What are the key features of Scheduled Recognition?

Scheduled recognition automates the experience of recognizing key milestones that are meaningful to employees and the business. 

Scheduled recognition programs can help clients advance their recognition programs in many ways:

• Replacing existing manual and admin-heavy recognition initiatives
  
• Centralizing recognition efforts under one brand and one platform
  
• Creating consistency and unity to deliver an exciting employee journey

Read on to learn more about the key features that can help clients promote a culture of meaningful recognition through scheduled awards.

Scheduled long service programs

Through Reward Gateway’s administration portal, Reward Manager, clients will be able to create scheduled recognition for a service anniversary. 

Each employee's anniversary date will be calculated based on the Start Date provided on the client’s member eligibility file.

Clients will be able to create awards for all the service milestones they want to celebrate (e.g. 1 years, 3 years, 10 years, etc.), or indicate that they are happy for employees to be recognized on their work anniversary every year. They will also be able to create awards to welcome their new starters as soon as they join (0 days after) or couple of days after they have settled down. 

On their work anniversary date, all recipients will be notified that they have received recognition via email (if their email address is linked to their account) and onsite alert.

Scheduled birthday programs

Through Reward Gateway’s administration portal, Reward Manager, clients will be able to create scheduled recognition for employees’ birthdays.

Each employee's birthday will be based on the Date of Birth provided on the client’s member eligibility file.

Every year, on their birthday, all recipients will be notified via email (if their email address is linked to their account) and via an onsite alert that they have received recognition.

Scheduled recognition on custom dates

Many businesses wish to recognize employees on custom dates. For example, employers may want to recognize:

• National holidays (e.g. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter) 
  
• Recurring dates that are meaningful to their business and employees. (e.g. company anniversary date, Employee Appreciation Day, etc.)
  
• Specific achievements (e.g. rewarding a large number of employees for a competition run internally, celebrating year and quarter ends)

Through Reward Gateway’s administration portal, Reward Manager, clients will be able to create scheduled recognition moments for custom dates of their choice. They will be able to choose whether the recognition should be sent on a one-off basis (i.e. the next time the date occurs) or on a recurring basis (i.e. on the same date every year). On the chosen date, all recipients will be notified that they have received recognition via email (if their email address is linked to their account) and onsite alert.

The system will save the date once the award is set up, ensuring there is no need for clients to upload dates as additional fields on their membership files.

Flexible options for each milestone

As well as choosing between the three types of milestones described so far, clients will be able to:

• Add branded artwork and a personal message connected to each milestone (for each scheduled award, all recipients will receive the same artwork and message)
  
• Indicate a monetary amount the users will receive, or no amount if the recognition is non monetary. For clients using points-based recognition across multiple countries, amounts for the same award can be different for each country
  
• Select the group of users that are eligible to receive scheduled recognition (e.g. all eligible users, or the eligible users in a specific segment such as a department, job level or office location)
  
• Recognize the same milestone with different visuals, messages and / or amounts within specific employee groups (e.g. a scheduled long service award can look different across different office locations)

Social Recognition

Alongside eCards, Nominations and Instant Awards, Scheduled Recognition can also be shared on the Social Recognition Wall. This means clients can now choose whether the recognition will be public or private. Recognitions which are made public are added to the Wall. This includes different types of recognitions including anniversaries, birthdays, Welcome messages and those custom one-off events.

Grouping - how does it work?

The scheduled recognitions shared on the wall are grouped, so recognitions sent to a large number of receivers will not cover the wall. 

The grouping will collapse scheduled recognitions for the receiver in the same segment and that was sent out at the same time. (i.e Recognition is sent out according to users’ timezone, so you may see Recognition grouped separately for users in Australia, Bulgaria, the UK and the United States)  

The grouping will be applied when there are 5 or more items, if there are less than the recognitions will appear as separate items. Users can click to show more, react or comment on individual recognitions. 

Dedicated budget for scheduled recognition

Clients who wish to schedule awards with monetary values will be able to set aside a dedicated budget for scheduled recognition and replenish it with a frequency of their choice (e.g. monthly, quarterly, yearly, etc.). This will cover all awards sent through the scheduled recognition program.

Read more about how budgets are managed in Reward Manager in this article.

The system will check budget availability for scheduled recognition on a daily basis. Awards that cannot be sent with the available budget on the day will be placed in a queue, so clients can resend them once they have added more funds to their budget.

Product comparison: Scheduled Recognition and AwardFilePlus™

Both Scheduled Recognition and AwardFilePlus™ enable clients to reward groups of employees, from one-off recognition to recurring initiatives for large segments.

Take a look at the chart below to understand which product can best suit your use case.

Availability & Cost

Scheduled recognition is a chargeable feature, available from late August 2020 to all Reward Gateway clients using the features below:

• SmartAwards™ product
• Automated award claim process (i.e. awards added to employees’ balances as soon as they are sent)

Monetary awards can be used in selected countries where we are able to offer redemption options. Non-monetary awards can be sent to employees based in any country.

Also read Which countries is SmartAwards™ available in?

More information

To speak to one of our Consultants or Client Success Managers about scheduled recognition, send us a message and we’ll respond within 24 hours.