This is an article in a series by technology writer Paul Boutin about Rypple’s Social Performance Platform.

Using Rypple to recognize, acknowledge and publicize good employee behavior is a snap. It’s as easy as posting to Facebook, but Rypple is optimized for groups of people who work together. So you can give a high-five to an employee or coworker and make sure the right people see it.

Rypple’s recognition features are more immediate than email, and they make it easier than email to let others discover down the road who the office hotshots are—not just the outgoing ones with perceived influence, but the quiet ones who really get the work done. As a social platform, Rypple also encourages other coworkers to chime in, creating a virtual cheering section. Yet it only takes a minute to figure out Rypple Thanks and start using it.

To give out recognition on Rypple, it’s best to jump on the occasion right away. Social networks are all about immediacy and near real-time sharing, even though your recognition posts will still be visible in the employee’s profile months from now. Take a clue from the research of author Daniel Pink, or motivation and retention expert Dr. Paul Marciano: The top thing you can do for employees, besides paying them, is to give them lots of public recognition for their work. Rypple is a channel for instant, effective employee recognition.

Getting Started

Go to your Rypple home page by clicking your company logo in the upper left corner. There, you’ll see a box titled Post at the top of the page. The Post box has two options above it: Thanks and Update. To send out recognition, use the default Thanks setting.

Immediately below those buttons is a box labeled “Type name or email address…” As you begin typing into that box, those words will disappear. Rypple will pop up suggested completions of names and groups within your company’s Rypple system as you type. Click on any of those to add them to the list of recipients for your Thanks. You can add as many as you need. You can also send Thanks to colleagues who aren’t yet on Rypple.

Below that, you’ll see another section with a default thanks icon – it’s usually a thumbs-up image – and a text editing area that says, “Type your Thanks here…” This is where you should insert a short but specific message:

• “You closed the Acme deal! Now let’s go out and crush it again.”
• “Great presentation, Carol. I had planned to take a nap but you had me on the edge of my seat.”
• “The inversion bug is finally fixed. You’re an app ninja.”

By mixing praise with specifics, you’ll both encourage the employee and give welcome instruction as to what exactly makes you happy. That motivates the employee, and anyone who reads your Thanks, in the right direction.

Add a Badge to Make ‘Thanks’ Meaningful

You can also change the default Thanks icon to another badge that tags the employee as an inspiration, a ninja, or any number of choices in the badge library. To do that, click Change Badge below the image. A popup dialog box will appear, with a palette of badges to choose. Click the Info button that appears when you mouse over a badge to learn more about it. Click directly on a badge image, then click Save, to change the badge for your post.

If you don’t like Rypple’s built-in badges, or want to create badges more in tune with your company culture, click Build Badge. That will switch the popup dialog to be a badge-building tool. You can choose an image for the badge from Rypple’s built-in library, or upload an image from your computer. The dialog also prompts you to add a “tag” – a name for the badge that will be displayed below the image – and to include an optional description that will be shown to other users who click Info in the badge selection dialog. Finally, you can add up to three skills to define your custom badge—for example, risk-taking, customer advocacy, and perseverance. Choose the ones that best describe the person you are recognizing.

Badges are meant to be scarce. They should be earned. That’s why you can also edit optional Badge Rules in the badge builder. You can restrict badges so that only specific employees can hand them out, and you can also limit the number of times per month that each employee can give someone else a specific badge. That way, there’s only one App Ninja of the Month.

Once you’ve completed your text and chosen a badge, click the Post Thanks button at the lower right of the editing area to post your entry to Rypple. It will appear on the Rypple pages of the users and groups you entered, as well as being emailed to any email addresses you included.

The Snowball Effect

Once you’ve done it, recognizing employees takes seconds, and your posts appear instantly on the screens of your recipients. They in turn can comment on your post, turning a single word of praise into a group hurrah. Instead of clogging your top performers’ inboxes, or making them wait for a meeting to be recognized, you’ll let them know instantly what a great job they’ve done.