The challenge
A recognition program that couldn't keep up with growth
Founded in 2014, this digital health enterprise set out to unify patient data and accelerate the digital transformation of healthcare. With operations across 20+ locations globally and a workforce of 1,200–1,500 employees, the company grew fast , and its internal processes struggled to keep pace.
The R&R program had been designed for a smaller organization. As headcount scaled, the cracks became clear. Nominations relied on email threads, follow-ups, and multiple meetings. Award processing was manual and time-consuming. HR teams had limited visibility into who was being recognized and who wasn't. The program that had once served the company well was now slowing it down , and the culture of appreciation it was meant to build wasn't reaching the employees who needed it most.
- Unscalable manual processes, nominations, approvals, and award distribution all required heavy manual coordination across email and meetings, creating delays and administrative burden.
- Limited visibility, HR had no centralized view of who was being recognized, which teams were underrepresented, or whether the program was driving the intended cultural outcomes.
- Jury awards unmanageable at scale, the involvement of multiple approvers, moderators, and stakeholders made jury awards complex to administer fairly and consistently.
- Disconnected from daily workflows, employees had to leave their existing tools to participate in recognition, reducing visibility and organic engagement with the program.
The solution
One platform. Every recognition moment. Embedded in daily work.
The company implemented Empuls as its end-to-end employee recognition and engagement platform, replacing manual processes with an automated, integrated, and culturally connected recognition experience.
- Structured awards with departmental customization, Empuls enabled an organization-wide awards framework that HR could configure centrally while allowing individual departments to tailor eligibility and nomination criteria. Recognition became fair, consistent, and scalable.
- Zoho People and Slack integrations, by connecting Empuls to the tools employees already used daily, recognition became part of the natural workflow , not a separate system requiring a context switch. Participation increased without requiring behavior change.
- Automated jury awards, Empuls streamlined the end-to-end jury award process, managing approvers, moderators, and stakeholder sign-offs within the platform. What had previously been unmanageable became consistent, transparent, and efficient.
- Values-linked recognition, employees could now be recognized for contributions explicitly tied to company core values. Recognition reinforced the behaviors and attitudes the organization wanted to build, giving appreciation purpose beyond the moment itself.
- Budgeted manager and peer recognition, assigned budgets empowered managers and employees across divisions to recognize great work independently, breaking down silos and distributing appreciation across the organization.
The results
Higher recognition frequency, broader participation, and improved engagement
97%
Active adoption of Empuls across the global workforce
5×
Rise in awards, appreciations, and gift points within one year
2×
Increase in overall employee engagement
1,031
Total appreciations tied to company core values
Within a year of deploying Empuls, the company achieved 97% active adoption across its global workforce. Awards and gift points distributed increased 5× , a direct result of embedding recognition into daily workflows and removing the friction that had previously suppressed participation.
Employee engagement doubled. Active platform engagement rose from 38% to 76%, reflecting a genuine shift in how employees interacted with and invested in the company culture. More than 1,000 appreciations were tied to core values, signalling that recognition had moved beyond transactional gift-giving into a meaningful cultural practice.
For HR, the shift from email coordination to centralized dashboards transformed program visibility. The team could now see which departments were thriving, identify gaps in recognition frequency, and make data-informed adjustments , all without adding headcount.