5 ms·

If the company is small enough, and the all-hands frequent enough, those awards become a 'who haven't we given an award to yet', which ultimately undermines the

by _puk 10y ago

If the company is small enough, and the all-hands frequent enough, those awards become a 'who haven't we given an award to yet', which ultimately undermines the point of giving it out in the first place.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
>those awards become a 'who haven't we given an award to yet' // Why would it matter, surely you award those who've acted exemplary regardless of prior awards. A company that handed out rewards in any other fashion would be unusual, wouldn't it?
- ryanbrunner 10y ago
  Having been on exec teams that have chosen who to give these rewards to, there's always an enormous amount of politics in the decision to who to give the reward to. Who's received in in the past is definitely a factor.
fenomas 10y ago
There's nothing wrong with recognizing people per se. It doesn't need to be a "biggest X of the year" award, either - just calling someone up because they've just finished a 6-month project successfully is a fine thing to do in an all-hands. In a big enough company it's worth it just so people know what other orgs are doing. My point was just that it can be tedious/demoralizing for people who aren't eligible to be called up.
- bunderbunder 10y ago
  As someone who doesn't work on client facing stuff, I've found the recognition section does become tedious and slightly demoralizing over time. At least where I've worked, the awards always go to someone who made a big sale or went the extra mile for a specific client, which means that folks whose job is to build the product are effectively not eligible. Or if they are recognized, it's always for a generic team accomplishment, which ends up feeling like, "$group_of_20_people hit a delivery target! Golf clap everyone!"
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Yeah, I've noticed that there's never any recognition of anything I'm involved in from anyone I don't report to. I can only conclude from this that the work I'm assigned doesn't actually matter all that much to the rest of the company. It's very tempting to phone it in while looking for another job. It's basically a meeting for QA and manufacturing to remind everyone about QA and manufacturing.
  - alistairSH 10y ago
    Push your org to implement some sort of peer-recognition system. My employer's (large commercial software company) award system is peer-based - anybody can suggest an award, from simple kudos up to multi-thousand dollar awards. Kudos don't require approval and are typically announced in weekly or monthly team meetings. The larger things are announced in the division or company-wide meetings, as appropriate. The system actually doesn't allow generic team awards. It can be a bit annoying, but it also prevents what you describe. If I want to recognize a team, I have to call out each person individually. As a project manager (but with no direct reports), I try to award a few kudos per quarter, just to let my peers (including all the teams I work with regularly, that's 50 developers/testers) know I'm paying attention. I typically submit a few larger awards per year. So far, I haven't had any outright rejected by my director or VP, only the level adjusted (both up and down). Edit - another thought - I also proactively seek feedback from product management and sales. It doesn't take a lot of feedback to make a difference in team morale. While my teams are directly client facing, it's not difficult to obtain client feedback that is directly relevant to my projects.
alistairSH 10y ago
Do they really need to be formal awards, and not just "And a big thanks you to Cindy for her work on project X!" (followed by a sentence or two about why X matters).
vpresident 10y ago
In a small team, if you can't toss a kudos for an employee once in a while it means that you don't know what he's doing, or he needs help to improve his work.

by _puk 10y ago

pbhjpbhj 10y ago

>those awards become a 'who haven't we given an award to yet' // Why would it matter, surely you award those who've acted exemplary regardless of prior awards. A company that handed out rewards in any other fashion would be unusual, wouldn't it?

ryanbrunner 10y ago
Having been on exec teams that have chosen who to give these rewards to, there's always an enormous amount of politics in the decision to who to give the reward to. Who's received in in the past is definitely a factor.

fenomas 10y ago

There's nothing wrong with recognizing people per se. It doesn't need to be a "biggest X of the year" award, either - just calling someone up because they've just finished a 6-month project successfully is a fine thing to do in an all-hands. In a big enough company it's worth it just so people know what other orgs are doing. My point was just that it can be tedious/demoralizing for people who aren't eligible to be called up.

bunderbunder 10y ago
As someone who doesn't work on client facing stuff, I've found the recognition section does become tedious and slightly demoralizing over time. At least where I've worked, the awards always go to someone who made a big sale or went the extra mile for a specific client, which means that folks whose job is to build the product are effectively not eligible. Or if they are recognized, it's always for a generic team accomplishment, which ends up feeling like, "$group_of_20_people hit a delivery target! Golf clap everyone!"
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  Yeah, I've noticed that there's never any recognition of anything I'm involved in from anyone I don't report to. I can only conclude from this that the work I'm assigned doesn't actually matter all that much to the rest of the company. It's very tempting to phone it in while looking for another job. It's basically a meeting for QA and manufacturing to remind everyone about QA and manufacturing.
- alistairSH 10y ago
  Push your org to implement some sort of peer-recognition system. My employer's (large commercial software company) award system is peer-based - anybody can suggest an award, from simple kudos up to multi-thousand dollar awards. Kudos don't require approval and are typically announced in weekly or monthly team meetings. The larger things are announced in the division or company-wide meetings, as appropriate. The system actually doesn't allow generic team awards. It can be a bit annoying, but it also prevents what you describe. If I want to recognize a team, I have to call out each person individually. As a project manager (but with no direct reports), I try to award a few kudos per quarter, just to let my peers (including all the teams I work with regularly, that's 50 developers/testers) know I'm paying attention. I typically submit a few larger awards per year. So far, I haven't had any outright rejected by my director or VP, only the level adjusted (both up and down). Edit - another thought - I also proactively seek feedback from product management and sales. It doesn't take a lot of feedback to make a difference in team morale. While my teams are directly client facing, it's not difficult to obtain client feedback that is directly relevant to my projects.

alistairSH 10y ago

Do they really need to be formal awards, and not just "And a big thanks you to Cindy for her work on project X!" (followed by a sentence or two about why X matters).

vpresident 10y ago

In a small team, if you can't toss a kudos for an employee once in a while it means that you don't know what he's doing, or he needs help to improve his work.