Recognition that reaches the people it usually misses
How Ombudsman Services built a culture of everyday appreciation, with recognition tied to the behaviours they care about rather than to a monthly award.
Plenty of good work, not always seen
Ombudsman Services is full of people quietly doing careful, difficult work, and it was already appreciated by the colleagues closest to it. Existing recognition tended to stay within teams, so the organisation saw an opportunity to make it visible more widely.
Recognition was happening, but privately and unevenly. A thank you in an email reaches one person and then disappears, and the colleagues most likely to be singled out were the ones whose work was most visible in the first place.
They wanted something that made appreciation easy to give, easy to see, and connected to the values the organisation had set out rather than to output alone.
Easy to give, and visible to everyone
Make recognition something anyone can give in a moment, from wherever they happen to be working, without a form or an approval chain.
Give it a home. Somewhere recognition is collected and shared across the organisation, rather than sitting in individual inboxes.
And tie it to the values, so a thank you says something about how a person works, not just what they delivered.
We made it easy, visible and meaningful
Made it a two minute job
Fanclub works on a laptop, a phone or a tablet, so a thank you can be sent from a train or between calls. If recognition takes effort, it does not happen.
Gave recognition a home
Rather than living in inboxes, recognition is collected in one central hub and shared across the organisation, so good work is seen well beyond the team it happened in.
Tied every thank you to a value
Fanclub asks the sender how the work reflects the organisation's values. That one question turns a nice message into something about how a person works, not only what they produced.
Brought the leaders in
Recognition spreads from the top down as much as across. Getting managers using it early made it normal rather than an initiative.
Reported it back every month
Monthly data shows who is being recognised and who is not, so the gaps are visible and recognition keeps reaching further.
What made it stick
The results
In their words
Employee Recognition
Recognition people actually take part in. We set it up, launch it properly and embed it, so it does not fade after a month.
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