Recognize has a unique points system to engage staff and create excitement surrounding your programs. The points earned in Recognize can be used to redeem for items from a Rewards catalog. Points are also used when tabulating leaderboards and reports. A user can earn points via activity in the platform such as receiving a recognition, +1’ing someone else's recognition, receiving a +1, and sending recognitions. Points for each activity are configurable. The points for receiving a Recognition are controlled by the value of the Badge given.

 

Use the below menu to jump to specific sections in the article:

Types of Points

Ways to Earn Redeemable Points

Points & Rewards Strategy

Managing the Budget

Assigning Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition

Common Points Questions

Funding Your Reward Redemptions

Overview of the Points Tab in Company Admin

Running Reports for Redeemable Points

 

Types of Points

Interval Points

Interval points are simply how many total points you’ve received in a given time period. By default, the time period is monthly, but Company Admins can change it to weekly, quarterly, or yearly. Interval points are used as a way to keep staff engaged, because they allow for those who are currently earning the most points to be highlighted on the leaderboards. Depending on your company's unique financial and budgeting cycles, you may also want to change the interval at which the budget is shown and/or at which the employee profile point summary is shown. To learn how to do this, see our article: Interval Setting Overview

Redeemable Points

These are points earned from activities such as receiving recognition, completing Tasks, and in some cases, sending recognition, receiving a like, or sending a like. Redeemable points are the points that can be spent by employees on Rewards, and as such, must be budgeted for in your organization's Rewards funding account.

Non-redeemable Points

Non-redeemable points are points that were earned from an activity that was not worth redeemable points or was earned prior to enabling Rewards at your organization. Some companies opt to use a Points program without Rewards due to budgetary restrictions so that employees are still celebrated with gamification aspects of the platform. Just note that if you start off using non-redeemable points and decide to later introduce Rewards, any points earned prior to enabling Rewards will remain non-redeemable, which can cause confusion if you don't have a clear plan for your transition.

Users can view their combined total points, redeemable points, and non-redeemable points in their User Profile.

 

Ways to Earn Redeemable Points

Points for Badges

To find out how to update Badge point values, see our step-by-step guide here: Badges: Step-by-Step Instructions. Points from a Badge a user receives are redeemable for rewards. 

Points for Sending Recognitions

From the Settings section in the Company Admin portal, you can change the points for sending a Recognition. For instructions, see the below section: Assigning Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition. Points received for sending a Recognition can be redeemable or non-redeemable. You choose in the Company Admin. This helps prevent users from gaming the system for points. If a user sends a recognition to multiple people, they will only receive the number of points for sending one recognition. 

If you are interested in rewarding employees who send recognition, randomly reward employees based on sending or +1ing recognitions. At the beginning of the program, keep the sending points high, and lower the points as people adopt the program- it is a form of encouragement.

Points for Giving a '+1' (also known as a "like")

Same as points for sending a recognition, the points are configured from the Settings. These points are redeemable or not (choose in the Settings) to help prevent users from gaming the system to redeem rewards. Most companies keep this worth 0 to 1 point. For instructions, see the below section: Assigning Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition.

Points for Receiving a '+1'

By default, staff will receive one point when a staff member approves or gives a +1 to a Recognition. This can be changed in the company admin settings. These points are redeemable or not redeemable. You choose in the Company Admin Points Settings. For instructions, see the below section: Assigning Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition.  

 

Points & Rewards Strategy

There are several components to consider as part of setting up your Points system. First, you will want to determine your overall Budget, and decide how you want to manage it. With Recognize, there are several options for managing Budget including setting Badge sending limits, using Point Allocations, and implementing Approval Processes. To set you up for success with your budgeting strategy, you will want to start off by deciding on a points-to-currency ratio and determine an interval setting that aligns with your company's budget and financial cycle. Please see the below sections for more information on how to be successful with this.

 

Setting a Points-to-Currency Ratio

Your points-to-currency ratio is something that you will set when you first create a Rewards catalog. This ratio determines the worth of your Badges (dependent upon how many points are assigned to each Badge), as well as the cost of your Rewards, so it is important to think through an appropriate ratio that you feel employees would be motivated by. Once your points-to-currency ratio has been set and employees begin redeeming Rewards, we highly recommend that it is not changed to avoid issues with reporting. If you need more guidance on how to set your points-to-currency ratio, see our article: How to Set a Points-to-Currency Ratio. You can also review our Points Best Practice article for inspiration.

 

Determining Interval Settings

Depending on your company's unique financial and budgeting cycles, you may also want to change the interval at which the budget is shown and/or at which the employee profile point summary is shown. To learn how to do this, see our article: Interval Setting Overview

 

Determining Rewards Offerings

Below, you'll find each type of Reward offering along with what catalog type offers it and whether it requires a deposit to a Rewards funding account prior to launch.

Reward Type	Custom Catalog	Managed Catalog	Amazon Business Catalog	Requires a Deposit to Rewards Account
Custom Reward (Swag, Group Rewards, Time off, Parking spots, etc.)	X
Automatic Gift Cards	X	X		X
Amazon Merchandise			X
Deferred Rewards (Non-instant Rewards)	X	X		X

*Rewards are available with Mid-Market and Enterprise Recognition Packages

 

Managing the Budget

Now that you've determined your fundamental settings for Points & Rewards, let's talk about budget oversight and ways the budget can be managed.

 

Sending Limits & Point Allocations

Budgeting guardrails are either based on how many Badges can be given out on an interval basis (by setting Badge sending limits), or by using the Point Allocations feature to set a total number of points that can be given out through Badges. To learn more about these options, see our article: Budget Planning & Best Practices.

Approval Processes

Additionally, Recognizes allows for approval processes both on the front end of the user experience with sending Recognition, and the back end when redemptions are made. See our article, Badges: Step-by-Step Instructions for more info on setting up approvals for Recognition and see our article, Approving or Denying a Reward for more info on setting up approvals for redemptions.

 

Assigning Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition

It's great to receive points with a Recognition, but Recognize also allows organizations to offer points for validating Recognitions (clicking + or +1 on a Recognition) or sending Recognitions! This can help with engagement and encourage staff to Recognize others.

How to Assign Points for Validating or Sending a Recognition

1. Click 'Menu' in the upper right-hand corner of the page
2. Select 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
3. Select 'Settings' from the navigation menu on the far left, and scroll down to the 'Points' section, towards the bottom of the page & locate the 'Point values' text fields
4. The first text field is labeled 'Sending a recognition'. Type in the point value (if any) that you would like to award a user for sending a Recognition to a coworker. Check 'Redeemable' below the text field if you would like points earned from this activity to be redeemable in the rewards catalog
5. The second text field is labeled 'Receiving a like'. Type in the point value (if any) that you would like to award a user for receiving a +1 on their Recognition. Check 'Redeemable' below the text field if you would like points earned from this activity to be redeemable in the rewards catalog
6. The third and final text field is labeled 'Sending a like'. Type in the point value (if any) that you would like to award a user for clicking '+1' on a coworker's Recognition. Check 'Redeemable' below the text field if you would like points earned from this activity to be redeemable in the rewards catalog
7. Click 'Save point settings' to save your changes!

Common Points Questions

Can Points be reset at the company level?

If you are interested in resetting your organization's redeemable points, please contact us at support@recognizeapp.com.

Do points change for existing recognitions when I change the worth of a Badge?

No, when a Company Admin changes the point value of a Badge, it does not affect previous Recognitions.

 

Funding Your Reward Redemptions

Recognize is different from other vendors in that we don't require you to pre-pay for points. What we do require (if you are using provider-fulfilled Rewards such as automated gift cards) is that you make a deposit to a Rewards funding account that we hold for you in order to fund gift card redemptions from your users. It's important to maintain a healthy balance for your Rewards funding account so that your organization doesn't find itself in a situation where gift cards become unavailable for redemption due to insufficient funds.

To keep tabs on this balance and know when it's time to top off, you'll want to check your Rewards deposit balance frequently and compare it with your company's total unredeemed points. All points that users receive within Recognize carry over time periods, and are set up by default to never expire. This is because we want to engage both your users who will redeem rewards each month and users who will hold on to points over a long time period! Below are instructions on how to find these totals in your Company Admin Portal:

1. Click 'Menu' in the top right-hand corner of the page
2. Click 'Company Admin' from the drop-down menu
   
   
   
    
3. Click 'Rewards' from the left side menu
4. Click 'Catalog' next to the catalog you'd like to view within the table
   
   NOTE: Your Rewards account balance will be inclusive of funding for all catalogs unless you have separate funding accounts set up for each of your catalogs.
   
   
   
    
5. Select the 'Dashboard' tab from the top right tertiary menu within the catalog
   
   
   
    
6. Under the Dashboard tab, in the Rewards Overview, you will see 'Deposit Balance' in currency and points
7. Further down in that same table, you will see your company's 'Unredeemed Total,' which is the amount of points out there with your users that could be redeemed
   
   NOTE: Employees must redeem their points before departing the company, otherwise they will remain under their profile. Although that is the case, the unredeemed total does not account for any inactive user points. It's always a good idea to keep your Deposit Balance topped up in case employees start to redeem their points, especially during the holiday season when we see spikes in redemptions. See our how-to article for topping off your balance.
   
   

 

 

Overview of the Points Tab in Company Admin

From time to time you may want to review how points are being earned and spent. This can especially be helpful for knowing how frequently to top off Reward balances. We make it easy for you to see what's going on with points at your company within the 'Points' section in the Company Admin Portal. You can find this by going to Menu > Company Admin Portal > Points. See the below video for a complete overview.

 

Running Reports for Redeemable Points

Once your organization has had the opportunity to use Recognize for several months, it can be helpful to see how many employees have outstanding points that have yet to be redeemed. Fortunately, the Recognize platform has built-in reporting functionality that can be accessed via the Company Admin portal to provide you with this information!

1. Click 'Menu' in the upper right corner of the Recognize
2. Select 'Company Admin' from the dropdown menu
3. Select 'Points' from the navigation panel on the far left. Here, you can see a general overview, as well as a summary of redeemable and redeemed points, and a point activity breakdown.
   
   
    
4. To generate a report for redeemable points, select 'Activities' from the upper right menu.
5. Enter your desired time interval. To see all unredeemed points, enter a time frame that encapsulates the entire lifetime of the account and press 'Go'. We recommend entering 01/01/2010 until Today, just to be safe
6. Under the 'Search' option, type 'Active' to get only a list of active users, and exclude disabled users.
7. Select 'Redeemable' from the Filter box
8. On the drop-down menu that says ’Show 25 entries’, change the option to ‘All’. This will automatically generate a summary of all users’ redeemable points, and points redeemed
9. Select 'Export' on the right-side and choose your desired option:
   • Copy (copy of the recognition data for pasting into Word or Notepad)
   • CSV ('bare bones' Excel file - best for importing)
   • Excel (Excel data sparsed into different columns)
   • PDF (PDF-version of the 'Recognition' data)
   • Print (printable screenshot)