Apply now for Recognize Awards 2026

 

Employee Competitions & Challenges

Challenge. Motivate. Reward.

Whether it’s a sales SPIFF, wellness challenge, or safety initiative, Awardco helps teams stay motivated, engaged, and rewarded every step of the way.

Competition & Challenge Features

Tools to incentivize, reward, and delight your teams

Everything needed to run meaningful competitions that boost motivation and incentivize performance.

Custom Challenges

Motivate positive participation with minimal management.

Offer specialty rewards tailored for specific audiences
Launch to the entire company or target a specific group
Quick and easy to launch

Gamification

Real-time rankings keep participation and momentum high.

Automated leaderboards encourage participation
Healthy competition and real-time stats
Push notifications that drive engagement

Easy Administration

Consolidated program management and tracking.

Upload data manually or integrate with existing tools
Visual real-time participation dashboards
Keep it simple and scalable, no matter the challenge type

Automate Rewards

Automatically reward participation and achievement.

Award points and adjust values for different challenges
Custom reward catalogs for specific programs
Recognize individual and team accomplishments 

Spot Recognition

Keep the energy high with instant kudos.

Celebrate small wins throughout the challenge
Recognize teamwork and milestones
Boost morale with frequent, meaningful moments of praise

Return on recognition

Motivation meets psychology

Humans are wired for achievement, progress, and a little healthy competition. Challenge-based recognition taps into our drive and keeps performance on the rise.

60
%
increase in employee engagement when gamification is used.
89
%
more productivity and happier employees with incentives and recognition.
83
%
of employees feel motivated by gamified elements.

testimonials

See how teams succeed with Awardco

Dubai Airports
I’ve been recognized myself, and it felt wonderful—surprising, but also deeply motivating. I’ve also had the privilege of recognizing teams for delivering major projects, which brought departments together in a unified sense of achievement.
Kan Ni
Vice President, Airport Operations Control Center, Dubai Airports
Kodiak
There's plenty of research that shows the compounding impact of how when other people can see recognition, it creates that snowball effect. And so it just makes people work better together. They feel more as part of the team.
Zach Makoutz
Sr. Manager, Category Sales Product
Alera Group
Colleagues have to choose a value from The Collaborative Way when they recognize, making our recognition feed daily proof of why our values are so important. It’s such a powerfully positive place. Leaders are really taking notice—they want to see their teams at the top of the adoption leaderboard because they know the impact our values have on employee performance and retention.
Pam Johnson
VP of HR
Southern Oregon Head Start
If we retain a teacher, that’s 20 students we get to serve. Going from 45% turnover to 8% means we’ve kept 85–90 more staff. That’s an incredible impact on both our children and our budget.
Amber Lease
Human Resource Director
The Nest Schools
The best decision we made was switching from our previous platform to Awardco. The customer service is excellent, the features are amazing, and we LOVE that they take our ideas and make them happen. They are always looking at innovating, which is one of our core values. We are extremely satisfied with Awardco and everyone here at The Nest LOVES the program.
Sara Beer
Director of Core Values
Pacific Life
We do a lot of remote work activities where you can win something. We do a lot of these contests, and I used to go to Amazon and send a $25 gift card to the winners, but now I do it through Awardco. It's in the system, trackable, and much more streamlined.
Amberlee Taylor
Sr. Communications Specialist
Beckman Coulter
From a reporting standpoint, Awardco excels by allowing users to access desired reports quickly through easily accessible links, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple pages as was the case with previous platforms. The platform has garnered significant positive feedback for its user-friendly nature and seamless navigation.
Kerie Rogers
HR Operations Leader
Percepta
We were looking for a solution that rewarded folks in their own currency, and Awardco delivers!
Tammy Godby
Senior Manager of Global Organizational Development
 
 

Motivate, incentivize, and challenge your teams

Ready to drive performance with smarter challenges and better rewards? Let’s build a competition program your team will be excited about.