Create your 2027 engagement playbook (plus live giveaway!)

 

Micro Incentives for Employees

Instantly incentivize almost anything

Perfect for driving specific behaviors without complicated processes or fanfare, micro incentives can be an important part of any recognition strategy.

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.

22
%
increase in productivity
87
%
increase in retention
300
%
greater engagement

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

Through our work phones, we get an email when we’ve earned points, and then we can log in to see our total, explore reward options, and decide how we want to use them. It stays top of mind throughout the day—whether we’re driving or working at customer sites.
Christopher Whilsmith
Certified Refueling Professional
4Refuel
Our frontline workers are the core of what we do and the core of our customer experience. We launched Microsoft Teams for all employees. We have the Awardco interface added to the platform, so our employees can now recognize each other directly from their phones on their app while they're working. If they see a great job, they can do an immediate shout out and make that difference.
Jessica Mollica
Vice President, Human Resources Field
Hertz
You get the same feeling when you are recognized as when you are recognizing someone else. Awardco gives you that platform and makes it so easy to gain those feelings. I love seeing my team being recognized or my leaders recognizing the teams.
Smiling woman with shoulder-length wavy dark hair wearing a green blouse with textured dots against a black background.
Tisa Penny
Engagement & Events Lead, 2025 Recognition Rockstar Winner
Lockton
Never underestimate the power of recognition. Years after I recognized a colleague, they still send me a message on the anniversary of that moment to say it continues to make their day.
Portrait of a woman wearing a black hijab with brown eyes and natural makeup on a white background.
Khulood AlMarzooqi
Director of Total Rewards & Employee Engagement, Dubai Airports
Dubai Airports
Awardco is central to our strategy around helping people feel connected across the organization in the work that they do. Our strength is that we have diversity across all our offices. So collaboration may be the soul of a layer group, that tie that binds our unique cultures together. But we really want to celebrate and recognize the diversity across our offices, and that is our strength. Awardco helps us create that visible platform for everybody to see the good work and the unique ways that people are solving problems around the organization.
Kristie White
AVP, Change Strategy & Organization Development
Alera Group
When I pitched Awardco to our leadership team, I shared the risk of losing connection as we grow. I framed it as a strategic need. Their response? ‘Stop talking. Just do it.
Smiling woman with long wavy blonde hair wearing a black top and a pendant necklace against a black background.
Melissa York
SVP, Head of People & Culture
Lockton
We think a lot about our frontline employees. They're the ones that make us who we are and drive our business, and we wanted to make sure they knew we appreciated them. Awardco does that.
Annasuela Fritz
HR Projects and Recognition Manager
Hertz
Recognition truly is a cornerstone of PMG’s culture because it fuels engagement, strengthens relationships, and reinforces the behaviors that drive our success. It allows you to immediately recognize big and small wins where that impact is immediately felt.
Smiling woman with light brown hair wearing gold hoop earrings and a blue and white striped shirt.
Mary O’Brien
Head of Programmatic
PMG

Integrations

Seamless connectivity

Connect incentives to your existing processes and platforms, ensuring everyone can participate without adding to anyone's workload.

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.

Small things that actually add up

Incentivize the little things that make a big difference.