Previously the head of design, Bartels will apply her additional, deep experience in business and computer science to the Bonusly product roadmap.

Boulder, Colorado May 16, 2023: Bonusly, an engaging recognition and rewards platform that connects teams and enriches company culture, today announced that Judith Bartels, previously senior director of design, has been appointed vice president of product and design. In her new role, Bartels will be responsible for the end-to-end Bonusly experience, encompassing both product strategy and design execution.

Bartels joined Bonusly in 2021 after spending nearly four years as executive creative director at IHS Markit, a financial information services fintech company, where she managed a team of 50 creative directors and designers who worked with clients on user research, product innovation, and global brand redesigns. Her clients included the New York Times, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, E-Trade and PIMCO. Before that, Bartels spent seven years in senior design roles at SapientRazorfish, where she consulted on digital design and product user experience with some of the world's best-known brands, such as American Eagle Outfitters, Verizon Wireless and Swisscom. She brings years of experience and training in design, along with business management and computer science expertise to her new position.

"I've always cared deeply about the people on my teams, and in previous roles I spent a lot of time thinking about how to best motivate, engage and recognize them," Bartels said. "It's exciting to take charge of Bonusly's product, especially now. Work continues to undergo dramatic change with remote and hybrid models, and the entry of younger generations who have very different expectations about work. Organizations now recognize that they need to leverage technology to facilitate employee recognition and engagement."

The Bonusly platform empowers real-time employee recognition and rewards to highlight accomplishments big and small in a very positive and public way, which fosters stronger cultures and builds resilient companies. While other employee engagement companies offer little more than gift card programs, Bonusly's recognition platform captures and analyzes real-time data on how organizations really work, communicate and connect, informing HR teams and managers so they can make more informed, faster business decisions.

"Judith has proven herself to be a compassionate, effective leader for the product design team," said Raphael Crawford-Marks, Bonusly founder and CEO. "And with her formidable skill sets in design, user experience, business management and computer science, we know she's going to drive the product forward to create an even better experience with even greater value to our more than 3,000 customers around the world. We are excited to see her apply her talents and expertise as she leads our product team."

About Bonusly

Thousands of companies worldwide rely on Bonusly to cultivate high-performing and motivated teams, regardless of their location, work setting, or industry. Bonusly serves as a crucial tool for investing in, and driving positive business outcomes from a company's most critical asset — their people.

Bonusly's engagement software is easy to use and enables companies to build stronger connections among and between teams, leading to increased collaboration and innovation among your workforce. Additionally, Bonusly provides exclusive insights at the individual, team, and company levels, empowering managers to make informed decisions regarding culture, professional growth, performance management, and employee retention. To learn more, please visit http://bonus.ly

Bonusly Wins Recognition for the Second Year in a Row.

Boulder, Colorado May 9, 2023: Bonusly, the leading employee engagement solution provider, has once again been named to Inc. magazine’s annual Best Workplaces list for the second year in a row. Featured in the May/June 2023 issue, the list is the result of a comprehensive measurement of American companies that  have excelled in creating exceptional workplaces and company culture, whether operating in a physical or a virtual facility.

The Bonusly platform creates a culture of recognition in which employees receive an average of two meaningful, timely, detailed recognitions from peers and managers every week. After deploying Bonusly, more than nine in ten (93%) customers see improved employee engagement. Ranked by G2 as No. 1 in Employee Recognition and No. 3 in Employee Engagement, Bonusly is used by top-tier companies including Chobani, ZipRecruiter, Pender Veterinary, and SDMI. 

After collecting data from thousands of submissions, Inc. selected 591 honorees this year. Each company that was nominated took part in an employee survey, conducted by Quantum Workplace, which included topics such as management effectiveness, perks, fostering employee growth, and overall company culture. The organization’s benefits were also audited to determine overall score and ranking.

"Bonusly's goal is to boost employee engagement, morale, and retention through authentic and frequent recognition from co-workers and managers," explains Raphael Crawford-Marks, Bonusly founder and CEO. "Our solution has been built over the past decade with the aim of creating a culture where individuals feel valued as part of a larger team. Receiving this award for two consecutive years validates not only our efforts to create a great workplace culture but also the effectiveness of our solution in helping other organizations do the same."

“Being named to Best Workplaces is an honor that only a small fraction of companies have been able to claim,” says Inc.editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. “Proving to the world that you’re a magnet for talent and have a culture that keeps teams engaged, productive, and proud to come to work is a truly remarkable achievement.”

About Bonusly

Thousands of companies worldwide rely on Bonusly to cultivate high-performing and motivated teams, regardless of their location, work setting, or industry. Bonusly serves as a crucial tool for investing in, and driving positive business outcomes from a company's most critical asset — their people.

Bonusly's engagement software is easy to use and enables companies to build stronger connections among and between teams, leading to increased collaboration and innovation among your workforce. Additionally, Bonusly provides exclusive insights at the individual, team, and company levels, empowering managers to make informed decisions regarding culture, professional growth, performance management, and employee retention. To learn more, please visit http://bonus.ly.

About Inc. Media

The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multi-platform-content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

A simple “thank you” can mean the world to someone, regardless of who says it. And in the workplace, recognition of good work can lead to a deeper sense of connection across the organization.

Unfortunately, that can be a big challenge at an international company—or anywhere with remote workers. A person in Boston might work with someone in Madrid or Dubai on a project, but once the project is completed and those daily collaborations cease, it’s easy for people to fall out of mind.

Over the past few years, Nexthink has formalized a space for giving and receiving recognition, so employees feel valued wherever they are. 

A Positive Environment That Was Siloed

Nexthink is a leading digital employee experience management software, giving IT leaders unprecedented insight into employees’ daily experiences of technology. We are a global company with 1,000 employees serving companies in 40 countries worldwide, but we still foster a friendly, non-hierarchical environment where anyone can approach a colleague as a peer, no matter their role or title. 

I joined Nexthink in 2021 as an HR business partner, supporting our go-to-market organizations. It was right in the midst of the pandemic and at the time, we had about 700 employees. Everyone was working remote, and there was this new sense of everyone feeling like there was these silos that existed that hadn't existed before.

Even though Nexthink was a positive space, we didn’t have any formal employee recognition or rewards mechanism. People would offer recognition and appreciation informally, but it was primarily within their own team or department, and so it went unnoticed by the wider community. With Nexthink employees working in different countries across various time zones, a lot of good work flew under the radar. An employee engagement survey reinforced this idea: People didn't think others saw or celebrated their success.

The talent management team works to strengthen the bridges between departments and geographic regions. We knew gaps existed in our impromptu and siloed approach to recognition, and Meg, our chief people officer, saw an opportunity to enhance recognition throughout the organization. 

Aligning Appreciation-Worthy Actions with Company Values

I had used Bonusly at a previous company to great success. Recognition is way better when it comes from people that you work with every day and see your work. I love the peer-to-peer element of Bonusly, which prevents recognition from being only top-down. It's also spontaneous. It's a beautiful thing to democratize recognition and the rewards behind it.

It's a beautiful thing to democratize recognition and the rewards behind it.

So I suggested it to our leadership team as a way to combine direct, cross-departmental recognition with a focus on company values. At Nexthink, our values are We Are One Team, We Get Things Done, We Are Positive, and We Keep Growing. Everyone gets points they can award to their colleagues for good work, a positive attitude, and everything in between. Every recognition post in Bonusly must include a company value hashtag, reinforcing how kudos-worthy actions align with what the company stands for.

Once we launched Bonusly, we maximized this hashtag feature for our core value awards. We have one award for each of our four values, and our nomination process for these awards now happens exclusively through Bonusly. At the end of the year, everyone at Nexthink gets an opportunity to put forward five nominations. Each nomination must include an explanation of how their colleague has embodied that core value. We then tabulate who received the most recognition for each value. Management reviews the submissions and determines award winners based on the nominations.

Everybody likes seeing such widespread recognition and we have since expanded to using Bonusly for events throughout the year. On International Women’s Day, for example, we rewarded those people who took the time to discuss the challenges women face in the workplace. And for Employee Appreciation Day, we doubled everyone’s point allowance for the month to encourage them to be extra thankful to their colleagues. We can tailor Bonusly to fit the company’s priorities and focus at any given time and this flexibility also empowers managers to encourage specific actions within their teams.

Bonusly Breaks Barriers and Instills Resilience

I manage the platform together with my colleague, Nicole Pesantes, management is a breeze. We used to spend time and effort on ad hoc rewards like gift cards. But we have employees in a few different countries, so securing gift cards in various denominations and currencies required a huge amount of effort. The accounting department really likes Bonusly because we can distribute rewards quickly without the headache of ensuring we have the right amount in the correct currency.  We have integrations set up so it's pretty seamless and self-sustaining. 

One of the most valuable benefits of Bonusly is helping us overcome geographic barriers between employees in different time zones and countries. Now, everyone can see what their colleagues are working on and what they’re doing well, even though they may work thousands of miles away from each other. That visibility brings everyone together as one unified company. And as important as recognition is, Bonusly keeps it light and fun. It’s an intuitive platform, and GIFs and hashtags help users communicate like we’re all used to in other digital media. 

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

We launched Bonusly during the pandemic, where getting a kind word from anybody was much appreciated. Bonusly helped employees feel seen even when we couldn’t be physically present. The resiliency we have built with Bonusly continues to bolster our workforce during times of economic uncertainty. Throughout the Great Resignation, our attrition stayed flat year over year, and although I can't attribute that directly to Bonusly, I do know our employees feel like they have opportunities to be seen in a lot of different ways and I'm sure we have kept more people engaged and invested in their work. We value each other more, and leadership can see the value that we all bring to the table.

Giving credit where credit is due also helps boost positivity. In our feed, everyone can see individuals thanking interns right next to VPs or directors, which aligns with the non-hierarchical culture we want to maintain across the organization. 

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Our most used reward is the Allowance Boost, which allows people to cash in their points to boost their giving allowance to others. It’s great to see people sacrifice something of their own to spread more goodwill to their colleagues.

In addition to our Allowance Boost, Bonusly’s analytics have become especially important for us. It helps the talent and management team determine how workloads are distributed, and identify the unsung heroes of the organization who might go unnoticed otherwise. We can also track the most used core value hashtags and which hashtags may need attention. For example, if we see a fluctuation in our #we-are-positive hashtag, that tells us something about morale. If we see a decrease in the use of #we-get-things-done, that might indicate some friction slowing down workflows, which we can address proactively. Our most popular hashtag is #we-are-one-team, which tells us that we have a strong collective sense of collaboration and cooperation.

Bonusly is now part of our onboarding process, so everyone at Nexthink—960 people at last count—has immediate access. Nicole and I are constantly looking for ways to boost engagement and keep usage above average. Sometimes, increasing engagement means launching specific initiatives or working with teams to identify how they can best use Bonusly. From March 2022 to February 2023, our average rate of recognition received was around 90%. We see about 54 acts of recognition received each month, and we’ve seen a 15% increase in recognition sentiment in our employee engagement survey.

Everyone Can Get the Recognition They Deserve

Recognition isn’t something you can force onto others, and it doesn’t work as a mandatory policy. It needs to be born from the genuine feelings and sentiments of employees. However, there are things a company can do to encourage that activity, and one of them is to adopt a centralized platform for recognition and rewards. 

Recognition isn’t something you can force onto others. It needs to be born from the genuine feelings and sentiments of employees.

Bonusly has allowed cross-functional teams to recognize each other in a way that wasn't happening before. And by creating visibility to some of the successful wins, people see other people's success and get more opportunities to share knowledge. It's also empowered individual employees and managers to reward team members without having to go through the hurdles of getting budget approvals. Bonusly fits really nicely into our values, and our values drive all the results and our bottom line. 

Our team uses Bonusly to create ongoing opportunities for colleagues to thank and recognize each other—not just for their work but for who they are as people. Because it’s not just about the company, it’s about the humans behind the Nexthink name. Bonusly makes sure everyone gets the recognition they deserve. Doing so fosters a stronger connection with each other, with the company, and with our work.