Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

RECOGNITION AND REWARDS
Knowledge in Action Award. An annual award given out to those individuals who have
leveraged the utility knowledge infrastructure, knowledge assets, expertise directory or
best practices to deliver meaningful value to their project or business unit. Nominations
for these awards can be submitted by anyone in the utility who can tell a story about how
utility knowledge has been leveraged, either about themselves or others.
Not Invented Here Award. Create a new award that promotes desired behaviors. For
example, Texas Instruments created the NIHBIDIA Award (Not Invented Here But I Did It
Anyway). These are awarded annually by senior leadership.
Peer Recognition. Meaningful recognition can come from peers as well as leadership.
Utility employees at all levels should be encouraged to acknowledge individual and
organizational contributions on a personal level. If knowledge culled from the
knowledgebase is useful to an employee’s work, that employee should reach out to the
contributor and personally acknowledge the contribution. This doesn’t need to be
formal. A simple phone call or email expressing appreciation works.
Peer Nomination for Awards. Peer nomination for rewards can be especially valued.
An example is a team of individuals contributing lessons learned on a particular project
to the utility knowledgebase. A second team utilizes these lessons on a similar project,
resulting in improved decision-making capability and improved results. The second
team then nominates the first team for some kind of reward and recognition based on
these results.
Recognition by the Project Leader. The project leader should continuously promote
and publicize individual and group or team contributions to organizational goals.
Contributors can be recognized in newsletters, on web sites, at staff meeting, during
special luncheons, and so forth.
Recognition by Senior Leadership. Another mechanism for project leaders to
recognize contributors is to inform senior leadership of success stories. This information
should be accompanied by a request for a personal note of appreciation from senior
leadership to the individuals or groups/teams commending their work and
acknowledging how their contribution has made a difference to the mission of the utility.
Utility Shared Knowledge Award. Develop an incentive program for the quarterly and
yearly awarding of incentive awards (certificates, coins, small statues) for the shared
knowledge voted by organizational members to be the most helpful to the organization.
See:
Case Example #3 (Hill and Knowlton)
In Project Study #25 (Louisville Water Company, KY), the Utility is recognizing
individuals and teams who contribute Process and Operational Improvements.
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