Even small successes deserve awards
Part of our work in Digital is taking small, incremental steps to make things better. When we make those steps, we believe in celebrating them. Because even little things have a big impact on the mission and, to be honest, the all-around feel-good vibe in the office.
So, over the past few years, Digital has been using some fun, quirky awards to honour the things we’re proud of as a team.
The Bok Choy of Success
About four years ago, the team was out during a dinner celebrating Chinese New Year. Someone thought up the idea to award one of the devs with a glass statue of a bok choy found at the restaurant. We called it the “Bok Choy of Success” and gave it to a team member who had accomplished a big change that week. It stuck.
The Bok Choy of Success is awarded to someone on the team when they do something awesome: a tweak to a page on Ontario.ca, a process refinement, a helping hand when it was needed. It’s yours until you pass it on to someone else for doing great work.
The Bok Choy became so popular, soon it became the award for medium and big successes, too. It was time to be creative and expand our inaugural award.
Small Victory Swan
To differentiate, we created “Small Victory Snails”. The snails were made of clay and handed out for small victories across the team — the things that often go unnoticed in the workplace, but that mattered to us. Things like cheering someone up, stepping up to support a friend or pitching in, when not asked. Over the years, the snails broke so we replaced them with the Small Victory Swan. It has become the prize for little things with big impact, freeing up our Bok Choy for major milestones.
Horse of Secrets
At the next annual Chinese New Year dinner, someone won a statue of a horse on a podium; we later discovered that the podium hid a stash of candy. The horse was then named the “Horse of Secrets” and became an award for someone who had done something that was hard to do and largely unnoticed — tasks like back-end fixes and service optimization. The Horse of Secrets still circulates, but isn’t awarded too frequently, maintaining its mystique.
Best Dressed Bunny
We’re a pretty creative bunch. So we also unveiled an award for the person who ‘wears it best’ with style and even sass. For a few years, we were on a roll, handing it out almost every day to someone new. Each winner would give it away the next day to someone who they felt captured a look — not so much high fashion and fun fashion. It made the rounds because we’re also a diverse crew — there was a whole range of looks and attire (and we love that). The Best-Dressed Bunny is so well-loved among the team that it has lost both of its ears to age yet still maintains its cherished place among our coveted awards.
So many more
One of the oldest awards we have is the Status Quo Turkey, awarded to someone who diligently fills out paperwork so that we can try new things and get stuff done.
Just last month, we acquired a new series that were received as a gift; we’ve had fun naming some of them so far. Let me introduce:
- The Golden Horse of Commendation: for general recognition of a job well done.
- The Invisible Victory Goat: for big, important platform changes that nobody really notices.
- Wordsworth, the Content Horse: for someone that has fought against jargon and championed clear writing.
- The Simplicity Sow: for maximizing the amount of work not done. (Working smarter, not harder.)
All of our awards in Digital seem a bit unconventional for government, but their quirkiness and creative flare represent the best of who we are. They also remind us to celebrate the small successes and the big achievements, and to make time to reflect on our work, even/especially when things get hectic. Novel awards are a simple but important way to say: hey, we’re proud of the work we’re doing and the people we’re working with.
