Ask HN: Micro-feedback at work and cultural differences
The bot works on Slack, MS Teams and Telegram and tracks in-chat team performance ('karma', very similar to Reddit concept) via simple set of commands:
`@user ++ for fixing that annoying bug`
and, for example
`@user 2-- for showing up late AGAIN`
I've been living in New Zealand for 12 years, spent some time in Australia, dealt with Australian customers, worked remotely with the US-based teams. Naturally, as an immigrant, I have somewhat limited understanding of the western work ethics customs.
As they say at Startup School, 'keep it simple', hence one of the features in question is the _concept of negative karma_.
So, my question to the friendly community: is it OK to use negative karma as a measurement tool for professional accountability?
Consider the following scenario, say, you've: - missed an important meeting, - actively avoiding daily standups, - broken company's website, - did not show up for work, - constantly ignoring your colleagues requests, etc
Would you please share your views and possibly answer the following questions: - As a manager, would you feel comfortable reducing your employees karma (@user--)? - As an employee, how would you feel getting hit with negative karma request?
Please note your current location in your response.
Thanks so much . It's super hard to build a product that people actually want to use.
Link to the product: https://karmabot.chat
P.S.: From what we've leant so far, negative micro-feedback is acceptable in SOME cultures. The way it is now, downvoting is optional. It is OFF by default. 3700+ teams from 50+ countries use Karmabot in various ways. Some of US, most of Indian, Spanish, Japanese, Russian and generally Eastern European teams are fine with --. New Zealand and Australia -- is a loud and clear NO