In the last blog post in this series, I talked about designing a nomination program that actually fits and amplifies your culture. But even a beautifully designed program can undercut itself with a single word: "winner."

In many nomination-based award programs, a handful of people end up on a stage holding a trophy, but a much larger group does not. We often refer to those on stage as "winners," which could inadvertently imply that everyone else is a "loser."  

That framing can subtly undercut the very thing the program is supposed to do: make people feel seen, valued, and inspired by the stories of excellence happening around them.

I think there is a better way to look at it: In a healthy recognition culture, being nominated isn’t a step toward recognition. It is recognition. 

That does not mean every nominee receives the same prize, the same title, or the same level of visibility at the final event. It simply means the act of being nominated is already meaningful. Someone took the time to notice your work, put your impact into words, and elevate your contribution for broader consideration. 

The Oscars model

Think about the Academy Awards. Just being nominated is a career milestone. Nobody says they "lost" an Oscar. They say they were nominated for an Academy Award. When they announce the award, the language is deliberate. They don’t say, "The winner is …" They say, "And the Oscar goes to …" This protects the prestige of the final award without degrading everyone else who made it to that moment.

None of this happens by accident, at the Oscars or in your own program. And once you retire the language of winners and losers, something else follows: you stop designing the whole program around a single moment for a single person. 

Start with the words

Instead of "winner" try "award recipient." It’s a small tweak that makes a massive psychological difference. "Award recipient" does something "winner" can't: it signals that many were deserving and honored through nomination, and one is being selected to represent that excellence this time around.

Like the Academy Awards, during your award presentation, instead of saying "The winner is …" try "And the [award name] goes to …" And for those who don’t receive the final award, instead of saying they "didn't win," try saying they "were nominated" or "were selected as a finalist."

Then let the language reshape the program

Once the language shifts, the rest of the program can expand with it. Here are three ways to improve your nomination program by thinking beyond just the few at the top:

1. Celebrate every nominee

Instead of focusing only on the final selection, celebrate the entire cohort of nominees. Share the shape of the data: "We received 400 nominations from 12 countries this year." Consider including a slide, a feed post, or an email listing every nominee’s name during your award presentation. At the country or division level, celebrate representation too: how many teams, sites, or regions contributed nominations this cycle.

2. Honor the nominators

You don’t have nominees without nominators. The person who wrote the nomination is doing culture-building work. They noticed something worth celebrating and brought it to light, helping leadership see what might otherwise stay invisible. If you want more of that behavior, recognize it! When you announce your award recipients, acknowledge the nominators too. It costs nothing to send out a post highlighting how many nominators from different departments or countries you had, and it reinforces that "looking for the good" in your colleagues is itself a valued behavior. Recognition culture gets stronger when we celebrate not only achievement, but also the act of calling achievement out.

3. Multiply the impact 

Awardco’s research shows that recognition from senior leadership can sustain engagement for up to a full year, roughly twice the effect of manager recognition. If your program is inclusive and gives visible credit to the full nominee class, make it easy for leaders to take it a step further and personally recognize all the nominees.

Give leaders visibility into who was nominated on their teams, along with simple tools to acknowledge them. That might be a short message template for recognizing nominees, nominators, and award recipients, or a slide they can use in a team meeting. The goal is to make leader recognition easy and repeatable, so the impact of the awards program continues well beyond the award itself.

Prestige and abundance aren’t opposites

At the end of the day, language is part of your program design. The words you choose tell employees whether this is a narrow contest or a broader celebration of contribution. If you want the program to energize more people than it excludes, start there.

Still, prestige matters. Final award recipients should still feel that the honor means something. But prestige and abundance are not opposites. In fact, a well-designed nomination program is strongest when it does both: it creates a meaningful final distinction and a broader field of visible appreciation along the way.

Because in the best nomination programs, there are no losers. There are nominees, nominators, finalists, award recipients, and a whole organization learning what excellence looks like through the stories it chooses to tell.

In the next post, I call out the fears that stall some nomination programs before they even get started – busting some myths and making the case for why caution isn’t actually the safer choice.