Return on Recognition
Incentives that drive behavior
Not every incentive needs to be life-changing to be effective—micro incentives are built to subtly reinforce and reward behaviors without taking too much time or effort on admins’ part. And the results don’t lie.
Custom incentive programs
Small behaviors. Big impact.
Build micro incentives to drive almost any behavior, small or large, and let automation minimize administrative hassle.
How it works
Build programs people actually use
STEP 1
Create goal-oriented micro incentives
What do you hope employees will do with a little more motivation?

STEP 2
Set specific parameters
Who qualifies to participate in the micro incentive? Cater these to teams, locations, or other employee data.

STEP 3
Decide on the reward for participation
What point amount is the right reward for the action?

Testimonials
What our customers say
Thought Leadership & Resources
Employee experience resources
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Can micro-incentives require proof or approval? 
Yes, where the selected workflow supports it. A program can be designed to collect evidence, such as a form response, photo, screenshot, completion record, or other supporting documentation, and route the submission to an appropriate reviewer.
Approval may be assigned to a manager, program owner, safety or quality team, administrator, or another designated reviewer. Organizations can also define budgets, limits, eligibility rules, and other guardrails to help manage how rewards are issued.
The right level of review depends on the risk, value, frequency, and purpose of the program. Requiring unnecessary approval for a low-value, high-volume activity can reduce participation, while insufficient review can create budget, fairness, or compliance concerns.
How do employees earn a micro-incentive? 
The earning experience depends on the program design. Employees may complete an activity in Awardco, submit a response or proof, use an award code or QR code, participate in a challenge, or have qualifying data flow into the platform from another system.
Some programs allow employees to indicate that they completed the requirement. Others require manager or administrator review before the reward is issued. Where supported, organizations can use integrations, data feeds, or configured workflows to reduce manual administration and automate eligibility or reward issuance.
Employees may access programs through the channels enabled for their organization, which can include web or mobile experiences and other configured access methods. Organizations should design the process so frontline and deskless employees can participate without relying on a desktop workflow they cannot reasonably access.
What behaviors or activities can micro-incentives reward? 
Organizations can use micro-incentives for many types of defined behaviors and activities, including:
- Training, learning, or certification milestones
- Safety observations, improvement ideas, or participation in safety initiatives
- Survey or employee-feedback completion
- Wellness challenges and activity goals
- Onboarding or open-enrollment tasks
- Attendance, timeliness, or process-completion goals
- Customer, quality, or operational behaviors
- Short-term team challenges and participation campaigns
The program should reward a behavior the organization can describe clearly and administer consistently. For safety, quality, compliance, or regulated activities, organizations should involve the appropriate HR, legal, safety, compliance, and operational stakeholders when designing the rules.
How are micro-incentives different from spot recognition or larger incentive programs? 
Micro-incentives, spot recognition, and larger incentive programs can all use rewards, but they serve different purposes.
- Spot recognition is typically a manager- or peer-initiated way to recognize an individual for something they did.
- A micro-incentive is usually a smaller, repeatable reward tied to a defined action, challenge, or behavior.
- A larger incentive program may run over a longer period, involve more complex eligibility or performance rules, and include larger rewards, rankings, or a broader business objective.
These approaches can coexist in one employee experience. The right structure depends on whether the organization wants to reinforce a moment, drive participation in a defined activity, or manage a formal performance-based program.
What are micro-incentives? 
Micro-incentives are small rewards offered for completing a specific action, reaching a short-term milestone, participating in an initiative, or demonstrating a desired behavior.
Examples may include completing a training, submitting a safety observation, participating in a survey, completing an onboarding task, meeting a wellness goal, contributing an improvement idea, or taking part in a short-term challenge.
The value is usually in the frequency, clarity, and immediacy of the reinforcement—not in making every reward large. Organizations should define the behavior, eligibility, evidence, reward value, timing, and success measure before launching a program.
















