The AA together with Benefex received the Reward, Recognition and Benefits trophy at the Personnel Today Awards 2023 after our judges described their work as the perfect example of a holistic approach that results in positive change for individuals and the organisation. Here we profile their winning entry together with those of the other finalists.
WINNER
The AA in partnership with Benefex
The AA launched its new recognition programme in August 2022 because it wanted to increase the number of employees saying they feel recognised for their contributions. A strong reward and benefits programme was already in place – but identified that a recognition initiative was needed to support their culture.
Personnel Today Awards
All our 2023 winners revealed
View the 2023 photo gallery
The Personnel Today Awards 2024 open for entries around Easter
Sign up to keep updated
For the AA leadership team, embedding a culture of recognition within the business was a strategic imperative to support employee engagement, employee retention, and acquisition in a competitive labour market – especially at a time when the number of qualified mechanics in the UK is falling.
The AA’s leadership team recognised that culture, values and mission go hand in hand – their goal was to foster a culture that everyone feels a part of, and drive employee and business success.
A key goal was to better engage employees on the move and help them feel a part of the AA’s culture. The AA has 7,115 employees in the UK; 3,500 of these are out on patrols, 2,500 in call centres, and the rest are in support functions.
Employees who are out on patrols or working from home can feel siloed, so the AA needed to be able to bring colleagues together with a digital recognition initiative that all employees could easily participate in regardless of their location.
The AA previously had a recognition platform in place, but it was implemented inconsistently across the business, engagement with the platform was sporadic, and it was clear that employees didn’t value it. Benefex’s OneHub was chosen because it enables consistent implementation across teams and the OneHub recognition app makes it easy to engage employees who are out on patrol.
Since the new platform was introduced, there has been an 8% increase in employees saying they’re recognised for their achievements (from 55% to 63%) and 75% of employees say they feel proud to work at the AA.
RUNNERS-UP
Beyondly
Beyondly, formerly Comply Direct, has undergone significant changes to its organisational purpose over the past 18 months which has been driven by a desire to become a “business for good” and its certification as a B Corp accredited company in September 2022.
In April 2022 a new OKR (objectives and key results) bonus structure was introduced, with equal focus being placed on people, planet and profit to align with the triple bottom-line approach.
The framework follows a six-month cycle with KRs being established for a six-month period. Employees are invited to express their areas of interest. Every employee is assigned responsibility to lead a KR based on their interest, with a team of contributors supporting them in the achievement of the KR. Employees are assessed every six months in terms of their performance against the behaviours outlined in the competency framework which means expectations are explicitly clear and provides further encouragement for employees to live the values daily.
Some of the benefits from in the past 12 months of the new OKR bonus framework was a fall in employee turnover, a better understanding of the organisation’s vision among employees, enhanced family-friendly policies, more support for charities, and better provision of work experience, including to a Ukrainian refugee. The company has seen cross-team collaboration improve, receiving feedback from one employee that “It is great to work on projects and with people you normally wouldn’t within your normal day to day tasks. It has also been great to lead an OKR and have that sense of responsibility.”
Bright Horizons
When child care provider Bright Horizons became fully operational in the UK at the start of 2021, post-Covid, it found itself struggling to recruit qualified practitioners. Employees were feeling overstretched and overwhelmed as a result of the turnover. The challenge it faced was to support valued people in their work, their wellbeing, and to retain their skills and reduce the recruitment challenge.
In 2021, a new, robust and holistic reward strategy was created and in consultation with senior stakeholders and the firm’s employee forum, the strategy’s aim was to place reward and wellbeing at the heart of why colleagues choose to stay with Bright Horizons and why customers and clients choose to do business with the company.
A full review of financial wellbeing benefits identified where Bright Horizons had gaps and what was needed to not only support existing colleagues but attract colleagues. There was a gap in financial education support we offered. The firm collaborated with a third party to introduce an education platform, which contains budgeting tools and
calculators and breaks down complicated financial topics into simple-to-understand blogs. As 20% of Bright Horizon’s workforce is flexible, the firm wanted to offer flexibility with salary, and therefore introduced Advance Access to Wages, providing an option for colleagues to access their earned salary at any point during the month. This has helped colleagues with budgeting as well as avoiding high-interest short-term loans. The firm introduced debt consolidation loans, which provide lower-interest loans allowing colleagues to consolidate any debt into one monthly payment through payroll. To support long-term financial goals, it added the option to save directly from pay.
As a childcare organisation, Bright Horizons is in a unique position to offer its services to colleagues at reduced rates. It enhanced its childcare discount to attract the roles it was struggling to recruit for, specifically its nursery leadership team, and enhanced the discount for those roles from 40% to 100%. In addition, its qualified practitioners saw an increase from 40% to 50% with a view to enhancing further this year.
Target Group in partnership with Edenred
At Target Group, recognition drives employee engagement while supporting remote working and gender equality strategies. To give its employees a stronger sense of how their actions underpin its customer-oriented approach, it launched a more dynamic recognition programme with Edenred. In the last year, the scheme has supported a move to near-100% home working and plays a role in helping to meet gender pay gap targets and has has delivered an increase in the company’s Best Companies score for employee experience, so much so that it is now on the Best Companies ‘one to watch’ list.
For Target Group, success depends on a strong customer service ethos among its 900+ workforce, 95% of whom now work from home in line with a hybrid working strategy formalised in 2020. To maintain a customer-centric culture within this environment, the company promotes values that deliver the outcomes its clients want. Key to this is developing an understanding among every employee that their actions are key to the company’s success.
While Target used an employee recognition scheme previously, it was out-of-synch with the operational rhythm of the business and not delivering what the organisation needed. By listening to employees and analysing the existing scheme’s performance, the people team identified that the mechanics of the old programme were undermining effectiveness.
The People team also identified the need for a clearer link between individual employee actions, specific business outcomes and the company’s core values. A new scheme also needed to recognise small acts and bigger achievements.
When recognition was linked to reward, Target wanted to ensure it was given equitably and consistently. To do this it set new parameters which explained how and when reward should be given and how it should be commensurate to the action, behaviour or achievement.
Target measures the results it’s scheme through the impact on its Best Companies scorecard. In the first year, following the launch of My Recognition, it increased its Fair Deal score by 23% and My Company score by 8%.
The First Mile
First Mile is a London-based waste management and recycling company that provides services to businesses across the UK. With the increasing difficulty in recruiting HGV drivers due to Brexit and Covid, it realised that we needed to take proactive steps to retain and attract drivers. To achieve this, it launched the Driving Success Program, a reward, recognition and benefits program that aligns with its organisational objectives of employee engagement, and reducing carbon emissions.
To maximise staff appreciation of the Driving Success Program, First Mile ensured that the programme was communicated clearly and effectively to all of its drivers. It utilised a range of communication channels – including emails, posters, and team meetings – to ensure that all of the firm’s drivers understood the benefits of the programme and what they needed to do to qualify for rewards.
The Driving Success Program is an innovative approach to incentivising HGV drivers that aligns with First Mile’s objectives of reducing carbon emissions and promoting safe driving. By rewarding drivers who meet the company’s high standards, the program incentivises drivers to drive safely and efficiently, reducing fuel consumption and minimising the company’s environmental impact. The programme also offers a clear ROI by reducing the costs associated with driver turnover and ensuring that the firm has a reliable and skilled workforce.
The programme offers a comprehensive and competitive package beyond just base pay, providing drivers with clear incentives to drive safely and efficiently. It has also had a positive impact on organisational performance, talent attraction, and retention, demonstrating the clear ROI associated with reward and recognition programs when implemented effectively.
Welcome Break
Summer is a peak time for the hospitality industry with so many people and families on the move. Welcome Break’s Summer Incentive Scheme was developed to drive performance but more importantly to reward and recognise its teams during the busiest time of year for the firm.
The focus of the Summer Incentive Scheme for the firm’s 6,000 team members was on celebrating achievements, driving performance, improving retention and having fun. It was made up of three parts: providing £1 meals to say thank you to team members while on shift; a summer champions scheme in which every store manager would recognise one person as team member of the week; and provision of a summer bonus, which was used to reward teams for giving great customer service while driving business performance during the summer, with payment at the end of summer.
It was clear from the measures in place that Welcome Break’s focus on making summer feel good for colleagues and customers was a success. And most importantly, the firm saw a steady drop in overall staff turnover since the incentives were introduced, from 73.4% (May and June) to 68.86% in September. The introduction of the initiative also contributed to high scores in employee engagement survey results.
Ultimately Welcome Break’s summer incentive scheme for 2022 was a success. It brought its core values of We Care, We are a Team and We Deliver to life, gave its customers an exceptional experience and had fun along the way.
in association with
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
