The college’s work to nurture a culture of Collaboration, Connection & Caring (3Cs) continues with training resources and guides.
Developed from the combined expertise and insights of the Spring 2022 3Cs Learning Community and in response to requests from the 2021 and 2022 3Cs Roundtables, these guides offer support and action steps you can take to demonstrate 3Cs in your daily work at the college.
The second of these guides is called “Celebrating Colleagues.” This guide provides information that can help you create a caring, positive environment by sharing appreciation for your coworkers.
When you choose to celebrate someone, it is important to understand that individuals have unique preferences in regard to how, where, and with whom they are comfortable celebrating.
When should you celebrate?
- When it’s a first win, including new hires and anyone with new responsibilities or challenges.
- When it’s made a difference to someone else. Acknowledge moments when employees support one another.
- When their actions advance the values and mission of the college.
- When their work is truly exceptional.
- When their work includes a diversity of voices and input.
- When their work has been consistently good.
- On a special occasion, like a birthday or work anniversary.
- Join in when you hear someone else celebrating a colleague.
- Be generous with your compliments and celebrate your colleagues often.
How should you celebrate?
- Walk over to your coworkers and tell them in person that you are impressed by their work or to commemorate a particular day.
- Create a wall on Padlet for each month of the year and list each member’s name and birthday. Publish a monthly reminder for everyone to log in and comment.
- Send a “thank you” email to a colleague and copy their supervisor to acknowledge their hard work and contributions.
- Send an email to the team highlighting the person’s accomplishment. Make sure to include their supervisor on these as well.
- Set aside a few minutes in regular team meetings for shoutouts.
- Create a shoutout board to share anonymous “good work” notes. It could be in any communal space like a break room or copy room. You could also create an electronic shoutout board on a communal website like FacStaff Info Hub or on Workday.
- Drop anonymous kudos into mailboxes.
- Send a thoughtful email or card. Take the time to think about how the person impacted you and share that.
- Nominate someone for a Bravo Award. Make it a common occurrence. Include winner images on the Workday landing page and list them in association newsletters.
- Create a team ID badge, pin, or sticker to give when doing good work or complemented by a colleague.
- Decorate the person’s door or desk, or hang a printable banner above their workspace.
- Offer some perks. Is there a pair of noise-canceling headphones they’ve been dying to borrow from you or a shared office snack that always gets snatched up fast? If there’s a way for you to sacrifice today — like giving up a needed conference room space — do it.
- Offer to help a colleague to show your gratitude and make their day a little less stressful. Take care of a few of the tasks they hate doing.
- Write the colleague a LinkedIn recommendation. This shows that you respect this person as a colleague and want to see them continue to succeed. It’s also awesome because it’s something that most people feel uncomfortable asking for but appreciate when offered.
For more information and resources, view the 3Cs Guides. For all information about the 3Cs work happening at ACC, visit the 3Cs informational website on the FacStaff Info Hub.