Speaker 1: 0:00

Recognition happens from the day we were just born and we're kids and we just seek it from our parents and naturally we give it all the time at work. But if it's not tracked and you don't know how to measure it, there's no way you can help people that are falling through the cracks. Of course, there are certain people that get recognized all the time because that's just who they are and they're front and center, but I'm more concerned about those that aren't so front and center, that are doing amazing work, and so it's all about measuring it.

Speaker 2: 0:24

This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast where we talk to HR innovators about all things people, leadership. If you're looking for places to find, about new ways to think about the world of work, this is the podcast for you. Please subscribe from your favorite podcast listening platform today and leave us a review. Rebel on HR. Rebels All right, rebel HR listeners. Super excited for the conversation. Today we have Steve Sonnenberg. Steve is the co-founder and CEO of AwardCo. He learned a great deal watching his father's career in employee recognition with companies like McDonald's, but something was missing. In 2011, he began working missing. So in 2011, he began working on plans to use new innovative technology to solve the pitfalls of traditional employee recognition programs. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1: 1:14

Thank you, appreciate it. It's great to be with you.

Speaker 2: 1:17

Well, I'm super excited about it and I'll be honest with you, this is a little bit self-serving, because I'm in the midst of an RFP, trying to figure out what in the world to do with employee recognition. And so, before we get into it and I ask all of my selfish questions, what led you into the world of recognizing others?

Speaker 1: 1:39

Yeah, kyle, great question. It does start with my father. He is an employee recognition consultant, independent from any specific company. He works for companies like Jostens and ring manufacturers and he got into the lapel pins, the rings, the plaques for corporations. So I grew up in the Chicagoland area. He had incredible customers like McDonald's and Motorola and John Deere out of Chicago.

Speaker 1: 2:09

But my love probably started when he did the six Chicago Bulls championship rings. He got involved with the championship sports side and I as a junior high at the time I was able to go to those ring ceremonies, those after parties, meet the players and we're talking this is the nineties, you know, era of the Chicago bulls. So that's where I was like I want to do what my dad does. But there was a problem. I didn't care for rings and plaques. I love the part of. Well, you know what he was doing, what it was about, about rewarding and recognizing achievements, but I always knew there was a better way. But that was my introduction. It was my own father, who still is an independent contractor and still out there working today.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Okay, man, now you're speaking my language. So I'm a Midwest kid and, yeah, my formative years was watching the Bulls win all those championships. I didn't have a rookie card, but I had a couple of Michael Jordan basketball cards, scotty Pippen, bj Armstrong I had a BJ Armstrong autograph, yeah, so, yeah, we could talk about that, I'm sure, but yeah, I could see that being impactful for someone in their youth, totally, totally, but okay, so no ring. So I, I get that, like I got a, I got a class ring somewhere. Actually, my wife and I were just laughing about this. We were, we were cleaning out a closet or something we're like oh.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Hey look, I found my class ring and it's been there for the last 10 years. Oh well, I guess put it back in there.

Speaker 1: 3:42

There's a time and a place. I think it's great, right, but it's nowadays. People want choice, they want more options, and that's where I saw the opportunity in this space. I viewed it as decades, a century long, of people doing the same thing over and over, and I was shocked, as I learned, watching my dad do the certain things he was doing for his whole career, and I just knew there was a. This younger generation is coming up. There's just a better way to look at it.

Speaker 1: 4:12

And but that but the seed was planted with my father and I told him he says Look, I want you to take over my accounts. And I and I said Look, that sounds great, I love it. You've built an unbelievable business for our family and you've been very successful. But if I'm gonna get into this space, I wanna reinvent it. There's a better way to do it and I wanted to create that Amazon-like experience. You know where there's choice and it's fast and it's you know just. You know the era that we live in today. So that's why I got into it and he kind of led me into a newer path in the field.

Speaker 2: 4:51

That's really interesting, you know, and you're you're hitting on something that I think is it's it's one of the it's really critical, and I'm sure everybody listening to this is can pull out a scenario where this was was very, very relevant. But, um, you know, everything you read about recognition and and and celebrating employees points to the fact that people like to be recognized differently. You know, and what, what works for someone doesn't work for someone else, and so I think you're hitting on a really critical point here, uh, which is, you know, kind of that optionality of recognition. But you know my context. There is like, ok, instead of giving somebody you know Mountain Dew, give them Diet Coke because that's their favorite pop, right, and I kid you not, my first job out of college, we literally had a binder and you were supposed to fill out the binder and have your employees fill out what is your favorite pop, what is your favorite snack.

Speaker 2: 5:50

And then the idea was okay, I'm going to pull this binder out, I'll pull out this piece of paper, and then when they do something good, I'm going to reward them with whatever they wrote down on that paper. It was super high tech, so I'm sure AwardCo is kind of similar.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Yeah, that's right. I mean, it is true, we all want to be rewarded in different ways. People have different personas. Sometimes people want to be out front, in the whole organization, at all hands on meeting, and you come up and everyone claps. And other times people are more shy and they don't. They don't want that and they want to make it more private. But they but. But really we want to be acknowledged that we're on the right path.

Speaker 1: 6:33

And so, when it comes to recognition, there is that social element that is so important, that feeling that you receive it's not all monetary. Uh, you know it has to come timely, it has to come. Um, you receive, it's not all monetary, you know it has to come timely. It has to come. You know from a close peer that you know and they saw the work that you did. And then it has to come in the way that you like to be recognized, because if you're uncomfortable and you don't want to be shot out in front of the whole company people got to know that the managers are so important to understand their employees.

Speaker 1: 7:03

But then, when it does come to the monetary side, it's just, it's all about choice. You know, get something that is impactful to you and that will be meaningful, rather than you know something that is a cool gift, like there was a company here in the Valley, here in Silicon Slopes area in Utah, where everyone got an Oculus Awesome, you know what I mean. It's such a cool gift, but it's just not everyone wanted that, you know what I mean. So it was very expensive for half the employees that didn't care for it.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Yeah, yeah, I'd be the one I'd be like, oh, that's cool. What do I do with this? Like it looks cool, it looks expensive. Can I hawk it on eBay? Yeah, exactly when Molly Patrick and I tried to figure out how to start our own podcast, we didn't know where to start. Thankfully, we found Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout makes it super easy for us to upload our episodes, track our listeners and get listed on all the major podcast networks.

Speaker 2: 8:05

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Speaker 2: 8:59

So I wanted to hit on something with with the word code. I think it's it's important. I want to understand it a little bitCo. And I think it's important. I want to understand it a little bit more because I have a feeling it was very intentional. But AwardCo is the employee rewards and recognition company that builds culture through value-driven recognition. So, as you look at value-driven recognition, how do you look at that, how do you define that and how do you provide a look at that? How do you define that and how do you provide a solution for that?

Speaker 1: 9:27

Yeah, well, I think people with the great resignation out there I mean that's been used a lot now they want to work for an organization that has a great purpose, a great place. They're going, something why they exist. And there's great companies out there something why they exist. And there's great companies out there, like the Patagonia's and the Starbucks, that have incredible purposes of why they exist, that employees want to attach themselves, they believe in and it's something bigger than themselves. And then you have these values of an organization that are intended to support that overall purpose of an organization, organization that are intended to support that overall purpose of an organization, and those values should support that purpose. And so one of the things that we do at AwardCo is we want to create a system within an organization. Part of their culture is where we take those values, whether it's customer obsession or all-in or whatever that makes up the organization that supports your overall purpose. And we want to make it easy and natural for the organization to recognize on those values every day.

Speaker 1: 10:36

So when somebody is exemplifying a value, um, you know, at your, at your, at your company. And I'll just do one of our examples. You know, one of ours is um, um, just grit Right and um, and I love when, when people tag that value and share a story of something that they did, that represents what that is. And and then, um, it gets posted on, posted on our recognition feed and it's social for everyone to look at it and like it and comment.

Speaker 1: 11:11

And also, I think it's so important for that recognition to flow into your communication channels as well. So that same recognition that happened went to Slack, or went to Microsoft Teams, to his designated channel, and so when we're constantly going about our day, working, solving complex problems, the recognition is front and center. It's in the applications that I'm using. And so I think, when it comes back to your question of like, what are we doing? And it's allowing organizations to recognize those values on a daily basis and having those values flow into the communication channels that they need to. And then, if your manager has a monetary budget of points, they can give monetary points as well to put an exclamation on that, and it's discretionary, it's up to them, uh, but that's one way we do it is we constantly, uh, help organizations recognize on their values, meaningful recognitions on a daily basis that that really support that overall purpose.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Yeah, I love that and you know it's, it's. I think it just comes down to being authentic, right? Yeah, Um, yeah, exactly. Right, it needs you know it's, it's. I think it just comes down to being authentic right, yeah, yeah, exactly Right.

Speaker 1: 12:27

It needs to be an authentic recognition, not just like hey, you know you were, you were amazing working with that, that, that that customers hashtag, customer obsession, general, not authentic. There's nothing there Like. There needs to be details, there needs to be explanation, share the story. And now one of the things that we do, just so you know, to help encourage the authentic to be, for employees to be authentic we do contests, we have fun with it, we gamify it, we say the top five recognitions that are the most authentic, creative, fun. We're going to recognize them on our all hands-on meeting and you're going to get 100 points or 100 bucks and what it does? It gets people that just want to win. And so then, all of a sudden, it's this contagious culture where everyone's trying to be clever and funny and it adds to the quality of the recognition because we're actually talking about it, um and and it, and. When you talk about it and you put an incentive there, usually get what you want. That's what I've seen. We use our platform Right.

Speaker 2: 13:35

Right, I love that. I'm just. I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking, you know, man, I could really have some fun with that. Oh, you see what people come up with, yeah, could be dangerous. So yeah, I'm sitting here, you know, I put my compliance hat on. I'm like, ooh, that could get ugly, it could be fun. But that's the other thing I wanted to touch on, and that's one of the things you know that I saw in your recent press release is it's talking about HR's role in culture and recognition and the fact that is this an HR function or not? So what is your perspective on HR's role in culture and recognition?

Speaker 1: 14:20

Yeah Well, you know one of the things I said in our last series round funding. I truly believe this that a work is becoming not just an HR tool, a business operational tool or the head of culture to be responsible for it. We are all responsible for it. And so, when it comes to the sales organization, what tools are they using to make sure that they're recognized and appreciated, down to the HR team, to the marketing team, to everyone across the organization? Everyone has the torch and they need to carry it on to the next generation that's coming on.

Speaker 1: 15:12

At AwardCo, we're scaling very fast, and so I think about this all the time. How do we continue to keep our culture as we continue to double in employee size, and so we constantly give to double in employee size, and so we constantly give education to our managers in every department and we encourage them to recognize, often, every department, and we hold the managers responsible for it. We want to give them tools and analytics so they can see their department of who's being recognized and who's not, and those that are quieter that are maybe doing incredible work, but people aren't noticing it. It's up to the managers to raise the hand and say this individual, let's rally around them and they're going to give the recognition of something that they maybe did and they're going to spotlight it and it becomes contagious. So that's what I mean it actually is. It's up to the managers to continue the culture all across the organization, and it's not just up to the HR team to say, oh, we don't have a great culture, it's HR fault, it's the head of culture. No, it's everyone, and everyone needs to understand that. And so you need to give them tools.

Speaker 1: 16:18

And so that's where I go back to that one report I just talked about. Great for a manager to log into a recognition system to see who's being recognized and who's not, and we even have like a score on them. And when it comes down to people leaving an organization, they leave because they don't feel appreciated. How many times have we read that? But have we ever measured it? I think we recognize all the time, you know, through email or just on Slack, but there's no formalized way of recognition and nothing's tracking it. And that's what we're trying to do at AwardCo is we're trying to take all this great data and track it and then report back to the managers to let them know how they're doing. So that's why everyone is important.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Gotcha, gotcha. Well, there's a lot of great stuff in there and I'm furiously taking notes here. So, um, because I got, I got some just maybe some tactical questions. So so you, you hit on something that I think is a really, really, really critical point right now, something I'm feeling. My organization is growing very quickly and you know we have that concern about how do we retain the culture that got us here. How do we make sure people don't feel like we're growing so quickly or they're not feeling appreciated for the growth, or they're being left behind, or a quiet employee that maybe is just killing it every single day but doesn't ask for the spotlight or doesn't get the spotlight but doesn't ask for the spotlight or doesn't get the spotlight, and that's been one of the challenges that I really haven't been able to solve yet. So, when you talk about giving managers a tool and then holding them responsible, what does this look like? How do you approach this?

Speaker 1: 17:58

Yeah Well, you can't measure something if you're not tracking it, and so that's the first thing to do is understand okay, here are all the people that I'm responsible for, and as a manager, I can then look down and see how many times did they recognize someone. That's one area of viewpoint that the manager has and then you can also see how many times has that person received a recognition. And we're actually creating a recognition score for the company and on the individual user. And if you're not measuring it, you have no idea. And I've worked at some organizations in the past, prior to Awardco, and you just never know.

Speaker 1: 18:41

I mean, recognition happens from the day we were, you know, just born and we're kids and we just seek it from our parents and naturally we give it all the time at work. But if it's not tracked and you don't know how to measure it, there's no way you can help people that are falling through the cracks. Of course, there are certain people that get recognized all the time because that's just who they are and they're front and center, but I'm more concerned about those that aren't so front and center, that are doing amazing work, and so it's all about measuring it, and so you know that's one of the things that we focus on with our application is measuring that and giving those tools to the managers so they can be smart and so they can create a culture of recognition within their group.

Speaker 3: 19:23

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Speaker 2: 20:09

Got it, got it, got it, got it. Yeah, I um I'm just thinking through geez, what would this look like? My organization might be kind of interesting. Yeah, um, I gotta believe that you get. You get mixed reactions from a manager when you tell them hey, I'm measure this yeah, well, I mean that's.

Speaker 1: 20:28

I mean it's just the tools that you have behind the scenes. You know that you can help. You know, and the point is for the manager to have visibility into the recognition side of their department and then to identify the gaps and then for them to have solved the problems. And I truly believe when you have a high recognition score, that that impacts your ENPS and your NPS scores. It's just a number we haven't been tracking. We just kind of say, hey, are you happy? Would you refer someone to someone at your company, zero to 10. And then they give a score there. Then you can generate ENPS. That's fine. But I'm taking this stuff further. I'm saying we have so much data now at work and it's truly, if that person's being recognized and is recognizing a lot of people, then I have a better score that I can create. And if that score is higher, then I know that you know our customers are being taken care of because our employees are being taken care of.

Speaker 2: 21:27

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, it's really. You know that's, it's really interesting. And you know, when you when you mentioned that I was just having flashbacks to you know you mentioned net. You know NPS or net promoter score. If you're not familiar, and I can't tell you I've, I've done dozens of employee surveys in my my career and I I think, yeah, with in in every single survey, one of the bottom three um scores was was recognition. Usually pay is in there. And then you know communication recognition. You know it's, it's, it's all kind of the same bucket. And then, and then you look at your, your net promoter score and you're like, oh well, we're kind of mediocre and it's so frustrating to go through that and do all this work. And you feel like, yeah, this is going to change that NPS, we're going to be good, recognition looks great. And it's like you barely scratched the surface. And so have you seen any results or any kind of stories where you've seen an organization that's really trying to solve this problem? You know, find the solution or find something that works for them?

Speaker 1: 22:46

Yeah, good question. Yes, I mean, we see it all the time. I mean we're taking organizations that are coming from a culture of recognizing, just for service anniversaries, you know, which is very common 5, 10, 15 years. It's just that's how they've done it for decades and taking those organizations and implementing a value-based recognition program, recognizing their values on a daily basis. Now, you know recognition, you know I do go back to the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I mean that's important to us and that's something that's been around for a while.

Speaker 1: 23:26

But I truly believe that organizations that have taken this approach where they are recognizing there's like three levels here I want to kind of talk about. The first level is this belonging level, where organizations just want to belong somewhere and you should, as an organization, take those opportunities to recognize them at least three times that first year for belonging. And what I mean by that is an onboarding program. Everyone gets onboarded. So you recognize them, you appreciate them, maybe you give them some points that could be used just in the onboarding store of swag.

Speaker 1: 24:08

And then you go to the second thing. Everyone has a birthday. You know. For the most part some people don't celebrate birthdays and there's other ways you can look at that but a lot of people will do like a birthday program and again they're just celebrating the employee for belonging. And third is their work anniversary. So you want to create a culture of recognition and build that foundation of a sense of belonging. And so many people miss the boat there.

Speaker 1: 24:35

Because those are three great examples of things that you can do the first year of recognizing to create a culture of recognition.

Speaker 1: 24:49

You want to create a culture where they have to earn that recognition and that's where they have to do something amazing.

Speaker 1: 24:51

Where they're doing exemplifying the values of your organization, they have to put forth the effort and then you allow people to recognize those employees based on that and that's that second level. And then you got the top level, which is more like your employee of the month type program, your president's club, your A-team, and that's like a nomination program. So what we do is we help organizations kind of create a well-balanced solution to their recognition solutions, a strategic reason of how you recognize. And when we see organizations develop that balanced solution of recognition, then their recognition scores go up because automatically they're recognizing someone at least four or five, six times through their organization every year and that is so much higher than the norm. There's a lot of data out there that shows that companies are not recognizing their employees all but once every two years or three years formally, and so you know, we've seen a lot of incredible results from our organizations that we've worked with, that have implemented that balanced structure of recognizing.

Speaker 2: 25:56

Yeah, you know what you just said just really kind of struck me. Could you imagine not getting recognized for two or three years?

Speaker 1: 26:08

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:08

And busting your hump every day. I mean that'd be absolutely demoralizing, but I know it happens. It happens a lot.

Speaker 1: 26:22

It happens a lot and that's why it's important to actually have a strategic approach to recognition and it's a three to one approach. Three belonging recognition programs onboarding, birthdays, anniversaries two of the next level, which you have to earn it, which is spot recognition, and also maybe health and wellness and things like that that I didn't elaborate on. We can go on for a long time on this. And then that last level is one that nomination program. Now, with the nomination program, we have fun with it, we actually we call it the A-team and it has to be nominated.

Speaker 1: 26:54

Everyone gets one nomination once a month, so it's a glorified employee of the month, employee of the month is cheesy, a-team is cooler, and you know you gotta get fun with the branding of it, right? But then what we do is we select a winner and then we go over to Cameo. You know the celebrity, you know we get a celebrity to say something about an employee, and so we actually nominate who the winner is. We go find out who they like. We've used Lindsay Lohan, we've used, you know, whatever the employee likes. We find out and then we take it to our all hands-on meeting and then we announce the A-team winner and then we have the celebrity announce it. We have people from the office do it, we have. You know what I mean, and it's just, it makes it a little bit more special. So, again, you have to go about it in a strategic way. If you don't, you don't have an organization, a culture of recognizing that does sound fun.

Speaker 2: 27:46

I mean that that that sounds cool. I want to do that. I want to be a part of that.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Well, you should see, and one of these days and we get enough of them, we've probably done about eight or nine now We'll probably have them put them all on our website and then people can rate them, the celebrities, because some show up and that are unbelievable, that do such a good job, that capture the spirit of recognition, and then some are like I don't even want to be on Cameo, I don't even know why I'm doing this, and they fall through. But it's fun for the company, it's fun for the employees, it makes the recognition meaningful.

Speaker 2: 28:18

You've got to think outside the box. Yeah, you mentioned that and I got to thinking I'm like, okay, who would my Cameo be? You know, I got to say it would be hilarious. This is probably what my team would do. My team would have it be toby from the office, and because they would just assume that he would be the guy for me, right, you know?

Speaker 1: 28:36

and so, kyle, I'll email you after this. Our number our first a team winner selected toby, so we got to announce the winner in front of the whole company, and toby in character that's how I.

Speaker 2: 28:49

I bet well. And yeah, it would have to be in character, right you?

Speaker 1: 28:52

know, the typical droning age it costs a couple hundred bucks. I mean it really, you know to, to do a cameo like that. So once a once a month, uh, we make that one a little bit more special, and it's just a fun thing that's cool.

Speaker 2: 29:06

That's cool and and you know it's, it's funny, like we, you know we're kind of laughing about it here and and uh, um, but that that's kind of the point, right, like making the workplace a little bit fun, like like, can we not come to work and and hate it and then go home and, you know, just hope that? Uh, you know, we have a three-day weekend coming up, right, like, like the whole point is to to make this workplace more fun to be at, you know, and and um, yeah, I could, I could have, I could have a lot of fun with something like that.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Yeah so and other people are using us, kyle, in other ways too, like, uh, you talk about other success, interesting ways. People might be recognizing their employees and and so right now we're actually having a lot of people use us for vaccines. You know they use it as an incentive and they use our award co platform to incentivize their employees to be vaccinated. And you can actually self-recognize on our platform. So not only can you be recognized by peers, but you can self-recognize as well, and there's a way of workflow to do that. Another way is work at home. People wanted to spruce up home offices and there's a way of workflow to do that. Another way is work at home.

Speaker 1: 30:12

People wanted to spruce up home offices, so we had some great organizations and, due to NDAs, I can't disclose the company names, but they created a program of recognizing their employees for just working from home, and one of the things you can do with AwardCo is you can actually take points and designate those points to only purchase certain items. So they were able to create a custom work at home catalog via Amazon inside of AwardCo and they were able to recognize all their employees are working from home $400 of points, and then they all were able to go into their curated catalog that was handpicked from Amazon and pick items from home. And then all those items got shipped from Amazon and it was an unbelievable experience for procurement, to HR, to the employees, and then all they did is go on LinkedIn and say how awesome their company is. So it was a win-win for everyone.

Speaker 2: 31:03

That's cool, that's very cool, yeah, and I think it's really interesting and I think you know, I think it's um, it's really interesting and this is um. I think this is one of the more important components here, cause I've seen these programs before where you do like the points and and then you go into the, you get the catalog and you go in the catalog and you pick the, you know whatever, whatever thing you want, um, this is amazon yeah right, so so you can basically get whatever you want then with with this type of platform correct.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Yeah, yeah, so we have a unique relationship with amazon and that's a whole nother story how we even did that? Because they said they told me no, we don't want to work with you, and somehow, somehow we broke that. But yeah it 500 companies where they have their logo on the left hand corner. It's their marketplace of options, of all the Amazon products inside their own recognition site branded to them. And then they have gift cards and Priceline hotels. We created the ultimate award network that is theirs for their employees, and so it's all about employee choice. It's whatever they want, but you do have the ability to curate those points to say, well, this is an onboarding program, so you can only spend these 100 points in the swag store. So we helped solve the swags. Whether they're working home or at the office, they can pick what they want, choose the size and then Amazon, they can just choose whatever they want.

Speaker 1: 32:53

And you should see, kyle, the things that people buy. It's one of the I, anonymously, I will, I will feature items in our all hands-on meetings that we do once a week. And and the other day, someone bought like a heated uh branch for their bird cage bird cage for their bird to be, you know, because you know, maybe it has cold, cold feet. You know stuff like that you'd never think to put on an award catalog. I also saw someone do a personal sauna where you literally like push a button and it's a balloon that goes over you and then it steams you up inside and it's just like it is so wild what people get and they love it because it's theirs, it's what they want. So I can go on and on all the things that they they purchase.

Speaker 2: 33:39

But the point is it is amazon, you get what you want yeah, yeah, I get you know I I don't remember seeing the heated bird branch or the the bubble sauna in the last uh service awards uh catalog that we have, but uh you don't put it, but it's uh.

Speaker 1: 33:54

No, it's so fun and and the employees have fun with it and they know they get it from their, their organization, it's their brand. When they log in, it's all the products there.

Speaker 2: 34:03

So, um, it's exciting for them absolutely and and, uh, you know, I. I think one of the one of the things that's just really interesting about this program is is, even though you're getting something that maybe you, I don't know, you know, bird, heated bird branches, uh, you know, maybe you were going to get that anyways and you, you got it. Because you got this, you know you got recognized. But now every time you look at that bird and his feet are warm, there's a little bit of a feeling there like, oh, I got that because of X, you know, because I did a great job that day, or I won the employee nomination that week, or, you know, I hit three months with my company and I belong with that company, right, like that does mean something, right.

Speaker 1: 34:51

It does. It does, it means something. So we have some people that turn off our gift card function because they don't want their employees to get gift cards. They, because you do, you put it in your pocket and you may or may spend it. You may spend only 70% of it. How many times have we leave the dollars on it? But with this, you know it's it's with Amazon, they can get what they want and um and when they want it and um, it's always there when they log in to get something more, so they can earn more points as well.

Speaker 2: 35:17

Absolutely, absolutely, um. No, it's. It's funny, you know this is um. I mean, it just sounds like a really great program. It sounds like a lot of fun. It's bringing me back to the time that I got that cooler for a service award from one of my employers. I'll be honest, it was a choice. I could have a choice, but I had five things to choose from. I wasn't really thrilled about anything, but I was like you know, I could use a cooler, like a little cooler, like a uh, um, six pack cooler for, you know, beer or whatever, and uh. But I use that cooler every week when I walk to my neighbor's house and we have happy hour and every time I get that cooler. I picked that cooler.

Speaker 2: 36:08

I'm like oh yeah, I got that. Yeah, you know what it's, so it's, it's it's goofy, but it really does. It's like there's like a like a warm, like kind of a cool feeling like. Oh, yeah, I got that. I think it was three years service award, Right, so I, I earned that.

Speaker 1: 36:19

Yeah, exactly, and it's so much better when they can pick what they want, rather than there's a lot only thing that I wanted, but I really didn't care for it. You know what I mean. So it does the opposite effect. So that's why it's all the choice is king and um, and you got to give them the choice. Uh, these days, you know especially the younger generation there. They they understand, they live in the Amazon world where they have choice and they're going to get a fast and that's the same thing too. That's so important.

Speaker 1: 36:48

If you are going to give an employee an award or reward, then it needs to come in a couple of days. And it's cool stories Like I have people you know we have over 3 million users now and when we were going to trade shows, people would come up and said, oh my gosh, I ordered something that morning and I got it that evening. Because they live close to the Amazon warehouse, our integration is direct with them. Once it's placed on our system, it goes to their world-class fulfillment centers in real time and, depending on the time they got it, they could literally receive it the same day.

Speaker 3: 37:19

We'll be back after a quick break.

Speaker 4: 37:22

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Speaker 2: 38:05

That's tryrumiai for a 14-day free trial. Super cool, super cool. Yeah, I think it's really an interesting program. I don't know how you got Amazon to agree to it. Yeah, that's probably another podcast, but good for you.

Speaker 2: 38:28

It was a lot of luck and a lot of hard work, but you know we, yeah, so definitely for another podcast, because that'll probably take me 10 minutes to kind of go through. Absolutely Well, I, you know, I think it's a. It's a really fascinating take.

Speaker 2: 38:34

I do think that, you know, recognition is one of those things that HR, I mean. I've been looking for a tool that works, you know, for years. And every time I look, you know, I look for something, it just tends to be the same thing. You know, it's just it's, it's just a different company and this, this really does. You know, it sounds different, it sounds quick.

Speaker 2: 38:56

I do think the other thing you hit on is is the speed. You know, having a tool to recognize um is critical, because if you don't recognize employees in a timely manner, just with a tool that allows you to recognize them, let alone get, get the thing in their hand, um, you know, or you don't empower your managers and say, hey, when you want to recognize someone, use this thing, it's right here, use it. Um, it's so easy to just forget about it and if you're not tracking it, like we already talked about, there's no accountability there and eventually, with best intentions, you go home and you're like, oh crap, I was going to say thanks to Susie and then you go in the next morning with best intentions to recognize her and your day gets away from you.

Speaker 1: 39:45

And then it's next week and it's next month and you missed it Totally and that's why I talked about earlier the integrations with communication applications is key. So you mentioned Kyle. You're in an RFP right now. Your recognition tools need to work with the Slack, the Teams, the Yammer, the Outlooks. Recognition works when it happens in your natural flow. It can't be this other tool. It can't be a WordCo. What's that site? We use again Something slash, wordco, our recognitions and countless other customers that went from Slack to took a WordCo and put it inside of Slack and Teams.

Speaker 1: 40:23

I know personally ours went up 400% because it happened in our flow. I'm constantly communicating with people and now I can do a slash recognize and little widget pops up right within Slack. That is key to any modern day recognition solution that you need to have. And then you recognize non-monetary and monetary, have a mixture of both and I think it's good to have a mixture of both. You don't want to create a self of entitlement. That's why you want to give managers budgets that they can be responsible for, that can use to incentivize, and you just have a mixture of. I like a 70-30 rule 70% non-monetary, 30% monetary. That's what I've seen the winning equation to be.

Speaker 2: 41:12

Well, and it's just like where the world is going right now. It's the ease of use kind of that frictionless experience where, like, oh, this is great, I need to spot, recognize, done, hashtag, recognize or whatever we don't use Slack, so I don't know all the lingo and then it's right there, and then it's done, and then it's tracked or whatever. Whatever we're at, we don't use Slack, so I don't know all the lingo, but um and then, and then it's right there, and then it's done, and then it's tracked and it's yeah, the easier you make it, uh, the more your managers will do it, cause I guarantee you, I know.

Speaker 1: 42:02

I know there's some HR people here listening. They're like my managers would do this. I've tried. Um, it's, it's not that managers don't want to do it, it's that they don't. They, they don't have a tool to do it in their, like you said, in their flow, like in their, in their workday, right? Uh, so if they have something where they just shocked with how easy it became as we just started recognizing it become part of our culture.

Speaker 1: 42:23

And I actually that's how I got a word code we have to be the best, protect revenue and recognize often and recognize the good. And so I always go in front of our company and I share a number. I say, look what we did last month. We averaged about three and a half recognitions per user, like, let's see if we can get a little higher. And then it's like then people are like, yeah, we can do more and it just became natural. You know what I mean. So it does start from the top. You got to get your managers bought in and you have to have an easy solution and you have to recognize in your flow and then it'll be amazing to watch your organization flourish and become a culture of recognition.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Yeah, love that. Well, it's been an absolutely wonderful conversation, but we are coming close to the end of our time together and I know you're a super busy guy, so I want to be respectful. We are going to shift gears, we're going to go into the Rebel HR flash round, so are you ready? I'm ready. All right, here we go. Question number one what are you reading right now?

Speaker 1: 43:26

Well, I'm an entrepreneur and the book that I currently have right now is, uh and this is my second time through now is shoe dog. I love shoe dog. In fact, I was with some Nike executives and and they didn't love shoe dog cause it didn't get in, but it's involved with the Michael Jordan. How did they land the Jordan brand and all that? They didn't. You know, I loved it because of the entrepreneurial side of that book, of the crazy things that Phil Knight had to do to build his company, and that's what I love, because there's no roadmap to building a company.

Speaker 2: 44:00

I love Shoe Dog, love that, love that. I have not read that book, so I got to put that one on the list. I have just not had a chance, all right.

Speaker 1: 44:13

Question number two who should we be listening to? Um, well, I'll just kind of the first thing that comes to mind is your customers and your prospects, and what I mean by that is one of my favorite things to do. People always have podcasts or uh, or listening to audio books as they drive home. I actually use a tool called Gong G-O-N-G dot I-O. That is a tool that records all my sales conversations and they organize it in categories and I can actually, on my ride home, I listen to real live conversations of people trying to reimagine recognition with my salespeople and I love learning and listening to those conversations. So I love listening to future customers, uh, prospects and customers, because you can learn so much about what they're looking for right now.

Speaker 2: 45:06

That's fascinating.

Speaker 1: 45:07

Um, what they're looking for right now. That's fascinating, just kind of yeah, there's no, I don't know if that's a, you know that, but that's that's what I do. I love listening to our own people and real life situations that happen that day as I drive home.

Speaker 2: 45:21

Yeah it's, it's a. It's a far departure from my world because you know I'm in manufacturing setting and usually when I have to record a conversation it's not good, it's a. You know I'm in a manufacturing setting. Usually when I have to record a conversation it's not good.

Speaker 1: 45:33

I'm notifying somebody I'm recording. Yada, yada, yada Everyone's talking about right now. How do I retain my employees, how do I engage with them, how do I recognize them? The great resignation. That's why I'm listening to hundreds and thousands of conversations. Then I take that and it allows me to stay true on the course of what a ward coach should be developing.

Speaker 2: 45:53

Ah yeah, I love that. And at the end of the day, you know, I think about. I think about whether you're an entrepreneur or you're an HR practitioner. You know that your customers you have customers for HR. They just might happen to be internal, yeah Right. And so you need to have that feedback loop. You need to make sure you're serving your organization, your managers, your team with the right type of solutions.

Speaker 1: 46:17

Otherwise, what do you do, and your employees too? That's something I do every Friday evening. We use Lattice. A lot of people know it's a pulse thing, and every day I get that information. I love reading what employees are saying. So exactly right.

Speaker 2: 46:31

Absolutely All right. Last question how can our listeners connect with you?

Speaker 1: 46:37

Best way just find me on LinkedIn, Steve Sonnenberg. I accept most invitations and I think that's probably one of the easiest ways to connect with you right now is just via LinkedIn.

Speaker 2: 46:49

Perfect, and we'll have that information in the show notes. The company is AwardCo and check it out. I know I'm going to throw this into the RFP here and you know you're telling me that I can get something quick for my employees on Amazon and have it link in with my systems, and my interest is piqued. So, Steve, thanks so much for the time. It's been a great conversation.

Speaker 1: 47:13

Yeah, my pleasure. It's great, great getting to know you and appreciate the time today. Thanks, take care.

Speaker 2: 47:18

All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at RebelHR Podcast, twitter at RebelHRGuy, or see our website at RebelHumanResourcescom. The views and opinions expressed by RebelHR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Speaker 3: 47:48

Baby.