August 2022
The smallest thing we made this year!
Appreciation was the last thing they received. We tried to fix that without adding to their load.
Appreciation was the last thing they received. We tried to fix that without adding to their load.
A sticker pack wasn't on any project plan.
But it might be one of the more useful things we made this year.
Our healthcare workers in the Care Companion Program carry a lot. Patient visits, community sessions, health talks. The work doesn't stop. And somewhere in all of it, appreciation tends to be the last thing that reaches them.
We kept hearing this in conversations. Not as a complaint, just as a fact. Small gestures matter. A "thank you" lands differently than you'd expect when it actually arrives.
So we sat with a simple question: what's something meaningful we can do inside the channels that already exist?
We already had WhatsApp groups. Program managers use them to stay connected with CCP nurses, nurses share session photos, ask questions, loop in the training team. The infrastructure was there.
We made a sticker pack.
Custom designs, encouraging messages, something the program teams could drop into a conversation without it feeling like a campaign. We tried it first during the TB work in Madhya Pradesh, then in Indonesia.
The responses were immediate. Reactions, replies, a kind of warmth that's hard to manufacture.
What I took from this:
Recognition doesn't need a system. It needs a moment and the right format for that moment. We already had the moment. The sticker just gave it a shape.
Sometimes the lowest-effort idea is the one that actually fits.
A sticker pack wasn't on any project plan.
But it might be one of the more useful things we made this year.
Our healthcare workers in the Care Companion Program carry a lot. Patient visits, community sessions, health talks. The work doesn't stop. And somewhere in all of it, appreciation tends to be the last thing that reaches them.
We kept hearing this in conversations. Not as a complaint, just as a fact. Small gestures matter. A "thank you" lands differently than you'd expect when it actually arrives.
So we sat with a simple question: what's something meaningful we can do inside the channels that already exist?
We already had WhatsApp groups. Program managers use them to stay connected with CCP nurses, nurses share session photos, ask questions, loop in the training team. The infrastructure was there.
We made a sticker pack.
Custom designs, encouraging messages, something the program teams could drop into a conversation without it feeling like a campaign. We tried it first during the TB work in Madhya Pradesh, then in Indonesia.
The responses were immediate. Reactions, replies, a kind of warmth that's hard to manufacture.
What I took from this:
Recognition doesn't need a system. It needs a moment and the right format for that moment. We already had the moment. The sticker just gave it a shape.
Sometimes the lowest-effort idea is the one that actually fits.