Linden Lab's Love Machine

Here's a really cute example of a simple but effective employee recognition programme. It comes from Linden Lab, the creators of virtual world, Second Life. It's been around for a few years, but I hadn't come across it before - so I thought it was worth sharing here....

The Love Machine is an intranet-based tool that allows any Linden employee to send a simple electronic thank you note to another Linden employee. You basically go along to an intranet page type in the details (name, what you want to thank them for, etc) and your colleague receives an email saying 'Love from Lee" and so on. 

Okay, so it sounds a bit cheesy to us 'real world' UK-based communicators, but stick with me.

What's clever about it is that it's hardwired into the performance review system - so all the 'love notes' get recorded in a database (which everyone can access) and these then get discussed at appraisal time.

Doing that makes employees and managers take it seriously and, as a result, it's really taken off says Linden CEO Philip Rosedale.

Apparently at the end of every quarter everyone receives a pink envelope containing cash linked to the number of 'love notes' they received.

Cute.

I can't comment on whether it works or not (Google doesn't throw up much useful information there) but I think it's quite a nice example of the sort of thing that fairly small organisations can do fairly easily. 

Linden Lab may be a quirky San Francisco-based business, but I could imagine something like this (perhaps with a little fine-tuning!) working well in organisations of all shapes and sizes.   

Comments

[Indy]

The main objection I've heard about this in the context of larger organisations is the potential for gaming the system - particularly where it's connected to performance reviews.

Whether that reflects a paranoia from HR professionals or a truth about the way the "social animal" will work to defend his/her friends at work, I'm not sure.

[Lee]

Hi Indy

I've heard the same concern voiced by leaders in organisations I've worked with in the past. Interestingly though, I've never come across a situation where a recognition programme has been routinely abused in this way. I guess the transparency element is key - if the nominations are visible to all then the system should 'police' itself. That's the theory at least.

Lee

[Indy]

Lee,

To be clear, I agree with you that open nominations do seem to police themselves, but if you have any snappy lines for convincing corporate leaders of that, I'd be all ears!

Indy

[Nicole]

Check out www.WorldBlu.com it's a site about the democratic workplace and how it can work. Business can apply to be on the World Blu list and they will in turn receive an report on their company. Gigantic companies are taking advantage of this. There's also great info on the site about the Democratic workplace. I own a company and heard the founder speak last week. She presented it in a way that it seems possible for success at any size company.

Look for the cost and time benefits on the site and your higher ups will probably listen. Good luck!