[9] in Staff Recognition
[cec@MIT.EDU (Cecilia d'Oliveira): "Thanks" Meeting 5/12/92]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Cecilia d'Oliveira)
Tue May 19 16:54:04 1992
Date: Tue, 19 May 92 16:53:42 EST
From: cec@MIT.EDU (Cecilia d'Oliveira)
To: thanks@MIT.EDU
I am forwarding this so that we have a complete set of our notes in the
discuss meeting.
------- Forwarded Message
Date: Fri, 15 May 92 09:26:40 EST
From: cec@MIT.EDU (Cecilia d'Oliveira)
To: davidh@MIT.EDU, kim@MIT.EDU, rita@MIT.EDU, tom@MIT.EDU, mlc@MIT.EDU,
miki@MIT.EDU
Subject: "Thanks" Meeting 5/12/92
The first meeting of the "DCNS recognition" group was held on Tuesday, May
12, 1992. Kim Carney, Tom Coppeto, Mark Curby, Cec d'Oliveira, Rita
DiCecca, David Hogarth, and Miki Lusztig were present.
Cec began by reviewing her motivation and goals for pulling the task group
together. The group will
-formulate initial goals and plans for DCNS recognitions/awards (PLAN)
-will implement the plan (DO)
-after the process has been in place for a while the group will review how
the process is working (CHECK) and will revise the process accordingly
(ACT)
(the TQM "PLAN, DO, CHECK, ACT" cycle).
The group then had an open, brainstorming discussion about
reward/recognition systems drawing on their prior experiences. Some of
these observations are noted below.
One goal of this process should be to encourage more "thank yous" (formal
and informal) in the environment. Most people agreed that there is not
currently enough of this and that it feels very good when it happens.
There are several kinds of reward/recognitions that can go on at work, some
formal and some informal. These include one-on-one personal interactions
with colleagues, one-on-one personal interactions between managers and
staff, and formal public recognitions.
All types of recognition should be encouraged. A formal centralized
process should not take the place of one-on-one "thank yous" or of manager
to staff "thank yous". Rather it should encourage these informal
interactions.
What kinds of awards/rewards would we give? How often? What criteria?
Several kinds of rewards would be possible including bulletin boards, thank
you notes, public recognition ceremonies.
Small rewards (Toscanni coupons) can be very powerful (David's example of
Mark sending him a coupon). Dollar awards can be a problem (Miki and Kim
commented) as they can set up competitive situations. In general people
agreed that $$ awards are probably not good motivators. A public group
bulletin board might be a good way to encourage people to thank each other.
CSS has one.
We need to carefully consider the frequency of rewards. The process
shouldn't force us to recognize 1 person or group per time period as this
is arbitrary. We should probably not put arbitrary limits on the number
of people to be recognized at any point in time.
Another thing to consider is the criteria to be used. Should we focus on
"hero" awards (i.e. over and beyond the regular job responsibilities), on
"consistently good performance of job responsibilities over a period of
time", on "team-related" efforts or on individual recognition, or some
combination?
There are ways that a reward process can go wrong. Things that were
mentioned included artificial time periods (i.e. one person per quarter),
too many "thank yous" become artificial, and rewarding "hero" behavior if
someone isn't getting their regular job done.
Kim outlined the system at Bell Labs which included nomination by peers,
review by managers, announcement by MOTD and a gift.
This raised the issue of how we will get nominations. Would they come
top-down, from peer nominations? Would we actively solicit nominations or
just keep our "ears to the ground".
Who will make the decisions? Cec said that the "thanks" group would
although we need to discuss whether managers should sign-off on a formal
recognition for one of their staff. This would avoid the potential problem
of someone being formally recognized for "hero" behavior when they weren't
doing their regular job.
There was some discussion about whether it would be a problem to have a
flood of nominations. Do we want to encourage or discourage nominations
for recognition? Is more good? The problem would then be how to evaluate.
Tom suggested that a nomination process can add to the manager's view of
his/her staff since manager's sometimes have an incomplete view of what
their staff accomplishes.
One principle that seemed to emerge from the discussion is that there ought
to be multiple channels of recognition which includes the annual review,
notes from managers, bulletin board for quick thank-yous, one-on-one thank
yous, as well as awards for extraordinary performance. Second principle is
that a formal, institionalized thank you should not replace the informal.
We finished up the discussion by talking about some ideas for recognition
at the annual IS luncheon in June.
Mike expressed a concern that we are already "going down the road" in
recognizing group activities over individual".
The group agreed to meet on Tuesdays from 12 to 1.
Action Items:
1. Tom will set up the mailing list and discuss meeting "thanks"
2. Next meeting is next Tuesday. We'll begin an affinity diagram on the
question "What are the issues that we need to consider in putting together
a reward/recognition system for DCNS?" People will think about this
question before the meeting. Rita and Mike will be away next week. They
will send their comments on the issue to Cec before the meeting.
3. David will order lunch for next week's meeting.
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