Managing Diversity Success Stories: Cheers for Peers

The Cheers for Peers program allows staff to nominate and choose peers to receive gift certificate awards quarterly and yearly. It provides thanks in the form of a tangible gift - gift certificates. All non-management employees participate in the program, regardless of professional rank, and are allowed to nominate a peer for an award.

The department now has a public forum for recognizing and thanking employees. Employees feel valued and a greater sense of trust has developed between management and staff. A more positive air seems to exist within the department.

Every quarter, staff members can nominate peers for a Cheers for Peers award and every quarter these nominees are eligible to win a $100 gift certificate and a Cheers for Peers mug. There is a nomination form and a deadline. There is a staff committee that determines the winners, and the other nominees receive a certificate that contains the reasons why they were nominated. The process is flexible enough to allow recipients to choose which vendor they would like to receive the gift certificate from. All nominees and award recipients are acknowledged publicly at the ASD quarterly department meeting.

The program would work best in larger departments (at least 30 employees), because in a smaller department it would be harder to stay away from favoritism, and people would guess the identity of the nominator. A small amount of money is required (about $1200 a year) for mugs and gift certificates. Also, staff participation is necessary. It is important to rotate staff on the committee. Solid rules and guidelines that assure fairness are needed. The department needs to make time for employees to participate in the activity.

This practice promotes camaraderie and offers a public forum for recognizing and thanking co-workers. Employees feel valued. Before this program in their computer-oriented environment, people finished one task and went on to the next, without words of thanks or praise. The implied values were that the work itself mattered more than the people doing the work. Now the department has a public forum that recognizes and thanks individuals. And at least four times a year, people take the time to think about how their colleagues have helped them. The implied values are that the work matters - and the people matter.

It requires people to serve on the selection committees only a minimal amount of time, typically one time a year for less than an hour of work. The success can be attributed to the department's underlying premise that thanks and positive feedback must be given on a regular rather than an occasional basis. Thanks that comes directly from peers rather than from management possesses its own unique value.