Building your Taco Economy is much like starting a movement - someone’s gotta start first and looks like this is YOU :) A few simple steps, and you’ll be well on your way!
There are many ways you can introduce HeyTaco to your teams: from simply launching it to announcing it at your next all-company meeting, there is no wrong way to launch HeyTaco. Below are some ideas and resources on how to introduce HeyTaco to a team depending on which route you choose. 👇🏻
Ideal for people who want to roll out HeyTaco slowly and organically, without big fanfare. We actually love that approach, and here is a guide on how to successfully roll out HeyTaco. Some practical steps are below:
This approach is sweet and simple - and is the route most teams choose. It is very light on the admin and the welcome message shares everything your team needs to know to start using HeyTaco.
If you'd like to make a moment out of introducing HeyTaco and plan to do so in a more structured manner, we are here to help you! Most team choose to either send an email to the whole company or make an announcement at an All Company meeting. Regardless of which route you choose, below are channel message, email and All-Company announcement templates you can send to your team that can easily be adjusted for your use case. The key in either is sharing the WHY behind starting your culture of recognition.
We’re excited to announce HeyTaco – our new way to recognize and celebrate each other.
Here’s how it works:
Why HeyTaco?
Let’s start recognizing each other and making gratitude a regular part of our workday! 🎉
If you have any questions, just ask. Let’s taco 'bout appreciation! 🌮
Subject: Announcing HeyTaco - our new fun way to celebrate each other! 🌮
Hi Team,
We’re excited to announce that we’ll be using HeyTaco – a fun and simple way to recognize and celebrate great work within [Slack/Microsoft Teams]!
Here’s how it works:
Why HeyTaco?
This is all about creating a culture of appreciation and celebrating the amazing things we accomplish together. 🌮
If you have any questions or ideas, reach out anytime.
Let’s taco 'bout appreciation! 🎉
Best, [Your Name] [Your Title]
"Hi everyone! 👋 I’m excited to announce HeyTaco – our new way to recognize and celebrate each other’s great work, and add a little happiness to someone's day.
Here’s how it works: Anytime you want to appreciate someone, just tag them in [Slack/Teams] and add a taco emoji 🌮. For example, if someone helped you with a project or went above and beyond, just say, 'Thanks @Alex for your help with the presentation! 🌮'
Everyone has 5 tacos to give every day, and they expire daily and don’t roll over. This encourages us to celebrate each other in the moment when something awesome happens.
Why HeyTaco?
If you have any questions or need ideas, just reach out. Let’s taco 'bout appreciation and start celebrating each other today! 🌮"
You can also share these overview videos with your team. It is a simple way to your team to learn how to use HeyTaco.
Taco tip: The key to people adopting HeyTaco is for you (and the rest of the team driving this initiative) to give your tacos away to different people every day. If you only add HeyTaco without actually giving a taco, people won’t know what to do. You leading by example is key for early success of HeyTaco.
Once you have successfully introduced HeyTaco to your team and tacos are flowing, here are a coiple things to consider in order to keep building your culture of recognition.
What you want people to do when launching HeyTaco is to GIVE recognition. Celebrating top weekly/monthly taco givers (as shown on the leaderboard) highlights the action you want everyone to take which is to give a taco. Givers are the ones who are driving your culture of gratitude forward and making gratitude a habit. Recognize those top givers at your All Company meeting, or in a weekly newsletter/message to the whole team.
We recommend waiting to add rewards for two reasons: A) people will have fun with HeyTaco as is and introducing rewards too early could make your recognition program become transactional. People will view rewards as an incentive to engage, and from what we have seen in our 8 years of running HeyTaco - people don’t need an incentive to share nice things with their colleagues. By waiting to add rewards, rewards become a celebration for a strong taco economy, maintaining the intrinsic value of sharing recognition. B) Waiting to add Rewards will allow you to price them better because you will have a chance to see how many tacos are in circulation (ie how many tacos your team has accumulated).
Once you are ready to add Rewards, we recommend starting with one or two. Here are some fun reward ideas we have seen people have success with over the years.
Voila! You have started a movement - now give out your tacos and watch your taco economy grow! 🌮And if you are curious on how to continue using HeyTaco effectively, check out our advice here.
P.S. If you have more questions, need more resources, or would like to brainstorm how to launch HeyTaco with your team, please email us at support@heytaco.com. We'd be happy to help!