Dear LinkedIn, pls abolish the “congrats on your work anniversary”
One of the most annoying features in LinkedIn is “congrats on your work anniversary”.
Let me explain why by starting with a small story. My first employment after university was in the oldest and largest Lebanese conglomerate, Fattal Holding, I owe it still to the late Bernard Fattal who believed in a young man of 24 years to make him a GM in a new country. At Fattal, there was a tradition of celebrating incumbency on 8, 15 and 25 years with generous bonuses and a great party. On reaching my 8th anniversary I was invited to celebrate with other colleagues and during that celebration I could not stop thinking of how lame this was, why should we be celebrating years spent?
And now, after 20 years, we still see this practice in many companies and on LinkedIn, which is supposed to be a progressive communication portal.
We celebrate our successes, the barriers we broke, the people we advanced and the lives we touched. We will celebrate exceeding targets, breaking new competitive barriers, learning a new skill and earning that highly deserved bonus. Let’s add these in LinkedIn.
We must stop celebrating years, I don’t want to have 20 years’ experience delivered in repeating the first year 20 times.
Here’s to continuous congrats for continuous breakthroughs.