A senior HR leader recently told the Awardco Center of Excellence something we're hearing more often. Recognition wasn't in question. Its role in culture, engagement, and employee experience was well understood. The real challenge was priority. With AI adoption, workforce redesign, and constant change dominating the agenda, employee recognition had quietly slipped down the list.

It's an understandable position. But what if recognition isn't competing with transformation at all? What if it's one of the mechanisms that makes transformation work?

Our research backs this up: while AI adoption at work has doubled in the last two years, organizations that lean on recognition during periods of change see employees who are 2.3x more likely to be engaged and 1.7x more likely to want to stay.

Every transformation is a behavior change initiative

Organizations don't transform because technology changes. They transform because people do. Whether the goal is AI adoption, new skills, or a redesigned operating model, success comes down to employees adopting new behaviors: learning, experimenting, collaborating differently, and challenging the status quo.

Most companies communicate these expectations clearly. Fewer reinforce them consistently, and adoption suffers as a result. Recognition is one of the most scalable ways leaders can reinforce the behaviors they want to see more of. Every recognition moment sends a signal about what matters, and that signal drives adoption more effectively than a memo ever could.

Alera Group put this to the test. Formed through 24 mergers across 280 offices, the company needed one shared culture across a fast-growing, dispersed workforce. Using Awardco, Alera tied recognition to company values, gave managers monthly budgets, and built it into onboarding and milestones. The results:

• Recognition adoption grew 170%
• Attrition risk dropped 43% among high program participants
• Retention improved 9% for employees receiving at least two recognitions
• Manager recognition activity increased 188%

Transformation isn't driven by strategy alone. It's driven by repeated behavior, and recognition helps that behavior take root.

During uncertainty, employees look for signals

Periods of change raise questions employees rarely say out loud: Am I still valued? Do I belong here? Does my work still matter? Organizations tend to respond with more communication, but information alone doesn't answer these questions. Employees need evidence, and recognition provides it by reinforcing not just what someone accomplished, but why it mattered.

When Viacom and CBS merged to form Paramount, the challenge went far beyond combining systems and brands. It meant building one culture across a global workforce of more than 20,000 people, many of whom were also adjusting to remote work. Awardco helped Paramount unify fragmented recognition programs and extend equitable, flexible rewards across every region. The results:

• Unified employees across 141 countries
• Reclaimed roughly 52 days of administrative time
• Built a more inclusive, connected employee experience during major change

Recognition preserves culture through evolution

Restructures and workforce reductions don't just change reporting lines. They change culture. Organizations risk what we call Cultural Drift: the gradual loss of shared understanding about what the company stands for and what success looks like.

Even employees who stay often carry a quieter burden, sometimes described as survivor's guilt: a mix of relief, grief, and uncertainty about their place in what comes next. Recognition helps rebuild that connection. It reminds people their contributions matter and reinforces the values leaders want to see, not through posters, but through real examples happening every day.

The future of work needs more recognition, not less

Much of today's workforce conversation centers on skills: upskilling, reskilling, AI literacy. But people pay attention to what gets recognized and rewarded. If organizations want employees to embrace learning and experimentation, those behaviors need visibility.

A few examples of recognition in action:

• Crumbl used recognition to keep values visible as it scaled rapidly across a remote-first team, turning mission and culture into everyday actions employees could see and repeat.
• PMG centralized recognition across Slack, office displays, and onboarding, helping employees across a fast-moving global agency learn from one another's best work.
• Lineage bridged the digital divide for a largely deskless workforce, driving strong engagement and retention gains even across warehouses and loading docks.

The future of work isn't built through training programs alone. It's reinforced through everyday behavior, and recognition helps organizations scale that behavior faster.

Recognition is transformation infrastructure

Too often, recognition gets filed under "nice to have." But the organizations navigating change most effectively see it differently. Recognition doesn't just celebrate success after transformation happens. It reinforces the behaviors and mindsets that make transformation possible in the first place.

It reduces uncertainty. It preserves culture. It accelerates learning. It connects people to purpose. Recognition isn't separate from workforce transformation. It's part of the infrastructure that supports it.

As organizations invest in AI, new skills, and workforce planning, the real question isn't whether recognition remains a priority. It's whether transformation can succeed without it.

Technology may shape the future of work, but people bring that future to life. And people need to know that what they do matters.

Read the full white paper to explore the complete research, case studies, and data behind using recognition as transformation infrastructure.