What should you write in an employee of the month announcement?

A name and a specific reason, with nothing padded around them. The reason is the entire function of the announcement: it tells everyone what the company noticed and therefore what to do. An award with no reason attached is a lottery result.

Is employee of the month a good idea?

It depends on what else exists. As the only recognition a company does, it converts something abundant into something scarce and makes eleven people out of twelve losers each month. Alongside regular peer recognition it can work fine.

How do you avoid it always going to the same kind of work?

Deliberately vary what you reward. If it consistently goes to visible delivery, the team correctly concludes that documentation, cleanup and covering for people do not count.

Should the award recognise someone who disagreed with you?

Occasionally, and it is the strongest signal you can send. Rewarding somebody who was right when it was inconvenient tells everyone that the criteria are about outcomes rather than agreement.

How long should the citation be?

A paragraph. Anything longer reads as justifying the choice, and a choice that needs justifying suggests the reason was not clear enough to state plainly.

Recognition messages

Employee of the Month Messages: 10 Examples

An award with no reason attached tells the rest of the team that the criteria are private, which is worse than not running one.

The reason is the whole product

The award itself is a name in a channel. What the rest of the team takes from it is a criterion: this is what gets noticed here.

Announce it without a reason and the criterion they infer is that the criteria are private. That is a worse outcome than running no award at all, and it is the most common way this goes wrong.

Watch what you keep rewarding

If the award goes to visible delivery every month, everyone learns quickly. Cleanup, documentation, on-call swaps and honest customer conversations are not what gets you named, so they become what people do only when they have spare time.

10 messages you can send

This month goes to Priya, for the migration weekend and for the fact that nobody outside the team noticed it happened.
Manager, with the reason
The invisibility is the achievement.
Sam this month. He answered forty-one support escalations and the satisfaction score went up while the queue got harder.
Manager, with data
Two numbers that qualify each other.
Employee of the month is Elena, who spent three weeks on data cleanup that has no launch, no demo and no screenshot.
Manager, invisible work
Names why it would otherwise be missed.
This one goes to Marcus for saying the plan would not work, twice, before we started. Both times he was right.
Manager, on dissent
Rewards behaviour most awards discourage.
Nour gets it this month for onboarding two new engineers while her own roadmap moved twice.
Manager, on cost
Notes what it was done on top of.
This month: Ravi, for the incident on the 14th, and specifically for the write-up afterwards.
Manager, being specific
Separates the fix from the follow-up.
Sofia, for telling a customer honestly that we were not the right fit. They came back in March and upgraded.
Manager, on honesty
A story with an outcome.
Tom this month, for the tooling week that made everyone else faster and made his own output look worse.
Manager, on trades
Acknowledges the personal cost of the right call.
Employee of the month is Laura, for a quarter of quietly covering on-call for other people. Eleven swaps.
Manager, counted generosity
The count does the work.
This month goes to Ben, for the handover doc he wrote for a job he was leaving.
Manager, on leaving well
Recognises work with no benefit to the doer.

What makes one land

Always give the reason. An award with no criteria attached teaches everyone else that the criteria are hidden, which breeds more cynicism than no award at all.
Rotate what you reward. If it always goes to visible delivery, everyone learns that invisible work does not count.
Reward dissent occasionally. Somebody who was right about a plan being wrong is a better winner than somebody who executed a bad plan well.
Keep it to one paragraph. A long citation reads as justification, and justification implies the choice needed defending.
Consider whether the award is the right tool at all. Monthly recognition that only one person can receive turns a plentiful thing into a scarce one.

Questions people ask

What should you write in an employee of the month announcement?: A name and a specific reason, with nothing padded around them. The reason is the entire function of the announcement: it tells everyone what the company noticed and therefore what to do. An award with no reason attached is a lottery result.
Is employee of the month a good idea?: It depends on what else exists. As the only recognition a company does, it converts something abundant into something scarce and makes eleven people out of twelve losers each month. Alongside regular peer recognition it can work fine.
How do you avoid it always going to the same kind of work?: Deliberately vary what you reward. If it consistently goes to visible delivery, the team correctly concludes that documentation, cleanup and covering for people do not count.
Should the award recognise someone who disagreed with you?: Occasionally, and it is the strongest signal you can send. Rewarding somebody who was right when it was inconvenient tells everyone that the criteria are about outcomes rather than agreement.
How long should the citation be?: A paragraph. Anything longer reads as justifying the choice, and a choice that needs justifying suggests the reason was not clear enough to state plainly.