Recently, Incred Financial Services gamified and digitised its employee-recognition programme. This changed the way people get recognised and even recognise others. Incred, which has close to 1000 employees, has implemented an instant-recognition platform, where any employee in the Company, irrespective of location, hierarchy or department, can digitally appreciate and recognise anyone in the Company. Simply put, through this instant form of recognition, people can digitally appreciate any co-worker or colleague, manager or subordinate, enabling the person being recognised to earn digital points. These digital points can be redeemed by employees in cash or as vouchers.
It has been three months since Incred implemented this 360-degree digitised process of recognition. Earlier, the Company had other forms of recognition, including the standard and rather common ‘employee of the month’ award. However, the Company came to realise that the awards and other forms of recognition were not instant and lacked scalability, and therefore, failed to create a true culture of appreciation. “Everybody aspires for the ‘employee of the month’ award, but only a select few get the opportunity to receive such a recognition,” shares Kamlesh Dangi, CHRO, Incred Financial Services.
Dangi points out that when the employee strength is more than 1000, very often, vital contributions made by some employees go unnoticed. “In the earlier traditional model, not all contributions made by employees were recognised,” says Dangi.
Now, with the new system in place, Dangi shares how a company secretary was recognised by many mid- and senior-level leaders for various small tasks that she helped with. This way, people in the Company noticed how the said employee went an extra mile, beyond her usual KRA, to help others complete certain tasks.
“In the earlier traditional model, not all contributions made by employees were recognised”
Kamlesh Dangi, CHRO, Incred Financial Services
Using the digital form of recognition, people can appreciate others in four ways. First is the ‘Great work!’ award, which any employee in the Company can bestow on anyone. Second is the ‘Extra Mile’ award, which again, can be given by an employee to any colleague. The third is the ‘Value Champions’ award, which is given to those employees who exhibit behaviours that reflect the true values of the company, in the line of duty. This award can only be given by VP-level senior leaders. The last award is the ‘Star of the Team’ award, which is given by managers to their team members.
What makes these awards truly meaningful is that the givers of the award have to mention the reason why they are granting a colleague the award. Whenever an employee is appreciated or recognised, the said employee’s manager is also notified. “On being recognised for small and vital contributions, the hidden potentials of the employees get highlighted and their managers can also consider giving them greater responsibilities in their role, which further helps them grow in their career,” explains Dangi. The dashboard also maintains a leaderboard of all the people recognised digitally and leading the table.
With employees giving a positive response and adopting this digitised form of recognition, Dangi reveals that now, almost 80 per cent of the employees have been recognised in the company. He shares that close to 100 people are recognised each day! While there is always a chance of some employees misusing the tool to randomly recognise people without a concrete reason, Dangi feels such cases would be few and far between — at the most, two per cent of the total. Besides, employees only have a limited number of points which they can spend to appreciate others, depending on their seniority level.
“In these times, when people hardly connect with others at the workplace, this digitised form of recognition has helped employees do just that. It has empowered employees to appreciate and get appreciated, and is helping the Company build a culture of true appreciation and recognition. The best part is that it is an instant form of gratification for the employees,” concludes Dangi.