We’ve Got A Lot To Say

Collaboration is one of the core values of Itch, and part of collaborating is recognizing the hard work and contribution of our teammates. We know the value of praise; collectively and authentically recognizing a colleague's good work has the potential to boost morale and motivation.

We took this trait and made it official, hence the Employee Recognition Form.

The ERF is an internal project initiated by our former Associate Creative Director Nico Pablo. It’s a document where your teammates can say good things about you and your work, somewhere between the short Friendster testimonials of yore and a formal peer evaluation.

The great thing about the ERF is that aside from having preset compliments to give like “Your valuable input is an essential ingredient for excellent collaborative work” and “You push the team forward with your outstanding morals and professional competence,” we can give specific comments to our peers. Out of 1,225 total ERF submissions since October 2016, 1,140 had paragraphs upon paragraphs of compliments and praise for our colleagues. This goes to show that we’re not simply ticking boxes and randomly assigning praise to the people we work with—we actually make it a point to elaborate on the good they’ve done.

Last December saw us give the most number of ERF submissions. We’re typically pretty eager to sing praise when others deserve it, but it was still shocking to find out that we collectively submitted over 400 ERF entries.

The ERF isn’t easy to do—some go through all the past projects they’ve done with a colleague, some write an entry for each officemate, some write over 500 words for a single entry. The time we collectively spent to write, sort, and layout those 400+ ERF submissions is roughly equal to the time it takes to do six key visuals, or an entire month’s worth of social media content, or going to and from Baguio City three times.

Submitting a substantial ERF is work on top of our everyday tasks, but we do it enthusiastically because we know the feeling of being told we did a good job. We know the satisfaction of being recognized for our hard work and contribution.

So it’s only natural that we pay that forward every chance we get.

ERF: If you have something nice to say, say it!

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