

Ask HN: How do you recognize good work and celebrate wins at your company? - romymisra

We are prototyping a product and I&#x27;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!
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zhte415
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.

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romymisra
Thank you! Interesting to see at 1500 no structured feedback process.

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seekingcharlie
This is for really small wins, but we have a #celebration channel in slack. It
actually works surprisingly well.

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arsalanb
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.

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cmdkeen
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.

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arsalanb
That last sentence was very deep and helped put things in perspective. Thank
you!

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tfranco
Wine, always have wine at the office to celebrate wins.

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a3n
I think we hand out movie cards. We're a smallish BigCo, owned by a larger
BigCo.

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onedev
High fives and hugs.

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sheepmullet
3-4 months pay bonus

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hanniabu
Holy cow, either they have an unusually low salary or they are making a boat
load on those bonuses. Good for you mate!

