What do stars have to do with employee recognition? ⭐️
In 2022, Bonusly users recognized each other 10,148,894 times. We like to think of each piece of recognition as one star in a galaxy of appreciation; collectively they make up a constellation that tells a story about our lives at work.
In a challenging world, daily recognition serves as a bright spot in modern employees' day-to-day. 2022 was a year of collaboration, giving back, and unexpected joy for Bonusly users. Here's a look back at 2022 through the lens of Bonusly data. 🔭
Recognition heard around the world
Let's get the negative out of the way: employees feel a lack of connection. Harvard Business Review found that 65% of workers report significantly less connection to coworkers and 76% of hybrid employees report they don't feel connected to the company's culture. The upshot: Bonusly customers were able to connect their teams, no matter where or how they worked, through consistent appreciation. Bonusly customers celebrated each other in 130 countries in 2022 with over a third of Bonusly customers using the platform to connect users in multiple countries. 🌎
The connection continued as 66% of Bonusly customers used the platform to connect teams in multiple office locations and 42.04% of all recognition given was interdepartmentally.
Speaking of connection, check out Jellyfish's customer story on using Bonusly to break down regional and departmental silos.
#ValuesBasedRecognition
In 2022, Bonusly recognition was linked to core company value hashtags 10.9 million times. Values-based recognition helps employees feel a greater sense of purpose at work and understand how their day-to-day contributions add up to a meaningful company culture. Beyond employee satisfaction, a Harvard Business Review study found that companies with a strong sense of purpose enjoyed higher growth rates than those with weaker purposes. So what were Bonusly users' top value hashtags of 2022?
- #Teamwork
- #Collaboration
- #Leadership
- #Thankyou
- #problemsolving
In addition to frequent use of company values hashtags, Bonusly customers rallied around the causes that mattered most to them through platform-enabled donations. Bonusly users donated $742,515 to charity in 2022, nearly doubling the amount they gave to charity in 2021 ($463,855). Small individual donations added up to big celebrations, as Bonusly users surpassed $2 million dollars in donations through Bonusly's reward catalog at the end of 2022.
Rewards make recognition programs sticky
All of that recognition resulted in meaningful rewards for Bonusly users. This year Bonusly users bought everything from plane rides to their pets with Bonusly points. In 2022, Bonusly users redeemed rewards from 606 brands, but they had some favorites:
- Amazon
- Points Boost
- PayPal
- Starbucks
- Visa
Among their favorites is the Points Boost, which allows Bonusly users to redeem their earned points to bolster their giveable point allowances. The Points Boost has remained in the top five reward redemptions for the past five years, cheers to more recognition!
Quality recognition reigns supreme
What ingredients do you need to make quality recognition? Great recognition should be timely, specific, visible, frequent, inclusive, and values-based. Let's break that recipe down:
Timely: Birthday, anniversary, and start date recognition are all great examples of how Bonusly helps our customers automate timely recognition. Bonusly users celebrated 753,492 birthdays, start dates, and work anniversaries using Bonusly's automated recognition.
Frequent: On average 82% Bonusly users gave and/or received recognition each month in 2022! Fun fact: monthly participation was consistently highest for companies with a monthly user allowance range of 101-200 points.
Values-based: You already know all about how Bonusly supports values-based recognition.
Visible: All Bonusly recognition is visible in the Bonusly app, but many customers use communication integrations like Slack to boost visibility even further. In 2022, 6.13% of all recognition was given via Slack and average monthly participation in Bonusly was 6.44% higher for customers with an active Slack integration.
Inclusive: One of the core tenants of Bonusly is the belief that anyone can recognize anyone. That's why 89.95% of all Bonusly recognition given in 2022 was peer-to-peer recognition.
Combine these key ingredients and you'll end up with a quality recognition program. Bonusly admins can sleep easy knowing that out of over ten million recognition posts only 2,882 posts (or 0.028% of the total recognition) were flagged by bots or users as illegitimate.
Let's end on a fun note
What better way to express your appreciation for a coworker than through GIFs and emojis?
3,013,474 of recognition posts were given with GIFs in 2022. In terms of Bonusly users' favorite GIFs the show The Office reigned supreme with this GIF landing on top for the second year in a row, with over 21,000 uses. This GIF was number two, with around 14,000 uses. Lastly, this GIF was number three, with 10,400 uses.
That's a lot of high-fives!
In terms of emojis, users favored 👍♥️ 😍 🎂 💚 🎈 🙂 😁 😊 🎉. It's with these good vibes that we'll conclude this blog post, but before you go...
What's next?
We hope you're inspired to think about each employee, office location, or department as a star in a constellation of appreciation. You can start forming your own recognition solar system at your organization by learning more about Bonusly today.
Originally published on February 21, 2023 → Last updated February 21, 2023
