Explore the new State of Recognition 2026 report

 

Employee Competitions & Challenges

Challenge. Motivate. Reward.

Whether it’s a sales SPIFF, wellness challenge, or safety initiative, Awardco helps teams stay motivated, engaged, and rewarded every step of the way.

Competition & Challenge Features

Tools to incentivise, reward, and delight your teams

Everything needed to run meaningful competitions that boost motivation and incentivise performance.

Custom Challenges

Motivate positive participation with minimal management.

Offer specialty rewards tailored for specific audiences
Launch to the entire company or target a specific group
Quick and easy to launch

Gamification

Real-time rankings keep participation and momentum high.

Automated leaderboards encourage participation
Healthy competition and real-time stats
Push notifications that drive engagement

Easy Administration

Consolidated programme management and tracking.

Upload data manually or integrate with existing tools
Visual real-time participation dashboards
Keep it simple and scalable, no matter the challenge type

Automate Rewards

Automatically reward participation and achievement.

Award points and adjust values for different challenges
Custom reward catalogues for specific programmes
Recognise individual and team accomplishments 

Spot Recognition

Keep the energy high with instant kudos.

Celebrate small wins throughout the challenge
Recognise teamwork and milestones
Boost morale with frequent, meaningful moments of praise

Return on recognition

Motivation meets psychology

Humans are wired for achievement, progress, and a little healthy competition. Challenge-based recognition taps into our drive and keeps performance on the rise.

60
%
increase in employee engagement when gamification is used.
89
%
more productivity and happier employees with incentives and recognition.
83
%
of employees feel motivated by gamified elements.

testimonials

See how teams succeed with Awardco

Southern Oregon Head Start
If we retain a teacher, that’s 20 students we get to serve. Going from 45% turnover to 8% means we’ve kept 85–90 more staff. That’s an incredible impact on both our children and our budget.
Amber Lease
Human Resource Director
4Refuel
Everybody at 4Refuel understands how they make a difference. Whether you’re on a customer site or supporting from the office, you bring value every day.
Shawn McGuire
Manager, Communications - North America
Lockton
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.
Mallory Pence
Marketing Manager
Lockton
A quiet employee might never self-promote, but Awardco gives us the visibility to see their impact. We’ve literally had leaders say, ‘I had no idea!’ when reviewing this data.
Melissa York
SVP, Head of People & Culture
Percepta
The Awardco platform enables us to reach our global employee base (4,500 and growing) easily and effectively.
Tammy Godby
Senior Manager of Global Organisational Development
Americare Senior Living
We love to catch our team members doing great things! They can’t pour into others from an empty cup. That’s why we invest in recognition and take the time to celebrate our people.
Sarah Mazzocco
Chief People Officer
Children's Nebraska
Some of the great stories that we've read are how impactful all of the team members have been to help the children feel better, it's showing our team members how impactful they are.
Jill Kudron
Patient Experience
Percepta
I love the simplicity of the programme and the ease of taxes. We were really worried about that, but it's been really easy.
Nealy Whisler
Global Director of Talent Management
 
 

Motivate, incentivise, and challenge your teams

Ready to drive performance with smarter challenges and better rewards? Let’s build a competition programme your team will be excited about.