Who doesn’t love tacos? They are nature’s perfect food: crunchy and fresh meets creamy and savory! They’re a wonderful mix of Mexican culture wrapped in all this yummy goodness and enjoyed around the world. They bring people together one bite at a time (a little melodramatic? I am a bit of a foodie).
Here at Kanopi Studios, we definitely love our tacos. More specifically, we love this fun little Slack integration app called HeyTaco!, an employee engagement tool that has become a huge part of our Kanopi culture. As a completely remote company that heavily relies on Zoom video chat and Slack messaging to stay connected, how could we keep connected in a consistent, interactive, and fun way? Now with HeyTaco! we can both literally and figuratively say “Thank you” virtually with tacos!
We have essentially gone nuts over it, giving away tacos we can never eat (kudos to our CEO, Anne Stefanyk, and VP of Operations, Jill Taiji, for bringing HeyTaco! to Kanopi). Each staff member is given 5 tacos a day to give away, which resets the next day (we have since increased this threshold to 10 tacos!). And boy do we give them away, and exuberantly so: with almost 60 Kanopians and a cap of 10 daily tacos, often we have other staff members donating their tacos to someone who runs out, just to keep the giving going. We even have staff members log online over the weekends just to give away their daily taco limit.
But wait! There’s more random goodness, like GIPHYs of dancing taco people popping up on your screen when you earn a certain amount of tacos. Or collecting special “gifts” depending on how you give and receive tacos; for example, there’s a Super Taco (a taco wearing a cape), a taco tree, and bottles of sauce that come in jalapeno and “ghost” flavors. There are even the coveted rare gifts you can unlock (thus far, I have collected a tornado in a bottle, a snow globe, and a pet rock). What is the purpose of these “special” gifts? To give them away to other team members to show how awesome they are to be receiving such a special gift.
Admittedly, it is the silliest thing, this random taco-ness . . . but it is highly effective at building camaraderie, ridiculously addictive, and just plain fun. A random aside: since the introduction of HeyTaco!, there has been an increase in staff members eating tacos for lunch (go figure). This phenomenon is unsurprising given the nature of our team as a whole; it seems that Kanopians really love their novelties and dive head-first into such things for the long haul (we are also obsessed with customizing Slackmojis, and our annual GIF Off competitions… that’s a whole other blog post right there).
So where am I going with this? Well, we have turned this novelty into something meaningful and truly special. Basically, this spawned our employee incentive program where we thank one another using specific hashtags that correspond to one of our Company Values:
- We value human connection. We are #BetterTogether
- We value being #Nimble and helpful
- We value #Clarity
- We value contributing #Trust daily
- We value that when something is complex, we #OwnIt
- We value contributing to our #Community
- We value expressing #Gratitude
Each month, the person who receives the most value hashtags per value receives a $25 reward of recognition, typically in the form of an Amazon, Starbucks, or Playstation gift card. Even the Top Taco giver for the month receives an award. It is our company’s way of encouraging everyone to give taco gratitude (with #hashtags) where it is totally deserved as a fun way to recognize the efforts of our fellow Kanopians!
Similar to how we depend on one another to make magic happen here at Kanopi, monthly winners depend on the team thanking them as a collective with value hashtags. It is through team effort and recognition that anyone even wins a prize. It is such a lovely process.
And as if the spirit of giving stops there, it doesn’t! Even recipients of a HeyTaco! reward for that month would request to have their $25 gift donated to a charity of their choice or opt to gift their gift card to another Kanopian because they want to recognize their efforts.
I even had to announce to all staff that it was okay to redeem the prizes for themselves. Like, I literally stated in a staff meeting, “Don’t ever feel selfish for claiming your gift!”
We fully intended to set up a redemption program for staff to trade in their accumulated tacos for prizes, but thus far people are just happy to give #Thanks over and over again and collect tacos with gleeful abandon.
Does our culture sound like a place you’d like to either work with or work for? Contact us to get started.
And as much fun as it is to give and receive, there is a bit of intercompany competition here, which adds some spice to the taco fun. A dirty secret about me: I make it a point to be the Top Taco Giver as much as possible because:
- I like winning, and I am secretly competitive
- Because I know this would guarantee that I would earn a HeyTaco! reward, and,
- Once I get the reward, I can gift it to a team member that I feel was deserving of a HeyTaco! recognition but just did not pull the highest amount of hashtags.
There. The secret is out. I love to give, and I happen to work for a company that shares this same disposition.
Truth be told, having an attitude of gratitude can do wonders for the psyche. I was once in a really bad mood regarding my personal affairs that seemed overwhelming at the time, but instead of lashing out at the world (i.e., yelling at my plant) or myself (i.e., ice cream therapy), I decided to give away all my tacos for the day. I found myself reflecting on team mates and how they contribute daily to the awesome that is Kanopi. I thanked someone who helped me in a big way. I thanked someone else for helping me with a small task. I thanked someone that I know hustles but may not be as conspicuous or obvious to others. I was even skimming thru other Slack channels and picking up conversations where one Kanopian fixes a big problem, or helped a client, or made someone laugh and brighten that chat room, and I gave them a taco for being their awesome selves. It’s amazing how one can receive such an abundance of something unquantifiable in the simple act of giving thanks to someone.
And this is why the average Kanopian may appear happier. Coz Tacos.
