When we unified our recognition programmes, we saw a strong correlation between recognition and employee engagement. Teams led by managers who consistently recognised their people were the most engaged.

One thing I’ve anchored on over the years is how special it feels every time a recognition comes in. Another moment that stands out is when we bring new leaders into the organisation. I remember when Ryan Jackson joined—he gave me a private recognition once, and it was incredibly validating. To have someone with experience come in, get the lay of the land, and say, ‘You’re doing well’—that carries a lot of weight. It’s powerful when an outside voice validates the work being done, rather than just looking around at each other and saying it ourselves. That external recognition always feels especially meaningful.

The emphasis that Kodiak puts on people and employees first is really unique. We're always looking for opportunities to acknowledge the important and special and above and beyond work that our coworkers are doing.

Awardco enables us to celebrate not just big wins, but the small moments that make a difference every day.

Prior to Awardco, the recognition process was manual and time-consuming. Everything was done through emails and spreadsheets, with physical delivery of plaques and gifts. Important milestones were sometimes missed, despite our best intentions.

Awardco has helped us make recognition more worthwhile by improving employee morale and showing them that we care—recognition is more meaningful, so it's become more valuable to our employees.

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 programme that we reached out to Awardco to see if they could do something to help us with our bonus programme.

Recognising your team members... it's a it's a great way to build moral. To to get those team members to do that extra lorry. There's a saying, take care of the people and they'll take care of you. And by taking care of you, it's making sure that every lorry is turned in on time and every pallet is pushed through the warehouse.