Employee Rewards and Recognition: Examples from Apple, Gong and Warby Parker

Employee rewards and recognition (R&R) is the system a company uses to acknowledge and appreciate what employees contribute, through tangible rewards such as points, gifts and time off and through recognition such as praise, awards and public thanks. Done well, it reinforces your values, lifts engagement and keeps good people longer. Apple, Gong and Warby Parker show three very different ways to make it work.

What connects Apple, Warby Parker and Gong? They are all disruptors of the status quo. In the context of this guide, they also stand out for the waves they have made with their employee rewards and recognition programs.

Each of these companies leans on one or more forms of recognition, be it peer-to-peer appreciation, milestone celebrations or values awards, to motivate its people and shape the workplace culture it wants to build. Their secret is consistency, intentionality and a clear understanding that R&R is more than perks and applause: it reinforces values, drives engagement and aligns teams around a shared purpose.

Before you design a recognition strategy as effective as theirs, start with the basics: what employee rewards and recognition is, and why it matters.

What employee rewards and recognition means

Employee rewards and recognition are often used interchangeably. Together, they form a positive feedback system that acknowledges and appreciates the efforts and contributions of employees in a fair and timely manner. The two halves do different jobs, so the next two sections define each one before the table compares them side by side.

What employee rewards are

Employee rewards are tangible returns for effort or results: points, gift cards, bonuses, experiences, extra paid time off or a prize for winning a contest. A system of rewards encourages employees to keep performing well, and it helps the company maintain a healthy relationship between employer and employees, because it influences how people feel, think, behave and work.

People work for money, there is no denying it. More often than not, though, money is not the only thing that motivates people to perform better. A well-timed reward signals that extra effort is noticed and worth repeating, which is why rewards help employees go the extra mile.

What employee recognition is

Employee recognition is a symbolic expression of appreciation for a job well done. It tells employees that you value their efforts and contributions. A simple, specific thank-you note for the extra effort someone made toward a goal can go a long way in boosting morale and motivation. Recognition can come from managers, peers or senior leaders, and it can be private or public.

Other forms of R&R include perks and savings, points programs, experiences and team celebrations. For the finer distinctions, read our guide to the difference between benefits, perks, gifts, awards, incentives and rewards. When an R&R strategy also covers pay, benefits, learning and long-term incentives, it becomes part of a total rewards package.

Together, rewards and recognition are essential for employee motivation. Motivation, in turn, is a crucial pillar of employee engagement, and without it even the best employees may underperform. Beyond motivation, a company can use R&R to reinforce positive behaviors, align people with its core values and create the workplace culture it wants. Rewarding and recognizing high performers motivates them and links individual goals to company values, which ultimately shows up in results.

Why employee rewards and recognition matter

There is a scientific basis for the effect of timely, appropriate and genuine R&R. From a psychological perspective, Maslow's hierarchy of needs holds that once our basic needs for safety and survival are met, we need a sense of belonging, then esteem, before we can reach self-actualization.

In the modern workplace, that translates into the feeling of working in a team where you are regularly recognized, rewarded and appreciated, which supports career development and growth. Behavioral science points the same way: decades of organizational behavior research on positive reinforcement show that recognizing a desired behavior makes it more likely to happen again, whether the reinforcement is financial, non-financial, social or a mix of the three.

Current data shows the business stakes. Gallup and Workhuman research published in September 2024 tracked nearly 3,500 US employees from 2022 to 2024. Well-recognized employees were 45% less likely to have changed organizations two years later, and employees whose recognition met at least four of Gallup's five pillars of strategic recognition were nine times as likely to be engaged as those whose recognition met none. Yet only 22% of employees said they get the right amount of recognition.

Not having an R&R program is costly. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 found that global engagement fell to 20% in 2025, down from 23% in 2022, and estimated that low engagement cost the world economy about $10 trillion in lost productivity. Manager engagement dropped from 27% to 22% in a single year, which matters because managers deliver much of the recognition employees receive.

The same research explains the cost of turnover. Gallup estimates that replacing a leader or manager costs about 200% of salary, a technical employee about 80% and a frontline employee about 40%. Recognition is one of the few retention levers that costs little per moment. For the full list of benefits, see our guide on the importance of employee rewards and recognition.

Apple: a paid thank-you that made headlines

In October 2011, a few weeks after he became CEO, Tim Cook emailed Apple employees to thank them for their hard work and announced that the company would shut down with pay on November 21, 22 and 23. The extra days let teams spend the entire Thanksgiving week with their families and friends. When the email leaked, it made news around the world, and Apple repeated the gesture in later years.

Apple has a long history as a source of product innovation, and this was a case of applying the same thinking to how it rewarded people. The single act did several things at once:

• A reward: Paid time off is a reward almost everyone values, and it went to the whole team rather than a few top performers.
• Recognition from the top: The message came from the CEO and named the effort behind the year's results, which made it recognition as much as a perk.
• An employer brand signal: For people inside and outside the tech industry, Apple became an even more attractive place to work.

The lesson for smaller companies is not the size of the gesture but its design: a reward people genuinely want, a clear link to what the team achieved and a sincere thank-you from leadership. Extra time off, a shorter Friday after a big launch or a company-wide recharge day can do the same job on any budget.

Warby Parker: recognition across the employee lifecycle

Warby Parker launched in 2010 as an online-first eyewear brand with social impact built into its business. Its Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program distributes glasses to people in need for every pair sold. The company has grown fast: its Form 10-K for 2025 reports net revenue of $871.9 million, 323 stores and 4,036 employees at the end of 2025.

One of the things that set the tone for that growth was a focus on employee experience, so that people kept choosing to stay as the company scaled. Gallup's employee experience model describes seven stages of the employee life cycle: attract, hire, onboard, engage, perform, develop and depart. Warby Parker has described recognition practices across several of these stages, and the two that matter most for R&R come next.

Onboarding

Warby Parker makes onboarding personal and fun from the first day:

• A story on day one: Along with the employee handbook, each new hire receives a copy of Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums, because the company name comes from two Kerouac characters, Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker.
• A visible welcome: The company has described marking new hires' desks with balloons so colleagues know to drop by and introduce themselves.
• Leaders in the room: Senior leaders have taken part in training new employees, which shows from the start that people matter.

Engage, perform and develop

Once people are settled, Warby Parker uses recognition to connect daily work with its purpose:

• Celebrations: Professional and personal milestones are celebrated publicly, and company milestones have been marked with team-wide events.
• Values awards: The company has described a Blue-Footed Booby award, named after its unofficial mascot, for employees who live its core values.
• Learning incentives: A Breakfast of Champions recognizes people who build cross-functional skills.
• Customer connection: Team members from across departments spend time in retail locations, which keeps everyone close to the customer and the mission.
• Listening: The company has paired recognition with regular employee feedback sessions and acted on what it heard.

Warby Parker has not just embraced multiple modes of R&R. It has spread them across several stages of the employee experience and several drivers of engagement. That is the difference between a recognition program and a recognition culture. For a deeper look at the lifecycle view, read our guide on what employee experience is.

Gong: recognition built on operating principles

Gong is a revenue intelligence software company founded in 2015. Its platform analyzes customer-facing interactions such as calls, emails and web meetings to help revenue teams close more deals. A relatively young company, Gong has used R&R to attract talent and to nudge people toward the culture it wants.

Gong runs on eight operating principles: Create Raving Fans, Want More, Challenge Conventional Wisdom, Win as a Team, Act Now, No Sugar, Favor the Long Term and Enjoy the Ride. To embed them, it created the Outstanding Gongsters (OG) award. According to Gong's 2026 announcement of its Outstanding Gongsters, employees nominate colleagues who live these principles, and that year 17 winners from engineering, legal, marketing and other teams were flown to New York City to celebrate with CEO Amit Bendov, including a moment with their names and faces on a Times Square billboard.

Three design choices make the OG award work:

• Values first: Winners are chosen for the kind of teammate they choose to be, not for their title or tenure, which tells everyone what the culture rewards.
• Peers nominate: Nominations come from colleagues, so recognition reflects how people actually experience each other's work.
• Public and memorable: The celebration is big, visible and shared on Gong's own channels, which turns winners into role models and the program into an employer brand asset.

Interestingly, Create Raving Fans is one of Gong's principles. Its celebration of Gongsters creates fans among employees and future candidates, not just customers. For a step-by-step guide to tying awards to culture, see our post on building a values-based recognition program.

Employee rewards and recognition examples at a glance

These recognition examples from Apple, Gong and Warby Parker use different tools, but each one ties appreciation to something the company cares about. The table summarizes what each did and what you can borrow on any budget.

For more examples across consulting, retail, tech, FMCG, travel and healthcare, see our roundup of companies with the best employee recognition programs.

Employee recognition best practices from these examples

The best employee recognition programs share seven habits, and the first two, linking recognition to values and making it specific, matter most because they decide whether appreciation feels meaningful. The rest make it frequent, fair and sustainable.

1. Tie recognition to your values: Like Gong and Warby Parker, name the behaviors you want to see and recognize them by name. Our list of employee behaviors to recognize is a good starting point.
2. Be specific and timely: Say exactly what the person did and why it mattered, as close to the moment as possible.
3. Recognize in every direction: Combine leader, manager and peer-to-peer recognition so appreciation does not depend on one person.
4. Mix rewards and recognition: Use praise for everyday wins and tangible rewards for milestones and standout results, and let employees choose rewards that suit them.
5. Cover the whole lifecycle: Plan recognition for onboarding, anniversaries, promotions and departures, not only for annual awards.
6. Make it fair and inclusive: Check who gets recognized across teams, locations and shifts, and fix gaps. Our guide on how to prevent bias in recognition programs explains how.
7. Measure and adjust: Track participation, reach and retention, and refine the program every quarter. See how to measure employee recognition programs.

Employee rewards and recognition blueprint by lifecycle stage

Use this blueprint to turn the Warby Parker approach into your own plan, with one recognition moment for each stage of the employee lifecycle. Start with the first three rows, because onboarding and early wins shape whether new hires stay past their first year.

If you want to know where your current program stands before you redesign it, take the free recognition program scorecard. It scores five dimensions in about three minutes and suggests three priorities. For the full playbook on when, where and how to recognize, read our employee recognition guide.

How Empuls helps you build employee rewards and recognition

Apple, Gong and Warby Parker built their programs with dedicated teams. Empuls gives every company the same building blocks in one platform, so recognition becomes a habit rather than an administrative burden:

• Recognition in every direction: Peers, managers and cross-functional teammates appreciate one another in the moment, with achievements celebrated on the Wall of Fame, through Empuls recognition.
• Awards tied to your values: Run spot awards linked to company values, plus nomination-based awards with approvals and budgets.
• Milestones on autopilot: Service awards read joining dates from your HRMS and trigger anniversary rewards, certificates and peer wishboards automatically.
• Control and insight: Manage award budgets, set approval rules and track adoption, participation and ROI with real-time reports.

Empuls AI also helps managers turn a few words into a polished recognition message, which makes specific, timely praise easier for everyone.

Rewards and recognition work wherever people want to be seen

From a business and a culture standpoint, rewards and recognition are vital structures: they lift engagement, reduce turnover and align people with your purpose and values. Apple shows the power of a well-timed reward, Warby Parker shows how to recognize across the lifecycle and Gong shows how to make values visible. As long as your organization is made of people who want to be seen for their work, R&R will work for your company.