The challenge
Manual engagement for a 1200-strong frontline workforce that worked every weekend
SPI Cinemas operates across 10 states with over 1,200 employees, 90% of whom are in customer-facing roles. These employees work primarily on weekends and public holidays, the exact days when cinema audiences are largest and footfall is highest.
Keeping this frontline workforce motivated and engaged was a critical priority for HR. But the engagement process was entirely manual, driven by individual team leads. As SPI expanded rapidly across new states, it became clear that a scattered, manager-dependent approach could not scale with the organisation.
- Engagement driven by individuals, not systems, with only 10% of the workforce in management or corporate roles, people leaders like Siddharth had to personally coordinate every engagement activity. This made the process laborious, inconsistent across locations, and impossible to sustain at scale.
- Frontline motivation under pressure, working through weekends and holidays while customers were at their most demanding made frontline staff motivation a constant challenge. Without a structured recognition system, efforts often went unacknowledged and morale was difficult to sustain.
- Manual methods that couldn't keep pace with expansion, as SPI opened locations across new states, the existing engagement approach varied widely between managers and could not be standardised or replicated. The organisation needed a unified digital platform that could scale as quickly as the business was growing.
The solution
A digital R&R platform built for scale, speed, and a workforce that never stops moving
After evaluating three other providers, SPI Cinemas chose Empuls for its reward variety, usability, and ability to handle frontline engagement at scale. The platform was deployed across all locations, giving HR a single system to run recognition, manage budgets, track attendance-linked rewards, and communicate with employees company-wide.
Gamification tied attendance and performance to reward points, giving frontline employees a tangible reason to show up and perform. And with 24/7 support ensuring issues were resolved within one to two days, the platform ran reliably across all SPI locations without requiring constant HR intervention.
- 21,000+ reward options replacing limited manual gifts, the Empuls catalog gave every SPI employee a personalised reward experience with gift cards, brand vouchers, merchandise, and more across 100+ countries and 20+ categories, making recognition feel meaningful rather than generic.
- Attendance linked to points through gamification, SPI used Empuls goal-setting to connect employee attendance directly to reward point accumulation. Employees were motivated to build streaks and earn bigger rewards, turning a compliance metric into an engagement driver.
- Multi-admin visibility across all locations, HR teams could monitor engagement activity, redemption trends, and budget utilization across every SPI location from a single dashboard, making it easy to manage a distributed workforce without losing oversight.
- Reliable 24/7 support across 1,200 employees, with a large frontline workforce using the platform daily across multiple locations, responsive support was non-negotiable. Empuls resolved queries within one to two days consistently, keeping the program running without disruption.
The results
Faster recognition, fewer missed days, and a frontline workforce that actually felt seen
90%
Reduction in R&R program implementation time compared to the previous process
50
Fewer workdays lost annually, down from 400 to 350, after linking attendance to rewards
1,200+
Frontline employees engaged across 10 states on a single unified platform
21,000+
Reward options available to employees across gift cards, vouchers, merchandise and more
Empuls transformed how SPI Cinemas engaged its frontline workforce, replacing a slow and inconsistent manual process with a scalable, digital engagement system that delivered measurable results across attendance, attrition, and platform adoption.