I'm an Engineering Manager. I print out certificates for people on (and beyond) my teams, referencing something they accomplished (big or small), add one of the "boy scout badges" I bought in bulk from AliExpress (and then retroactively created & reference a set of values based on the iconography) and mail out "Engineering Merit Badges" to our remote employees. Maybe a few think it's dumb but the vast majority love it. The collector-types try to earn the entire set (I made one of the badges really hard to get because of this), while physically getting mail really seems to resonate with anyone under 35. A few people more distant from my teams (i.e. different departments) DID seems supsicious at first when I asked for their home address, and my boss wondered how I spent several hundred dollars in postage last year, but I try and send out at least a dozen a month while still keeping them meaningful. It's actually a bit of work (of course I wrote software to help manage and create everything) but I love it too.
alt Hacker News
I'm an Engineering Manager. I print out certificates for people on (and beyond) my teams, referencing something they accomplished (big or small), add one of the "boy scout badges" I bought in bulk from AliExpress (and then retroactively created & reference a set of values based on the iconography) and mail out "Engineering Merit Badges" to our remote employees. Maybe a few think it's dumb but the vast majority love it. The collector-types try to earn the entire set (I made one of the badges really hard to get because of this), while physically getting mail really seems to resonate with anyone under 35. A few people more distant from my teams (i.e. different departments) DID seems supsicious at first when I asked for their home address, and my boss wondered how I spent several hundred dollars in postage last year, but I try and send out at least a dozen a month while still keeping them meaningful. It's actually a bit of work (of course I wrote software to help manage and create everything) but I love it too.