Reward to Reinforce: 11 Proven Incentives from Bonusly Customers

When it comes to shaping culture and driving performance, recognition is only half the story. Sometimes, the right nudge—at the right time—can turn good intentions into consistent action.

That’s where incentives come in. 

In this post, we’ll show you how Bonusly customers are using targeted rewards to reinforce key behaviors and build stronger, more motivated teams.

What Are Incentives?

Incentives are structured rewards that recognize and reinforce specific behaviors, achievements, or milestones. Unlike peer-to-peer recognition, incentives tie a tangible or symbolic benefit to an action you want your team to take—whether that’s sharing your brand on social media, completing required training, or hitting sales targets. Incentives recognize proactive employees for completing the desired behaviors. 

By making desired behaviors visible and rewarding them promptly, incentives:

• Motivate employees to take action
  
• Align day-to-day effort with company goals
  
• Reinforce a positive culture of achievement and teamwork

Why Use Incentives?

1. Increase Engagement: Incentives tap into intrinsic drives (mastery, belonging, purpose) and extrinsic motivators (points, prizes, badges) to keep people involved and excited.
   
2. Drive Key Behaviors: Whether you need more customer referrals, higher training completion rates, or better attendance, a well-designed incentive nudges employees toward the outcomes you care about most.
   
3. Build Momentum: Celebrating small wins—attendance streaks, quick surveys, safety milestones—creates positive feedback loops that compound over time.
   
4. Reinforce Culture: By rewarding behaviors that exemplify your values (like volunteering or giving back), you bake your culture into everyday actions.

Top Incentive Examples from Bonusly Customers

Below are some of the most-used incentives from Bonusly customers, ranked in order: 

1. Wellness Win: Reward participation in company-backed wellness efforts, like step challenges, timely vaccinations, meditation minutes, or health screenings. Supports holistic well-being, reduces stress, and underscores your commitment to employee well-being.
   
2. Company Ambassador: Reward employees when they share or promote your company externally—whether it’s sharing a LinkedIn post or leaving a Glassdoor review. Drives employer brand awareness, attracts talent, and empowers employees to be authentic advocates.
   
3. Attendance Streak: Recognize consistent attendance and on-time behavior over a defined period. Reduces absenteeism, minimizes disruption, and keeps teams staffed and productive.
   
4. Training Completion: Automatically reward employees who finish mandatory training, gain a certification, or meet compliance benchmarks, like cybersecurity or safety drills. Improves course completion rates, boosts retention of critical info, and reduces compliance risks.
   
5. Community Champion: Celebrate employees who give back by volunteering or supporting charitable causes—whether that’s donating to a local charity, volunteering hours of their time, or donating blood. Builds a culture of purpose, connects your company to the community, and amplifies corporate social responsibility.
   
6. Survey Submission: Reward employees for completing surveys, providing feedback, or participating in engagement pulse checks. Improves response rates, helps surface insights, and empowers employees to shape the workplace.
   
7. New Logo Hero: Celebrate individuals who bring in new customers—whether through sales, referrals, or customer success. Fuels pipeline growth and fires up competition among your revenue teams.
   
8. Hiring Referral: Reward employees who refer high-quality candidates. Taps into employee networks to accelerate hiring.
   
9. Customer Shoutout: Celebrate employees who earn exceptional feedback from customers—whether it’s a CSAT score above 97% or a glowing review on Yelp, Google, or Angi. Reinforces consistent quality service and helps your brand stand out in public-facing spaces.
   
10. Culture Catalyst: Reward employees who go above and beyond to lead internal initiatives—team events, ERGs, or other culture-building efforts outside their core role. Honors the people shaping your company’s identity and strengthens the sense of community at your company.
    
11. Power User Perk: Incentivize specific Bonusly actions—like uploading your profile picture, using your entire monthly allowance, donating earned points, or recognizing someone new. Drives platform adoption and helps every employee become active in your recognition culture.

5 Steps to Design Your Own Incentives

If none of the examples resonate, no problem. Incentives are meant to be flexible and built to reflect your company’s priorities. Here’s how to create your own:

1. Start with what matters: Think about what actions, habits, or milestones you want to increase across your company. Ask yourself:
   
   • What business goals are we trying to hit?
   • Are there behaviors we wish happened more often?
   • Are there critical tasks that get overlooked or delayed?
   • Are we rolling out a new initiative that needs awareness?

You’re not recognizing effort in general—you’re motivating specific, repeatable behaviors that will help your organization thrive.

2. Tie to a clear action: Be crystal-clear on what behavior you are rewarding. Vague goals like “participate” or “share feedback” are less effective than clear ones like “submit a completed survey” or “attend all onboarding sessions.” For high-value incentives, ask for proof—like a screenshot, check-in, or link to a post—to ensure eligibility and celebrate employees for major achievements.
   
3. Make it visible: Share incentive activity publicly on your company’s recognition feed. Visibility builds social pressure, motivates others to participate, and helps reinforce the importance of the action.
   
4. Target the right employees: Not every incentive should be available to every employee. Use targeting to tailor incentives by department, location, role, or team. For example, if you want nurses to meet a patient volume benchmark, that goal probably doesn’t apply to doctors or admin staff. Set eligibility so incentives align with what success looks like for each group.
   
5. Measure impact: Track amount of incentive claims and correlate engagement with business outcomes like reduced absenteeism, more applicant referrals, or increased social reach.

By embedding incentives into your recognition program, you’ll spark the behaviors that matter most—driving engagement, performance, and a stronger, more aligned culture. 

Ready to get started? Pick one or two of the examples above, customize them for your team, and watch the momentum build!