Hill School of Social Work website.