Recognition, polls, events and the company feed

Let colleagues thank each other with kudos that earn points, ask a quick question with a poll, keep a company calendar with birthdays and anniversaries, and share news in one feed where people comment and react.

Contents: Who can use it · Screens · Kudos · Polls · Events · The feed · Moderation · Settings · Example · FAQ

Who can use it

• Employees take part with no permission, as long as their login is linked to an active employee record: they give kudos, vote, answer events, read the feed, comment and react.
• HR needs, in the Roles screen, the Engagement permissions: Kudos (List, Create), Polls (List, Create, Vote), Events (List, Create, Update, Delete), Feed (List, Create, Moderate) and Settings (List, Update). Roles that already write announcements receive the first four groups automatically; roles that publish announcements also receive Moderate and Settings.

Where: HR's screens are in HR → Culture in the classic menu, and in the Engagement group of the new menu: Company feed, Moderation, Recognition (with a Settings tab), Polls and Events. Employees open the same things from HR → Self service: Give kudos, Polls, Events calendar and Company feed.

The screens

Screen	Where	Purpose
Company feed	Self service and Culture	News posts, announcements for you and public kudos in one timeline
Give kudos	Self service	Thank one or more colleagues; see what you gave and received
Recognition	Culture	Every kudos (private and removed too), top received, top givers, values; give a company award
Polls	Self service (vote) and Culture (manage)	Open polls and results; create, close and reopen polls
Events calendar	Self service and Culture	Events for you with Going, Maybe, No; birthdays and anniversaries
Moderation	Culture	Reported posts and comments
Recognition → Settings tab	Culture	Points per kudos, monthly limit, company values, who may post

Kudos

1. Click Give kudos.
2. Choose up to 10 colleagues (not yourself) and write a Message.
3. Optionally pick a Company value such as Teamwork, and untick Show in the company feed to keep it between you, the person and HR.
4. Click Send.

Each person recognised is notified (the message itself is not in the notice) and earns the set number of points on the gamification ledger, so kudos count towards levels, badges and boards just like other points. Kudos sent together appear as one entry in the feed. You can give a limited number each calendar month; the form shows how many you have left.

HR awards: in Recognition, click Company award to recognise someone from the company, with your own points (including none).

Badges: on the Settings tab of Recognition, click Add starter badges to create Appreciated (5 kudos received), Team favourite (25), Culture hero (100) and Generous (10 given). Existing badges are never changed.

Removing kudos: a moderator can remove a kudos with a reason. It disappears from the feed and its points are taken back. The record stays in HR's list under Removed.

Polls

1. In Polls, click New poll.
2. Enter the Question and 2 to 10 Options (duplicates are ignored).
3. Choose One answer or Several answers, turn on Anonymous if nobody should see who voted for what, and set when results are shown: After voting (default), After the poll closes or HR only.
4. Optionally set Closes on, and choose the audience (empty means everyone).
5. Click Create. The audience is notified.

People vote from their Polls page and can change their vote while the poll is open. HR sees counts, percentages and turnout (voters out of people invited); for a poll that is not anonymous HR also sees who chose what. In an anonymous poll nobody, HR included, can see who voted for what.

Once the first vote is in, the options, the answer type and anonymity are locked; you can still correct the wording, the close date and the results setting. Close ends a poll now; Reopen opens it again; Delete removes it.

Events and the calendar

1. In Events, click New event.
2. Enter a Title, Starts (and Ends), and optionally All day, Location, a Link (for an online meeting), Details and a Type (Company, Celebration, Training, Social, Holiday, Other).
3. For a regular event choose Repeats weekly, monthly or yearly, with an optional Repeat until date.
4. Choose the audience and click Save. The audience is notified once.

The Events calendar shows, for any window of up to two months, the events addressed to you, the birthdays and work anniversaries of colleagues, and your own answer. A person who turned off "show my birthday" in their own settings is left out of birthdays. Click an event and choose Going, Maybe or No; HR sees the counts and who answered.

The company feed

The feed has three kinds of entries, newest first, with pinned ones on top: news posts, announcements addressed to you (written in Announcements) and public kudos. Scroll down to load older entries.

• Post news: HR opens Company feed in the Culture group (Engagement in the new menu), writes in the box at the top ("Write a post from the HR team…") and clicks Post. There is no separate New post button. By default only HR posts; turn on Employees can post in the feed on the Settings tab of Recognition to let everyone share. You can edit or delete your own posts.
• Comment and react: on any entry, write a comment or pick a reaction (Like, Celebrate, Love, Insightful, Support). Picking the same reaction again takes it back. Comments are closed on an announcement whose Lock comments option is on, and on a post HR locked.
• Report: use Report on a post or comment you think does not belong.

Moderation

In Moderation, HR sees the open reports with the text and who reported it. For each, Remove (with a reason) takes the post or comment out of every feed and closes its reports, or Dismiss closes the report and keeps the content. HR can also Pin a post, Lock comments on it, and remove any post, comment or kudos from the feed itself. Everything removed stays on record with who removed it and why.

HR's Company feed shows every announcement, whoever it was sent to, so it can be moderated. HR staff without an employee profile can post as the HR team, pin, lock comments and remove, but cannot react, comment or report.

Settings

On the Settings tab of Recognition: Points per kudos (0 pays none), Kudos a person can give per month, the Company values that kudos can be tagged with, and Employees can post in the feed.

Example scenario

Mira in Support thanks Dan and Sofia for covering a night shift: she picks the value Customer first and sends. Both earn 5 points and are notified; the feed shows one entry "Mira recognised Dan and Sofia". Colleagues react with Celebrate. HR creates a poll "Where is the team lunch?" for the Support department, closing Friday, and adds a Team lunch event for the same audience; 12 of 15 people answer Going.

Troubleshooting and FAQ

I cannot give more kudos. You have reached the monthly limit; it renews on the first of the month, and HR can raise it in settings.

A colleague does not appear when I give kudos. Only active employees can be recognised.

I voted but cannot see the results. The poll is set to show results after it closes, or to HR only.

I cannot post in the feed. Only HR posts unless the setting Employees can post in the feed is on. You can always comment and react.

Did removing a kudos take the points away? Yes, the points are taken back from the person's total.