What can I do to motivate my employees to give their best time and again without giving them a higher salary or bonus? How can I ensure that the relationship with the manager and the team is systematically strengthened during times of change? How can I make sure people do not mentally check out? In this blog, I explain the simple model Roche uses to increase employee engagement during times of change.
What are the 3 biggest challenges for companies?
- Attracting and retaining new talented employees
- Building a positive and value-driven culture
- Managing the mental and physical health of their workforce
At Roche, it is no different. The ambition of Bruno Van Orshoven (HR Director) and Stephanie Bisschot (Employee Experience) is, first and foremost, to create a high-quality working environment, where people can develop further and contribute positively to Roche’s mission and vision.
To achieve this, it is important to focus on recognition.
Appreciating exceptional behavior via an online tool
When people make a special contribution, take the initiative, or demonstrate exceptional behavior, this must also be made visible within the organization or the team. “What you praise, will increase.” One of the basic needs of every person is the desire to feel appreciated.
That is why Roche implemented a program that gives every employee the opportunity to recognize colleagues who have done something exceptional.
Applause, Roche’s secret weapon
‘Applause’ is an online program that allows people to recognize colleagues for exceptional behavior or outstanding results. This can be done by awarding points or simply without any financial attachment. Each point has a monetary value and can be exchanged for a gift, experience, champagne, voucher… or the accumulated points can also be donated to a charity.
It is important that the reason someone receives recognition is made visible on the virtual ‘applause wall’ when points are awarded. By making it public, the recipient is put in the spotlight and it also inspires colleagues. The points themselves do not appear on the wall, only the reason.
Transparency is essential in rewarding
Transparency is very important for Roche: by posting positive behavior or initiatives on the recognition wall, you encourage others to take similar initiatives. It is also fun to see how many positive initiatives are taken daily within the organization.
But does it always have to be linked to points? Not at all! The program also allows everyone in the organization to post ‘recognition cards’ where no numerical value is attached.
People can recognize each other based on company values or another positive contribution without it necessarily being expressed in points.
Why does this program work so well?
Many companies struggle with wanting to reward employees for a positive contribution but not knowing how. Logging overtime or increasing a year-end bonus is often too far away. Managers also want to be able to reward people at the moment when such an exceptional situation occurs.
Additionally, they want to encourage people to take even more of these good initiatives. Employees can digitally save points. Often, such a points system is linked to other factors, such as seniority. When you have been employed for one, five, ten, fifteen… years, you receive extra points.
Or when you refer a new employee, you also get points, a kind of referral bonus. The applications are endless: when you reach a certain milestone in sports or safety, when you have been healthy for six months, and so on.
Each company determines its own rules on how employees can earn points, depending on what is important for that organization.
And the good behavior you reward multiplies…
What about taxation?
This is, of course, the most frequently asked question and the biggest concern of HR. “We want to reward our people, but we don’t want it to cost us extra…” is what I constantly hear.
Bruno explained that in Belgium, people always find reasons to hide behind the social, legal, or tax system to avoid doing something. This is really unfortunate, because such a system can actually create much more impact and results than eco-vouchers, culture cheques, bonuses, or other forms of cash.
Points versus cash
With a points-saving platform, you can generate much more visibility and react much faster whenever something exceptional happens. It can even be done easily via your smartphone. The fact that employees can save points and exchange them for something tangible, such as a gift, voucher, training, or city trip, works much more strongly psychologically.
Furthermore, there is an automatic link with payroll. Every month, data is automatically exchanged, so no time is lost on administration.
When people receive a salary increase or bonus, the effect is very short-lived. Often, small amounts are barely noticed. The same goes for meal vouchers or a year-end gift voucher, which is digitally loaded onto your card and almost goes unnoticed. But when people receive points and see via their dashboard why they received them, this creates a lot of visibility.
The application at Arteel
For us, the most important thing is to create a strong culture so that people come to work every day with enthusiasm, feel appreciated, and are open to growing with our company. We truly want people to feel connected to our vision, mission, and values—but above all, to each other. That is our greatest strength.
By focusing on more positive aspects, we strengthen the employee experience, and people automatically feel more connected.
There is a bottom-up approach: those who want to take good initiatives are given the chance to do so and are rewarded for it. This, in turn, strengthens our culture and our employer branding. It even has a positive impact on our customers.
In addition, we try to focus on key moments in an employee’s life, such as birth, marriage, illness, birthday, onboarding, …
Here too, you can choose to do it very plainly and simply deposit a cash bonus, or you can make it something very special. And it doesn’t cost us any extra time or effort. Via Arteel’s GiftApp, you can easily create a special moment of connection without taking more time. On the contrary, this solution ensures a more efficient and impactful result.
What is the result at Roche?
Since Roche started using ‘Applause,’ HR has noticed that many more positive initiatives are being taken by employees. The fact that people can save points or recognize someone encourages them in the long term to go the extra mile. This, in turn, has a positive impact on the work environment and motivates everyone. People feel more connected to each other because much more transparency and visibility is created around each other’s work and contributions.
This also has a positive impact on turnover and absenteeism.
Since Roche decided to make recognition part of their strategy, they have also seen that it not only positively affects employee engagement but also the overall results.
