Write Positive Reviews for Your Colleagues
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
Summer is almost upon us. In many industries, summer is often a bit less hectic than the rest of the year. It’s a time of summer Fridays or other early release incentives for some. Of course, many industries never have a “slow” season. But if you find some extra time on your hands at work, I have a great suggestion for how to fill your work time that will benefit you and those around you: write positive reviews for your colleagues.
In a past job, our company instituted an Above and Beyond program. Employees could write positive reviews for colleagues and those colleagues got to see those positive notes and sometimes even got points that they could use to pick out a prize of sorts from a catalogue of prizes. Managers could also see the reviews. I proactively made it a part of my job to regularly add reviews for my colleagues in the Above and Beyond system. If they did something to help me when they didn’t have to, I wrote them up. If they helped a client and I noticed the client was really happy with the service, I wrote that up. If they solved a problem that other people simply ignored, I wrote that up too. I wanted to foster an environment where people knew at least one person was seeing their hard work and appreciating it. I would then also advise my coworkers to keep track of their positive reviews and add that information to their mid-year and year-end reviews with their managers. If my coworkers were trying to obtain a promotion or raise, these reviews could be components that they would use to make a case for themselves. People are much more likely to stay in a job when they feel appreciated, so writing positive reviews could help with employee retention. If I ever needed help, the coworkers that I wrote reviews for were very willing to lend a hand. Please note, you can’t write the reviews expecting or hoping for something in return. They have to be written authentically with no expectation of reciprocity. However, what you put out, you often get back. And it just feels good to let someone know they did a great job.
Before my past job had the Above and Beyond program, I would simply write emails to my coworkers’ managers letting them know about the great work I was witnessing. I would then forward that email to my colleague to let them know that I saw their contribution in case their managers never got around to mentioning my praise to them. Honestly, if managers themselves would make writing positive reviews a sizable portion of their jobs, I feel like employee retention would improve. But you don’t have to be a manager to be the person who reports the good work. I was a support staff member, and I took that role on myself, and I like to think it made a difference in our corporate culture.
You don’t have to wait for summer to write positive reviews of course. Training yourself to notice the helpful/hard/novel tasks that your coworkers perform and promptly letting someone know about it is a wonderful habit to cultivate all year long. Putting that kind of energy out into the world is always a good use of time.
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Positively Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team