Ask HN: How do you recognize good work and celebrate wins at your company?
We are prototyping a product and I'm curious to hear how you or your company recognizes good work on a regular basis from each member of your team? Are there any tools you use out there? If you could please include your company size in your response that would be great!
7 comments
First company (1500 people): The manager said a sincere thanks and you were assigned a higher profile project / and/or simply gained an increased level of trust from others. That was enough, given the nature of the company and the extremely good people it employed (world class).
A later company (~250,000 people): Quarterly awards with small bonuses, going to 1/50 of the top performers in the office (my office was a couple thousand people). The awards were taken quite well, with staff pinning them to their desk. What mattered for some staff was the recognition, and for some the aspiration (as faster rising, through the extreme hierarchy, staff tended to get awards more often). Frankly, it never appealed, and only motivated staff at the most junior levels. Those more savvy would use these awards as negotiation tolls in performance and salary reviews.
Current company (~1500 people): The boss just promotes who makes her feel good, and lets everyone have the freedom to do what they want as long as they also do their job. She's also wise to ass-lickers (unlike the previous one mentioned). Harmony is encouraged, so no special events, just promotions and increased levels of freedom.
A later company (~250,000 people): Quarterly awards with small bonuses, going to 1/50 of the top performers in the office (my office was a couple thousand people). The awards were taken quite well, with staff pinning them to their desk. What mattered for some staff was the recognition, and for some the aspiration (as faster rising, through the extreme hierarchy, staff tended to get awards more often). Frankly, it never appealed, and only motivated staff at the most junior levels. Those more savvy would use these awards as negotiation tolls in performance and salary reviews.
Current company (~1500 people): The boss just promotes who makes her feel good, and lets everyone have the freedom to do what they want as long as they also do their job. She's also wise to ass-lickers (unlike the previous one mentioned). Harmony is encouraged, so no special events, just promotions and increased levels of freedom.
Thank you! Interesting to see at 1500 no structured feedback process.
This is for really small wins, but we have a #celebration channel in slack. It actually works surprisingly well.
We'd love to but we simply cannot afford it, especially since we're bootstrapping. That's the sad part about boostraping. You spent most time trying to keep food on the table, than actually building something awesome.
On one of my Navy leadership courses the reservist instructor said the most positive and motivating piece of recognition he got was his boss buying him a thank you card and quietly putting it on his desk when he was busy.
If you know your people you should be able to work out what motivates them and come up with something specific. Whatever it is a chunk of money is a very poor motivator as it becomes expected and thus devalued very quickly.
If you know your people you should be able to work out what motivates them and come up with something specific. Whatever it is a chunk of money is a very poor motivator as it becomes expected and thus devalued very quickly.
That last sentence was very deep and helped put things in perspective. Thank you!
Gratitude and praising publicly doesn't cost much.
Agree. Try to do that as much as possible, whenever it is due!
Wine, always have wine at the office to celebrate wins.
I think we hand out movie cards. We're a smallish BigCo, owned by a larger BigCo.
High fives and hugs.
3-4 months pay bonus