Netx is a results-obsessed digital marketing agency based in New York City, and since starting our company in 2001, culture has always been very important to us. A big part of that culture is to recognize and thank members of our team for the work they do, and recently, we began using an online tool called Rypple to enhance these efforts.
For some time, one of the ways we shared feedback wasImage may be NSFW.
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for select members of the team to send emails around whenever a client recognized great work, but we really wanted something where the entire team could thank each other in a similar way more frequently. We knew that we had a great team doing great things, and we wanted a more public way of sharing these successes.
At first we tried a system called “The Love Machine” that was started by the guy who built Second Life. That system was good for IM-like updates but we soon wanted more.
Luckily we stumbled across an article about Rypple. Rypple set out to change the somewhat arcane, traditional performance review process by providing a more efficient way to recognize achievements and give feedback online and in real time. When these conversations happen offline or via email, it’s typically in a closed environment invisible to the rest of the team, and it’s easy for the exchanges to get lost. Rypple provides a single location to provide feedback and set goals and saves these discussions so they can be accessed later. Not all interactions like this are appropriate for public consumption, so Rypple allows for private conversations as well.
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One of the features that we really love is the ability to create custom badges (featured throughout this post) to recognize unique efforts or achievements. For example, we have the “Early Bird” badge for team members who consistently arrive to work early and the “Burning the Midnight Oil” badge for those who stay late. We created badges to recognize the winner of our March Madness and Super Bowl pools as well as a few other fun ones.
We’ve also used Rypple to upload pictures of the team and thank multiple people at once. We even mounted a flatscreen TV in our main office area to display Rypple updates thanks to a custom feed Rypple helped us launch.
Everything with Rypple is web based and really simple to set up. The only real challenge is to keep the ball rolling and keep the feedback continually rolling in. At first, adoption was rampant—everyone loved giving and receiving the recognition, but it has had periods of tapering off. As leaders in the company, we have a responsibility to continually re-energize that system to keep it going.
We only pay a few dollars per monthImage may be NSFW.
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per person to use Rypple. Considering that we definitely spend more on coffee, we think it’s a small price to pay to make someone feel appreciated about something they did. We’ve had very low turnover in the past 18 months, and I think this is one of the many things that helps contribute to people feeling good about the place they work.
More than anything else (even money) people want to know that the work they do matters and makes a difference. Rypple helps us give that pat on the back in a public environment and makes people want more of it. It’s helped us create an environment that fosters motivated, energized employees, and we’ve found that leads to happy, satisfied clients.
More info:
Netx web site: http://www.netx.com/
Rypple web site: http://rypple.com/
Rypple profile on CrunchBase: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/rypple
