Employee of the Year. CEO Award. President’s Circle.

When we talk about company awards, it's easy to focus solely on the high-profile programs. And they really do matter. They're visible, prestigious, and validated by senior leadership, which gives them lasting cultural impact. Research from Awardco’s State of Recognition report confirms it: company awards are one of the most impactful forms of recognition for engagement and intent to stay.

But don't fall into the trap of thinking every nomination program has to look like a giant annual gala. At their core, nomination programs are simply crowdsourced visibility into great work happening across your organization, and there are many ways to leverage that structure, with or without the fanfare.

With the recent launch of Awardco’s new nomination functionality, I want to share a design blueprint, along with some of my favorite program concepts, so you can figure out what's actually right for your company and culture.

A personal favorite: the "unsung hero"

Every organization has teams that quietly keep the business running. Operations prevents crises behind the scenes, IT solves problems before anyone notices them, and administrative staff holds everything together. These people are deeply valuable and chronically under-recognized.

At one of my previous organizations, the CEO decided to do something about it. He created what he called the "Ball Bearing Award," named for the small, often-hidden component that reduces friction and allows an entire machine to move smoothly. The name was a perfect representation.

What made this program so effective wasn't just the concept. It was the signal it sent. Even the CEO recognized that the most foundational contributions often belong to people who aren't out front getting visibility. By opening nominations to everyone, the program gave the people closest to the work the power to surface what leadership might never have seen otherwise.

That's the magic of a well-designed nomination program. It doesn't just celebrate excellence. It uncovers where it actually lives.

A blueprint for building your program

To build something that fits your culture rather than just replicating what you've seen elsewhere, think through three core pillars: The Goal, The Model, and The Mechanics.

1. The Goal

What outcome are you trying to drive? What does excellence look like inside your culture? Your answers should dictate everything else.

A few examples of how goals translate into program focus:

• Reinforce core values: A quarterly Values in Action Award keeps your mission visible year-round and ensures great work gets surfaced before it's forgotten.
• Highlight the hidden: An Unsung Heroes program specifically for backend departments — IT, Finance, Operations — gives recognition to the teams that rarely get a spotlight.
• Drive safety or compliance: In manufacturing or construction, an always-on Safety Champions program lets peers recognize proactive, risk-reducing behavior the moment it happens.
• Celebrate collaboration: What gets recognized gets repeated. If you want to see more cross-functional teamwork, design a program that explicitly celebrates shared contributions, collective outcomes, or silo-breaking wins.
• Spark innovation: An Idea Incubator or Disruptor Award shifts the focus from doing the job to improving how the job gets done.
• Address industry-specific gaps: Awardco's research shows a significant recognition gap in healthcare (57%) and education (53%). Programs like the Daisy Award exist because those organizations understand that emotional labor deserves visible acknowledgment. If you're in one of these industries, your program design should reflect the specific nature of that work.

2. The Model

Once you know your goal, decide who is driving the program.

Who can nominate? All-employee programs drive the highest participation and surface contributions that managers might miss. But some awards work better with leader-only or peer-only nominations, depending on the criteria and sensitivity of the recognition.

Who is eligible? Decide whether you're recognizing individuals, intact teams, or specific roles. A clear boundary here prevents the program from feeling like a popularity contest.

3. The Mechanics

This is where good intentions either hold together or fall apart.

What information do you need to make a decision? Don't rely on a single open text field. Ask specific questions. Share examples of what a strong nomination looks like. Consider allowing file or video uploads so nominators can show you the "why" behind the submission, not just tell you.

How many people need to weigh in on the review? Map this out before you launch. A simple manager approval? A peer panel? A multi-tiered executive committee? Getting stakeholders aligned early saves you from timeline chaos later.

What happens to nominations during the process? Do submissions post immediately to your company feed, creating a snowball effect of visibility and momentum? Or do you hold them for a single, dramatic reveal? Both approaches have merit, but this decision shapes the entire employee experience of the program, so make it deliberately.

The best nomination programs create cultural momentum

No matter how you mix and match these components, remember this: a nomination program is a goldmine of stories that shouldn't be buried in a spreadsheet.

As I wrote in the previous post, nominations generate far more value than most organizations actually capture. The real cost isn't the hours spent coordinating. It's the recognition moments that never reach the people who deserve them.

So even if your budget only allows for a handful of final award recipients, use the process to celebrate more broadly. Highlight every nominee. Recognize the nominators. When you announce your winner, honor the finalists publicly too. By surfacing stories in real time, managers learn things about their teams they wouldn't have known otherwise, and people feel seen regardless of the final award decision.

The bottom line

The recognition doesn't have to wait for the final celebration. The individual achievement and cultural inspiration living inside those submissions is too valuable to save for the last slide of a company all-hands.

In the next part of this series, I'll talk about a mindset shift in nomination program design: moving away from framing the outcome as winners-and-losers.