My company started a “thankful thursday” culture intiative recently. We get alloted a few dollars each month to award to coworkers that have stood out in a good way recently. We try to remember to take some time on Thursdays to go hit the company giving portal and award those dollars with a nice message to whoever we’re sending the money to. Honestly, its pretty cool.
Gratitude is one of the three key culture elements that I try to keep in mind for my own humanity. Regardless of whether you are curious, here are my top three:
- Gratitude
- Compassion
- Forgiveness
I try to spread these by example and by word in my company and networking spheres.
This all reminds me an old post of mine over on reddit’s r/sysadmin.
Lets have a party to celebrate all the users that do one or more of these things:
- Read prompts that come up on screen and try to understand what it is asking/telling/meaning so they can resolve their issue by themselves
- Avoid incessantly clicking on the same icon if it isn’t opening fast enough
- Work with what they do know (I know that the network isn’t working, I know that I need my ethernet cable plugged in the laptop to access the network, etc.)
- Limit their use of disparaging or derogatory remarks (“I can’t believe the VPN is down again!” or worse.)
- Apologize for when something not nice does slip out
- Listen to your explanation of what the software/computer is trying to do so that future issues may not need a ticket to get resolved.
- And above all else: Focus on getting work done instead of hiding behind “IT issues” as excuses
What things from this list or otherwise do YOU really appreciate in your customers (the users)?
Discuss on reddit