In the fall of 2018, a group of IT peers were brought together to form the Recognition Team. The mission of the group was to find ways to create a stronger culture that celebrates each person, team and partner's accomplishments. This group spoke with others in IT and did some informal surveys to gather ideas for ways to recognize these worthy accomplishments. Taking this data allowed the team to research what best practices exist and how to apply them for use within the IT team.
A few key findings were:
"The best leaders promote a recognition-rich environment, with praise coming from every direction and everyone aware of how others like to receive appreciation." This is from a Gallup article about recognition. As Metro is working every day to be a strengths-based culture, recognizing when people use their strengths only furthers that cause. Asking people about their successes is one way to hear directly what is most important to that person and increases discussions of best practices.
Recognition plays an important role in attracting and retaining employees. It’s the day-to-day interactions that make employees feel their contributions are appreciated and that they are recognized for their own unique qualities. This type of recognition may contribute to high morale in the work environment. With this in mind the ITS Recognition Committee developed the following program with the SMART (Sincere, Meaningful, Adaptable, Relevant, Timely) approach in mind.
Recognition from leaders and each other is quite important and most of all it can ignite teams to be more positive and engaged with each other.
While informal recognition remains important, the ITS (Information Technology Services) department will be introducing the following five rewards to show appreciation for going above and beyond in taking MCC to the next level of excellence:
CIO Coin Thank You Cards
Certificates Team Traveling Trophy
IT Teammate Award Partnership Recognition
CIO Coin – Individual contributor award based on the CIO’s observations of folks going above and beyond. This will be given out anytime by the CIO.
Thank You Cards - Anyone at MCC can fill out a Thank You Note to show appreciation to an individual or a team with ITS. The cards will be placed within all ITS locations, ITS leaders and placed out on FORMS bank for all MCC folks to use. Simply pull up the note, fill it in and email to the individual, team or ITSRecognition@mccneb.edu.
Certificates – ITS Directors will award certificates based upon contributions they see from any ITS team member at any time.
TEAM Traveling Trophy - A standardized nomination form has been created and is located on FORMS bank for ITS members’ to complete for any combination of ITS people that represent a team that delivered on one of our ITS core values. ITS team members will simply pull up the form, fill it out and send it to ITSRecognition@mccneb.edu email box for consideration. The ITS Recognition team will then select the winning team that will receive the traveling trophy for the quarter.
IT Teammate Award – All ITS members’ are solicited for nominations that are provided to the CIO who then makes a final decision and awards BAT recognition. This is a monthly award.
Partnership Recognition - ITS team members can recommend/nominate any group external to ITS based upon their partnership and collaboration with ITS. Recognition to be given at the ITS All Hands meeting or other scheduled event.