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 incentivize, reward, and delight your teams

Everything needed to run meaningful competitions that boost motivation and incentivize 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 program 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 catalogs for specific programs
Recognize individual and team accomplishments 

Spot Recognition

Keep the energy high with instant kudos.

Celebrate small wins throughout the challenge
Recognize 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

CloudFit Software
Awardco has provided significant time savings. Our previous program was clunky, manual, and time consuming. Now, with the automation capabilities available through Awardco, my team saves 5-8 hours a week!
Kymberlee Stephens
Director of Employee Experience and Wellness
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
Paramount
I was really looking for a user-friendly, up-to-speed, and easy-to-use program that can expand in different ways, and I found it with Awardco.
Shaye McCoy
Manager, Global Total Rewards Experience
4Refuel
Employees look forward to seeing their monthly Safety All-Star points. Those conversations happen in lunchrooms, dressing rooms—it becomes part of our culture.
Roshan Varghese
Sr. Director, Environment, Health & Safety
Our investment to leverage the Center of Excellence team at Awardco was the best decision we made. Katie didn’t just advise, she partnered. She brought deep healthcare expertise and helped us translate what recognition should feel like for clinicians into something that actually works for a deskless, clinical workforce. With her leadership, we built our Awardco instance as a true virtual haven: a values-based recognition experience designed with and for our teams, easily accessible, and directly tied to our mission. The result is an always-on program that makes it easy to celebrate the moments that matter — strengthening connection, belonging, and pride across the organization.
Megan Vera Weaklend
SVP of Marketing & Customer Experience
Beckman Coulter
From a reporting standpoint, Awardco excels by allowing users to access desired reports quickly through easily accessible links, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple pages as was the case with previous platforms. The platform has garnered significant positive feedback for its user-friendly nature and seamless navigation.
Kerie Rogers
HR Operations Leader
PMG
Since joining, I’ve found myKudos [Awardco] posts to be a great way to learn what others are doing across the agency. I’ve even picked up ideas from shoutouts that I’ve been able to implement on my own accounts. It’s more than recognition—it’s a source of inspiration.
Colby Green
Paid Social Senior Associate
Pilot Company
We appreciate the user-friendly interface and the ample functionality of the platform, which has enabled us to better recognize team members as well as better support end users.
Sica Simon
HR Analyst
 
 

Motivate, incentivize, and challenge your teams

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