Appreciation systems--platforms for users to exchange thanks and praise--are
becoming common in the workplace, where employees share appreciation, managers
are notified, and aggregate scores are sometimes made visible. Who do people
thank on these systems, and what do they expect from each other and their
managers? After introducing the design affordances of 13 appreciation systems,
we discuss a system we call Gratia, in use at a large multinational company for
over four years. Using logs of 422,000 appreciation messages and user surveys,
we explore the social dynamics of use and ask if use of the system addresses
the recognition problem. We find that while thanks is mostly exchanged among
employees at the same level and different parts of the company, addressing the
recognition problem, managers do not always act on that recognition in ways
that employees expect.Comment: in Tenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 201