The challenge
A recognition process that couldn't keep up with the pace of employee achievement
With 13,000 employees across the globe, this business analytics company needed recognition that was timely, personal, and aligned with its four core values: curiosity, passion, authenticity, and accountability. Their vision of transforming the world of data into a world of information depended on employees who lived those values every day.
But the existing R&R process was working against that goal. Procuring and distributing brand vouchers was time-consuming, approval workflows were slow, and by the time recognition reached an employee, the moment had passed. The gap between achievement and acknowledgment was undermining the impact of the entire program.
- Recognition that arrived too late to matter, the manual procurement and distribution process meant recognition was delayed by days. For a workforce moving at the pace of a global technology company, recognition that arrives long after the moment loses its meaning and motivational impact.
- Complex procurement adding overhead for HR, sourcing, activating, and distributing brand vouchers required significant HR effort for every award cycle. This overhead made the R&R program expensive to run and difficult to scale as the organisation grew.
- No connection between recognition and core values, the existing process had no mechanism to link recognition moments to specific company values, making it hard to reinforce the behaviours the organisation most wanted to celebrate and replicate across teams.
The solution
Spot Awards that made recognition instant, personal, and tied to what the company stood for
The company implemented Empuls Spot Awards as the foundation of its new R&R approach. Managers could now recognise employees instantly, tied directly to one of the four core values, with reward points delivered in real time and no procurement process required.
A dedicated Empuls Key Account Manager supported the rollout, resolving employee and HR queries quickly and ensuring the platform was adopted smoothly across the organisation from day one.
- Instant recognition tied to core values, Empuls' values-based recognition let managers applaud employees for displaying curiosity, passion, authenticity, or accountability in real time. Each recognition moment reinforced the specific value being celebrated, creating a feedback loop that shaped behaviour across the organisation.
- Award and reward delivered in under 6 minutes, compared to traditional R&R programs with complex procurement and distribution workflows, Empuls reduced the entire award process, from initiation to reward delivery, to 5 to 6 minutes. Managers could act on recognition the moment it was earned.
- Simple budget allocation and award management, HR could set up award programs, allocate budgets to individual managers, and manage the full recognition catalog from a single platform, removing administrative overhead and giving managers the autonomy to recognise without raising a request each time.
- Dedicated account management for smooth adoption, a dedicated Empuls Key Account Manager served as the critical link between the platform and the organisation's recognition goals, addressing queries from employees and HR in real time and preventing bottlenecks during the initial rollout and beyond.
The results
Recognition that arrived in minutes, not days, and a workforce aligned around shared values
5 min
End-to-end award turnaround from initiation to reward delivery
4
Core values actively reinforced through recognition: curiosity, passion, authenticity, accountability
13,000
Employees across the globe covered by the new instant recognition program
With Empuls, the company transformed recognition from a back-office procurement task into an immediate, meaningful experience for every employee. The speed, simplicity, and values-alignment of the new program created a recognition culture that was faster, more personal, and more impactful than anything the organisation had run before.