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What better way to start the New Year than with a story of success? We love hearing how clients are using Kudos to build a culture of appreciation and recognition. Stories such as Community National Bank and LUSH Handmade Cosmetics make us gush with joy. Adding to this list of Kudos success stories is AXA Assistance USA.
About AXA Assistance USA
AXA Assistance is a global organization offering a comprehensive list of insurance services with expertise in travel, health, and concierge services. AXA Assistance’s success is built on a commitment to service, sophisticated technology, and a global network.
AXA Assistance USA has been using Kudos for 5 years to help build upon their success and finished 2013 with a Kudos event. We spoke with Communications Manager Delphine Tybou to share their Kudos story.
Kudos: Why did you choose to create an employee recognition program at AXA Assistance?
Delphine: Employee engagement has become crucial to our operations, as our offices have grown over the past few years. Our people are our connection to our clients and we wanted to find ways to engage the team and ensure that we offer the highest level of service to our clients.
We organized a focus group with employees from different departments a few years ago. We learned that recognition is really what keeps them going and that sometimes even small tokens of appreciation are what they wanted or felt was missing (a casual day during the week, a free lunch, a thank you message from the management, etc.). Reward and Recognition are definitely an important part of engaging and retaining employees.
Kudos: How did you learn about Kudos and why did you choose us?
Delphine: I met with the Kudos team at the "Motivation Show" in Chicago back in 2008. I thought the concept was fun and innovative. When I contacted Tom, they were just launching the program, so he offered us a free trial for a couple months and we really liked it.
Kudos: What aspect or feature do you like the most?
Delphine: The Kudos messages themselves where you can create a personal note as well as choose company values, personal attributes or characteristics to add to the message, and the ability to add fun elements such as icons or photos. The messages are quick and easy to send but are still effective in accomplishing the recognition effect we hoped for.
Kudos: Can you describe how you used Kudos for most recent recognition program?
Delphine: We incorporated the Kudos program in our yearly "Month of Thanks." We encouraged all employees to send recognition to their coworkers to thank them for their help and to tell them how much they appreciate all that they do.
Our program was based on rewarding recognition with a raffle we would do every week. Each team member would get one entry in the weekly raffle for every Kudos message they received. At the end of the week, we would then draw for a $100 gift card in each of our offices.
When we announced the weekly winner, we would also highlight the top 10 recognition recipients and showcase one of their Kudos messages. The individuals that were at the top of the leaderboard at the end of the month also receive a fun small prize such as two movie gift certificates.
Those top individuals were also entered into a raffle for our grand prize for 2 airline tickets to anywhere in North America or Mexico.
Kudos: What were the goals of this recognition program?
Delphine: To thank all employees for the work they provide all year long. We wanted to not only have top-down recognition in our organization but also peer-to-peer recognition. We felt it was important to allow everyone to be part of building recognition culture. And we also wanted a system that was easy to use and fun. Kudos met both those criteria.
Kudos: Did you have any challenges implementing your Kudos program? If so, how did you address them?
Delphine: This year went pretty smoothly. Whenever I had an issue, the Kudos concierge team was extremely prompt to respond and always very nice about it.
Kudos: Does Kudos help promote your corporate values? How?
Delphine: I think Kudos really helps us promote our core attitudes (available, reliable, attentive) thanks to the values that users can choose when sending Kudos messages. Every message highlights core values and key characteristics we want to reinforce and keep top of mind. As well, the reporting features also allow us to see which of the values were most often given and why.
Kudos: Would you recommend Kudos to other companies?
Delphine: Absolutely! I think every company would benefit from such a program.
We would like to thank Delphine for sharing AXA Assistance USA’s amazing story and sharing with our other clients and friends what AXA is doing to engage and reward their team. To learn more about AXA’s services and culture you can visit them here.
Kudos® is an employee engagement, culture, and analytics platform, that harnesses the power of peer-to-peer recognition, values reinforcement, and open communication to help organizations boost employee engagement, reduce turnover, improve culture, and drive productivity and performance. Kudos® uses unique proprietary methodologies to deliver essential people analytics on culture, performance, equity, and inclusion, providing organizations with deep insights and a clear understanding of their workforce.
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