Practicing gratitude is one of the most rewarding feelings, and it’s one many organizations lack. Employees dedicate a big chunk of their lives to their work, so the least an HR department can do is show gratitude for their effort during internal events or throughout the year. A gratitude wall is an easy way to do this.
Setting one up is easy and usually takes 3 steps: connect your content sources, moderate the feed, and display it somewhere employees will actually see it. Read on to learn about examples and the importance of gratitude walls.
What is a gratitude wall?
A gratitude wall is a type of culture wall, a digital display that shows employee content like team shoutouts, milestone celebrations, photos from company events, and project wins, built specifically for employee recognition. The point of a gratitude wall is to have them update automatically and from the comfort of your computer, instead of a physical board the office that you have to update by hand.
The special thing about these walls is also that they can be moderated by multiple people, so your whole HR or internal comms department can keep it up and running. Anyone can add to it in real time, from any office or time zone, which matters if your teams aren’t all sitting in the same location.
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How do you set up a gratitude wall for an internal event?
Embed your gratitude wall on your website, intranet or screen in three simple steps.
1. Get a Walls.io account
First of all, set up your Walls.io account. It’s straightforward and takes less than 5 minutes to create your social live feed, including adapting the design.
In Sources, connect your account to any of your social media accounts and start collecting content from a hashtag, profile, or page.
Check out all sources: walls.io/sources
3. Embed your feed on your website
To customize your embed, go to the Embed & Display section in your Walls.io dashboard and adjust the parameters as needed.
You can set the width, height, and responsiveness of your widget. The wall header is hidden and the background is transparent by default to help it blend into your site — but you can change both if desired. For detailed instructions, check out our embed guide or screen/digital signage guide.
How do you keep a gratitude wall privacy safe?
Not every employee wants to post on public social media, and some companies restrict it outright. Direct Posts solves that: it lets attendees contribute without posting to public social media, so someone without a LinkedIn or Instagram account can still add a shoutout using just a link or a QR code.
Pair that with privacy-first social feeds settings and GDPR & CCPA compliance (Walls.io is the most secure social wall, supporting 2FA and complying with EU and US/Californian data protection laws), and employees can post without worrying about where their name and photo end up. That combination matters more for internal events than external ones, since attendees are colleagues, not customers who opted into a public campaign.
Where should you display a gratitude wall?
Office screens and event-day displays are a very good choice, you can also display it during events or special celebrations. You can also embed a social feed on your intranet, on Notion, Confluence, or SharePoint, so the recognition wall stays visible for employees who weren’t in the room.
During a week-long brand launch, Sandvik Coromant showed its team wall on large office screens. The screens are called “World Windows.” Employees across locations saw the same information at the same time. If you want a one-day event to become a part of your company’s culture, you have to run the display in more than one place.
What are some gratitude wall examples from organizations?
Here are some examples of social walls used to recognize people and employees for their efforts.
SAP’s Direct Posts gratitude wall
SAP built its gratitude wall on a fully branded background and paired it with a QR code labeled “Use the QR code to express your gratitude or share some memories,” next to a CREATE POST button. The feed that came back mixed a thank-you note to a catering team with candid event photos and casual peer shoutouts, all sitting on the same wall without anyone needing an X or Instagram account to post.
The Recruiter Awards
The Recruiter Awards gala is the UK’s largest event for the entire recruitment community recognizing outstanding achievements by agencies and in-house recruiters.
In 2021, this event went all out as they were also celebrating their 20th anniversary.
The awards ceremony at the Marriott Hotel featured an on-site digital signage screen that engaged all attendees all night long.
As you can see in the image below, the screen with a social wall announced different competing categories during the party. Attendees could also post to the wall by posting on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #RecruiterAwards.
Home Barista of The Year
Lovin Dublin is a blog dedicated to helping people discover the best of the city. From restaurants to recipes, the site offers a wide range of foodie content.
They also partnered with two brands to sponsor the competition Home Barista of the Year, in which the winner receives a professional coffee machine and food vouchers.
They set up a social media wall on their website to feature all contestants’ submissions. Anyone willing to compete has to post a photo of their best homemade coffee to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #HomeBaristaOfTheYear.
How do you make a gratitude wall more interactive?
A gratitude wall is more effective as an interactive event display when people can do more than scroll past it. Reactions let visitors engage with posts by reacting to content. This means that a shoutout can pick up likes and claps instead of sitting there unacknowledged. Photo Booth makes photos with your brand’s name on them. People can then post these photos with their thank-you messages. Pin to Top keeps a special event, like an anniversary or a big win, at the top of the feed so that it won’t be forgotten.
If your event is part of a team-building campaign, holding a small contest on the wall, like Sandvik’s sweater competition, encourages people to check back regularly throughout the day instead of posting once and moving on.
Ready to build your gratitude wall?
A gratitude wall is a simple way to show gratitude at an event. It can be used for a long time after the event. Start your free trial and have a wall ready for your next team event in under an hour.
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