At its core, staffing is a relationship business. The team at ITAC Solutions, a 25-year-old staffing firm, understands this better than anyone. They see their people-first approach as part of the company’s DNA, and use Bonusly to ensure strong employee relationships are the foundation for its future.
ITAC’s humble recognition program beginnings
ITAC is a staffing firm focused on temporary, contract, and direct hire roles within IT, accounting, engineering, and corporate services. In this highly competitive and saturated market, there’s constant pressure to win new clients and land top candidates. It’s not surprising that staffing is known for having a retention problem, particularly when it comes to recruiters.
ITAC’s founders understood this problem well, and set out to do things differently: provide exceptional recruiting solutions built on long-lasting relationships. From the company’s inception, their vision was to create a people-centric organization that prioritized relationships–both with clients and candidates AND between its own employees.
To drive engagement and retention, ITAC leadership designed and implemented a top-down recognition program to reward employees beyond compensation. The process was manual—managers would recognize employees for emulating the company’s core values by emailing the controller, who would then email the employee and award them “mITAC points” to redeem in various ways.
Taking recognition to the next level with Bonusly
While the program worked, ITAC knew that the process could be better. After six years, the team replaced its homegrown program with Bonusly, after evaluating all the solutions in the market. The company’s controller, Amanda Wilson, felt the process improvements right away.
"Prior to Bonusly, I would facilitate all recognition communication, track points manually via Excel, and create reports for accounting purposes. Now, I probably spend an hour or less managing our use of Bonusly each month. This includes adding and removing employees, approving awards, and pulling reports. I am a huge fan of Bonusly and believe the ROI is significant, both on the administrative side and from an employee morale standpoint."
Aside from the efficiency gains, Bonusly helped ITAC improve its recognition program in three big ways:
1️⃣ Enabled and encouraged recognition in all directions. Recognition can be a powerful tool to drive connection and collaboration across an organization, not just between managers and their direct reports. Bonusly gave all 50 employees the ability to recognize anyone, right at their fingertips–ultimately creating a more organic and authentic culture.
2️⃣ Added a real-time component to recognition. Using Bonusly, employees can easily give and receive recognition in real time. This provides important, in-the-moment feedback to employees that their work is appreciated, reinforcing positive behaviors.
3️⃣ Made recognition visible and collaborative. When recognition happens in a silo, the impact is limited to the two people involved. When it’s public, an employee can be celebrated and their performance can serve as a model for the whole company. Bonusly extends the ROI of employee wins exponentially.
Getting creative and making recognition FUN with Bonusly
All 50 employees have a Bonusly account of points that they can use each month, awarded in a variety of ways:
★ In celebration of employee milestones, like employment anniversaries and birthdays.
★ As sales incentives to motivate our team to reach aggressive goals, for example, when a client has a very difficult-to-fill role
★ When they represent ITAC’s core values in their work, such as when a recruiter drove a candidate to their job interview because their car broke down
★ For outstanding performance by an entire team, in which case the points are redeemed by the manager for team building experiences
Employees redeem their points for gift cards to purchase items (examples include a pressure washer, a wedding dress, and a golf cart!) or they often choose to gift their points to someone else. ITAC also has a formal program where employees can donate points to a specific colleague in need, due to a financial situation or other unexpected personal challenge.
Keeping the focus on what matters most–a strong culture
The leadership team continues to support and promote the recognition program, praising Bonusly for its positive impact on ITAC’s culture–something Charles Baughman, Chief Administrative Officer, sees as a massive differentiator for them in their industry.
“At ITAC, how we hire, manage, and coach employees–it’s really the foundation of our culture. Giving our people a platform like Bonusly to recognize each other creates a stronger sense of team and encourages all of us to do the right thing.”
