How to: schedule awards for birthdays, work anniversaries and custom events

Before you start, you will need…

• A scheduled recognition program already added to your platform. Please contact your Client Success Manager or the Client Support Team if you would like this set up for you
  
  
• The Reward Manager permission named RR Budget Holder. Please contact your Client Success Manager or the Client Support Team if you need this assigned to your account
  
  
  • If you expect that you may need to create new segments of recipients for scheduled recognition, and don't yet have the Segments Admin permission, please request this too
    
    
• An image and a message for each award you want to set up. 
  • Images need to be in JPG or PNG format, 3300 x 2100 pixels in size (landscape orientation), and no larger than 6MB.
• Each employee’s Start Date supplied through your membership file (if you are scheduling recognition for work anniversaries)
  
  
• Each employee’s Date of Birth supplied through your membership file (if you are scheduling recognition for birthdays)
  
  
• Enough budget to cover the volume of scheduled awards you plan to send.
  
  
  • This is optional - you can set up all your scheduled awards in advance and launch them at a later date. Please contact your Client Success Manager or the Client Support Team if you would like to request funds or discuss a regular invoice schedule

Step 1: Find your scheduled recognition program on Reward Manager

Follow the steps below to access your admin portal, Reward Manager, and find your scheduled recognition program.

1. Log in to Reward Manager through the link on the Account slideout on your engagement platform
   
   
   
   
2. Select Reward and Recognition on the left-hand side menu
3. Select the Administer option
4. You will reach a page where your scheduled recognition program will be listed - look for Bulk Schedule. Select View Programme to start setting up your scheduled awards
   
   
5. If this is the first time you’re setting up scheduled awards, you will see the screen below. Select Schedule a Recognition Moment to start creating your first award!
   
   
   
   
6. If you have set up scheduled awards before, you will see both the option to create a new award, and a list of all your existing awards. 

You can set up as many scheduled awards as you want, with different visuals, messages and values, and for different groups of recipients. Here are a few examples:

• A yearly non-monetary award to celebrate work anniversaries, a yearly non-monetary award to celebrate birthdays, and a yearly Christmas award with a monetary value
• Three separate awards to celebrate long service milestones (e.g. 3 years, 5 years and 10 years), each with a different monetary amount
• A Thanksgiving award only for employees in the US
• A welcome award for the first day an employee joins the company

Step 2: Setting up your scheduled awards

As part of your scheduled recognition program, you can set up awards to celebrate:

• Long service milestones
• Birthdays
• Welcome
• Custom events occurring in the future (e.g. public holidays, Employee Appreciation Day, dates meaningful to your business, etc.)

Read on to learn about the settings common to all three types of scheduled recognition.

If you'd like to learn how to manage your Scheduled Recognition program once you have set up your awards, read the Guide to Managing Scheduled Recognition.

• Recognition name: give your award a name employees will understand, as they will see it on their award notification email
• Recognition event: choose the event you’d like to celebrate. You will find more settings specific to each type in the next sections of this article.
• Attach image: upload a branded image to connect recognition to your organisation. 
  • You can work with your Implementation team or Client Success Manager to arrange having one designed
  • You can also upload your own JPG or PNG image, as long as it’s 3300 x 2100 pixels in size and no larger than 6MB.
• Message: write a message for your group of recipients, to make recognition special!
• Recognition value: enter the monetary amount each recipient will get. 
  • If you are using points-based recognition across multiple countries, you will be able to enter a separate value for each country. 
  • Leave this field blank or enter 0 to set up a non-monetary award.
• Receivers: select the group of employees that will receive this award
  • If you select All Members, all eligible users on your program will receive this scheduled award. This includes users you have added to the programme after setting up the award in Reward Manager, and excludes users you have marked as leavers.
  • If you select a specific segment that already exists on your platform, only the eligible users within that segment will receive this scheduled award. Once you have saved this award, you can also create a different award for the same milestone or event, for a different employee segment
  • If the employee group you’re looking for doesn’t exist yet, you can create it by selecting Create Segment. This option will follow the rules in the Guide to SmartHub Segments and Segment Manager you can download from this portal.
    • If the segment you need for your Scheduled Recognition setup doesn't exist yet, make sure you Refresh Segments (shown in the screenshot above) after you've created it. This will refresh the Receivers dropdown list, so that your newly created segment is available to select.

2.1) If you are setting up a Birthday award…

Birthday awards are set up to go out to all eligible recipients on their birthday every year. This is why you will see a Frequency field where Yearly is the only option.

As all awards are sent privately and can be shared on the Social Wall, all eligible recipients will receive them, including those who have opted out of sharing their birthday with colleagues on the website.

Make sure you supply Dates of Birth for all employees that will be receiving this award, through your eligibility file. Employees in the recipient segment will not receive the award if there is not a Date of Birth in their account.

If you change an employee’s Date of Birth after setting up the award, the system will consider the most recent date you have supplied.

2.2) If you are setting up a Work Anniversary award…

You can choose two different frequencies to celebrate work anniversaries:

• Yearly means the award will go out to eligible recipients every year, on the anniversary of their Start Date
  
  
  • Make sure you supply Start Dates for all employees that will be receiving this award, through your eligibility file. Employees in the recipient segment will not receive the award if there is not a Start Date in their account.
    
    
  • If you change an employee’s Start Date after setting up the award, the system will consider the most recent date you have supplied
    
    
• Custom means you can choose which work anniversary to celebrate. For example, if you’re setting up an award for 5 years’ service, enter 5 in this field. The system will calculate each employee’s service length based on the Start Date you have supplied.
  
  
  • Custom milestones have priority over Yearly anniversary awards. For example, if you have set up a 5 years' service award and a yearly anniversary award and an employee is in the recipient segment for both, they will only receive the Custom award on their 5th anniversary.

2.3) If you are setting up an award for a custom event…

Start by picking the first date you want the award to go out on.

You can then choose the Frequency for the award:

• Yearly means the award will go out to eligible recipients every year, on the date you selected (for example, you can have an award scheduled to go out every 25 December, to celebrate Christmas)
  
  
• One-off means the award will go out to eligible recipients only once, the next time the date you selected occurs (for example, you can set up an award for the next occurrence of Employee Appreciation Day)

2.5) If you are setting up an award for a welcome recognition…

For welcome recognition there are two options:

• Send on employee start day means the award will go out to eligible recipients on their Start Date
  
• Days after employee start day means the award will go out to eligible recipients based on the number of days indicated in the box (for example, 30 would mean the award would be sent on the 30th day of employment based on the Start Date)

Make sure you supply Start Dates for all employees that will be receiving this award, through your eligibility file. Employees in the recipient segment will not receive the award if there is not a Start Date in their account.

Step 3: Manage your Scheduled Recognition program

Once you have saved your first scheduled award, you can check that they are sent correctly, edit their configuration, and add any others you may want to launch in future. This guide (How to: manage and track scheduled recognition in Reward Manager) takes you through the steps to manage your program.

Step 4: The employee experience

The system carries out daily checks for scheduled awards, so that any awards that are due to be sent on each day can start going out to recipients between 7am and 9am in their timezone (the timezone is logged in their account on the platform). Users who have not yet registered to the platform yet will receive the awards at the correct time in the program's timezone (e.g. UK time for a UK program).

Please note: depending on how many awards are scheduled to go out on the same date, it may take a few hours for everyone in the recipient group to receive them.

All scheduled awards, regardless of milestone and monetary value, are sent privately and not shared on the Social Wall. As the awards are sent privately, Line Managers will not receive alerts when their direct reports receive scheduled recognition.

Employees who receive a scheduled award will be notified via email (if their email address is linked to their account) and onsite alert. This ensures that employees who are eligible but haven’t yet registered to the platform don’t miss out on their recognition: when they first register, they will immediately find the award on the website, and will be able to access it through an onsite alert. 

This is an example of the email employees will receive, with the program name (in this example, "My Recognition") displayed as the sender by default:

Monetary award:

Non-monetary award:

Monetary awards will be added to the recipients’ balances as soon as they are sent. This means that employees will be able to start spending them as soon as they log in or register after receiving them.

All awards will appear in the recipients’ “My Awards” section on the platform, so they can revisit their recognition at any time. The screenshot below is an example of the page that will display all the details of the award.