What does it take to make your employees feel lucky?

Yesterday was the nicest day since weeks here in Cologne. The weather was superb (appr. 30 C) and we´ve been out to the park with friends in Düsseldorf. There were hundreds of people, feeding goats, sheep and just laying out in the sun. It was a great atmosphere, seeing all the kids playing together, people speaking, playing football, having barbecues. Now it is monday morning and I had to drive to work straight through town and looked into peoples faces: you have to know, the weather is not that good anymore, rain is in the air, and people are going like sheep through the streets. Their faces, mostly unlucky, are trying to catch the next highlight – when will it be weekend again? People don´t need much: when the sun is shining, and there is just a little lake somewhere, if there´s just a beergarden, if there are fields for their children to play football, people are comfortable. These are just small things – no need for the big events like amusement-parks, warner-brother-movie-worlds or disney-lands. Why don´t politicians understand that? They are closing one open air bath after the other because there´s no money anymore, they are closing theaters and don´t clean the parks. People are getting fed up with this. But how to translate this to your employees – I´ve made the experience that the small things are what make them more passionate, more motivated and loyal to the company. Never forget their birthday! Ask them to take a free day during long weekends, maybe organize a nice barbecue in the park with all the families. Of course, these things don´t deceive bad things like paying them not in regular ways etc. But this will help. It´s just the small things people need to feel comfortable.