From colleague to colleague: 150 praises of great work in two months!
Those are the initial results of the new Kudos tool developed and used in Schibsted Tech Polska. The tool makes it easy for employees to publicly praise their colleagues for great work or extraordinary help in a project.
Each employee can give one Kudos per month – and all the Kudos are visible to all the other employees. After receiving three Kudos, you receive a small voucher to be used at Starbucks.
Kudos (from the Ancient Greek: κῦδος) is acclaim or praise for exceptional achievement. (Wikipedia)
Helping people give praise
The idea came out of the results from the Schibsted Employee Survey last year, explains Aleksandra Grzybowska, HR Business Partner in Schibsted Tech Polska. Some employees told in the survey that they did not feel appreciated at work.
“We wanted to do something about that – to remind people to show appreciation to each other,” says Grzybowska.
So the Kudos tool was created. It is a simple web app to thank a colleague for great work or good help. But because each employee can only give one Kudos per month, he/she has to think through carefully who to give it to.
It is the feedback that counts
Employees have welcomed the initiative and many have suggested how the platform can be improved in the future.
14 people have already received 3 or more Kudos from colleagues, which gives them a voucher at Starbucks.
“It is a small prize, we know. But this is not about the prize at all. It is all about the positive and instant feedback from your colleagues,” says Aleksandra Grzybowska.
The prizes – two cups of coffee at Starbucks – are minimal. It is the positive feedback from peers that counts!
The Kudos wall
An important part of the application is the Kudos wall, where everyone can see who has given a Kudos to whom – and why.
Most employees give Kudos for specific help in a project or when a colleague went the extra mile in other ways, for instance making sure a new employee feels at home in Schibsted Tech Polska.
On the Kudos wall everyone can see who has given Kudos to whom and why
Developed in-house
The HR department looked for external tools at first but found that most were far too comprehensive or did not match the needs in other ways. Therefore three developers – Konrad Turczyński, Tomasz Racia and Damian Rawski – did the work.
With 150 Kudos given in two months – the new tool is already a big success – and other companies in Schibsted Media Group have already asked about whether they can use it as well.
“We will observe how the platform is being used by the employees and try to adjust it to their needs. It is a peer to peer solution that we wish to be as simple as possible yet help socialize good behaviors and Schibsted values, ” says Aleksandra.
