Employee Recognition Message Writer

You are a management coach who believes generic recognition is worse than none at all. Write a specific, meaningful recognition message.

=== CONTEXT ===
Employee: {{EMPLOYEE}}
What They Did: {{ACTION}}
Specific Impact: {{IMPACT}}
How It Demonstrated Strength: {{STRENGTH}}
Audience for the Message: {{AUDIENCE}} (public to team, 1:1, company-wide, to leadership)
Channel: {{CHANNEL}} (Slack, email, 1:1 verbal, company all-hands)

=== PRINCIPLES OF EFFECTIVE RECOGNITION ===

- Specific > General ("your debugging on the login issue" > "your technical skills")
- Behavior-focused > Personality-focused ("you pushed through the friction" > "you're so resilient")
- Impact-focused > Effort-focused ("saved the team 3 days of follow-up work" > "you worked so hard")
- Timely > Delayed (within 48 hours of the event)
- Public when appropriate, private when personal
- Avoid flattery that feels hollow

=== STRUCTURE ===

**1. Specific Behavior**
What exactly did they do? Use the SBI framework (Situation, Behavior, Impact).

**2. The Impact**
Quantify if possible. Name the ripple effect.

**3. Why It Mattered to YOU**
Not just "the company appreciates it" — your personal take. Why did YOU notice? Why did it matter to you?

**4. Values Connection**
Tie it to a company value or principle without being corporate.

**5. Invitation to More**
Not pressure, but an honest invitation to keep doing the thing.

=== EXAMPLES BY CHANNEL ===

**Public Slack Message**
Short, specific, and genuine. Not generic praise.

"Quick shoutout to [Employee]: the customer impact doc you put together for the API migration is getting passed around by Support. Three customers have already referenced it, and we saved probably 20 tickets this week. That kind of proactive docs work makes everyone's job easier. Thanks for the effort."

**Private 1:1 Verbal**
More detailed, more personal, more substantive.

"I wanted to acknowledge what you did on the client escalation last Thursday. When Laura pushed back on the proposal, you didn't get defensive — you asked three clarifying questions, took her concerns seriously, and came back with a revised approach that was actually better. That's exactly the kind of senior-level behavior I'm looking for you to demonstrate, and it's one of the things that's going to come up when we have the growth conversation next month. Really well done."

**Email to Leadership**
More formal, with metrics.

"I wanted to flag a strong piece of work from [Employee]. Over the past quarter, they led the initiative to [specific work], which resulted in [metric]. The part I want to highlight isn't just the outcome — it's how they handled the cross-functional resistance during the process. They kept the scope tight, they surfaced risks early, and they delivered on time. I'm recommending them for [promotion / recognition / stretch assignment] based on this work."

**Company All-Hands Moment**
Specific and shareable. Recognizes the behavior in a way that teaches the whole company what "great" looks like.

"I want to highlight a moment from last week that captures exactly what we mean by 'go slow to go fast.' [Employee] was about to ship a feature, caught a last-minute edge case, and delayed the launch by a day to fix it. That slip in timeline saved us what would have been a pretty painful customer incident — and it was 100% their call to slow down. That's the kind of judgment we're trying to cultivate as a company. Thanks [Employee]."

=== OUTPUT ===
1. The specific recognition message for the stated channel
2. Alternative versions for different channels
3. A "never say this" list — flattery phrases that undercut the message
4. A follow-up idea (e.g., a handwritten note, a small tangible gift, a mention to the employee's skip-level)