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Hi everyone,
I am trying to start kind of an employee of the week concept for our IT department of about 15 people. Just something fun to build up the team a bit. We have an old sheriff’s badge that will be given to the star of the week. What I need help with is the voting/choosing process. I'd like someone to get nominated when they do something good, and then at the end of the week choose a winner. I'd like some suggestions on that. How to make the decision/keep track of votes/ should there be a vote? etc.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,
Joe Willis
ICT Cazenovia College

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

What gets measured gets done. Make sure the "star" gets to be the star by being the best performer.

If you're a helpdesk, nominations could come from customers. (internal or external) Tell the customers what you're doing. If they're happy, feel the person has gone above and beyond, then they submit a nomination. Most nominations win.

If you're more project based, what do you want to emphasize or improve? Person who meets their deadlines? Person who comes in under budget? Person with most creative suggestions?

Implementing is easy, it's deciding what to measure that's tough.

jwillis44's picture

[quote="WillDuke"]
Implementing is easy, it's deciding what to measure that's tough.[/quote]

I see this as being internal to the department, at least at first, Ideally this could spread to other departments. as far as measurement, that's where I could use some ideas. We have a ticket perhaps the person who closed the most tickets, but then one person who has one ticket for a project that they have been working on for a week. That’s not really fair.

juliahhavener's picture
Licensee Badge

I don't know about doing this on a weekly scale, but my company has done peer-nominated awards that were very well done.

Everyone received a form to hand-write their nominee and why. It was usually pretty easy to pick out of those slips the one that deserved it that quarter - they would get a majority of votes, and when everyone got a vote one usually stood out as a compelling reason to select them.

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

What "should" an employee do to meet the basic requirements of their job?
What "can" an employee do to really be a star?

Do your tickets track time? Maybe most efficient time. (Most time on tickets.)
Maybe quickest average response time.
Can your ticketing system send a survey? Maybe highest satisfaction ratings on surveys.

BTW, I'm not sure wearing a star would motivate me much, but I'd love a free lunch. :) But then I'm 40 and really enjoy lunch.

jwillis44's picture

Wearing the star isn't really necessary, but it is more of silly and light hearted prize. Maybe I can make a php survey app. that would be cool!

ccleveland's picture

Joe,

Take care to make sure this doesn't become a "demotivator" of some of your staff. If they feel that the selection is biased, the program may not be good for group relationships.

Will's idea of using a concrete measure will help remove that bias. Make sure, though, that it's not something where any one individual has an advantage. You can make some measurements comparable to others by transforming them slightly. For example, instead of measuring "The most 'Very Good' customer feedback surveys" you could say "The most improved score in customer feedback surveys."

Measuring customer service is particularly difficult. I'm pretty fortunate that most of what I'm responsible for measuring is concrete, technical capability. Although I haven't read it yet, the book [i]The Ultimate Question[/i] by Fred Reichheld is on my list of things to read. It was recommended at the Manager Tools conference as a good method for getting feedback on service delivery. Maybe others who've read it can recommend or comment.

CC