Incentives don’t have to cost anything to be effective. Just knowing that you have earned the attention, respect, and admiration of others can be very gratifying. And you are more likely to repeat desired behaviors if you know that people will appreciate and recognize you for doing so.

Among the ways to provide non-financial recognition are personal notes from leaders who notice contributions, articles about those who achieve success, success stories posted to web sites, invitations to attend events to talk about personal efforts, scheduling time with senior leaders for exchanges of ideas, and being praised in public forums. This post will focus on praising people online.

If you have an Enterprise Social Network (ESN) or an online community, a good way to encourage praise is to promote a weekly theme called “Thankful Thursdays.” Here is a message I used to launch such a campaign:

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” – William Arthur Ward

Let’s unwrap the gifts of gratitude every Thursday!

We all work hard day in and day out, and it can be challenging to look up from our various projects to thank the people who have made a difference for us. With that in mind, the leadership team would like to designate Thursdays as “Thankful Thursdays.” Just use the hashtag #ThankfulThursday to recognize a colleague or team who has made significant contributions to you and/or the team.

The best way to post is using the Praise function of our ESN. Thank you for making our Thursdays thankful ones.

Here is a hashtag and some text to use when making a praise post in your ESN or online community:

#Thankful Thursday – Recognize a colleague, show appreciation for an accomplishment, or let others know what you are thankful for.

You might praise someone for:

• Delivering needed results, exceeding expectations, or providing extraordinary effort.
• Answering questions, responding to queries, or supplying needed resources.
• Sharing information, working out loud, or suggesting good ideas.
• Presenting at meetings, community calls, or conferences.
• Posting a query in the ESN or online community instead of via email so that others can answer and benefit.
• Being one of the most followed, liked, or replied-to ESN or online community users.
• Agreeing to use an existing community, site, or collaboration space rather than creating a new, redundant one; or agreeing to consolidate redundant or overlapping resources.

For more about other forms of recognition and reward, see:

• KM Adoption Can be Increased Through Gamification Techniques

• Accelerate KM Adoption through Point Scoring

• KM and Gamification: Examples of Tangible Rewards

• KM and Gamification Techniques: The Circle of Excellence

• KM Gamification—Holy Grail or Child’s Play?

• Webinar Recording: Gamification Accelerates KM Adoption

• Webinar Recording: Selling KM—Recognize and Reward