What I love most is the reporting aspect. It's something that reinforces the impact of Awardco, and it shows that the work we're doing is paying off.

Talented, motivated, competitive people are just attracted to this brand. Humans are very similar. They wanna be seen. They wanna be recognized. They wanna be valued.

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.

After COVID hit we had over 1800 employees go remote. Our HQ campus became a ghost town. We couldn't do the high touch thing anymore, but still wanted to engage our workforce. Because of the nature of remote work, we didn't even know which employees were where, and there was no way we could use our old system of bi-annual distribution. We had gotten so much positive feedback with our service anniversary program that we reached out to Awardco to see if they could do something to help us with our bonus program.

When we implemented Awardco, we refreshed everything and synced all service dates to our HRIS. It works flawlessly now—and the person who used to manage that spreadsheet is very happy.

In any meeting with more than ten people, I like to start with a recognition—highlighting what’s happening and what’s going well. Even in my executive meetings, I’ll share a recognition that stood out from one of the leaders. I enjoy leading with recognition, focusing on the positives rather than dwelling on what’s missing.

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.

The recognition showed me that even the small, extra efforts I put in are valued. That inspires me to keep contributing beyond my regular responsibilities.