From the COO - Kazoo prelaunch e-memo from COO Patrick O’Rourke

Dear colleagues,

Recognition is a key aspect of employee engagement, and receiving appreciation from peers, supervisors, and colleagues helps create a culture of belonging, affinity, and connection to our mission.

We learned from the 2020 Engagement Survey that supervisors recognizing their employees’ accomplishments is an area of strength for ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú´«Ã½ÎÄ»¯×÷Æ·. Building on this strength, the Employee Engagement Task Force sought to make informal, consistent recognition even easier for supervisors and provide a platform for peer-to-peer recognition.

Kazoo is an online platform that enables employees to receive recognition from colleagues, celebrate others through recognition, and redeem recognition points for rewards. Finance and Business Strategy and Human Resources have been piloting Kazoo for some time in their departments, and we are excited to share that the Kazoo pilot is being expanded next month to all permanent SRS staff.

When you receive the Kazoo launch notification in the coming weeks, log in to explore the platform. Send your first recognitions to a few individuals who have recently exemplified integrity, inclusive excellence, innovation, collaboration or good communication. If you are a supervisor, I encourage you to send specific and timely words of appreciation to your direct reports. The more of us who send recognition to others, the more visible our successes become.

Additional information, including instructions on how to log in and use Kazoo will be sent soon. I hope everyone will take advantage of this opportunity to help build engagement  in our division and across campus.

Thanks for all you do,
Pat