How Kudos Works

We often get asked, “how does Kudos work?”

Kudos is employee recognition software, and it works by giving your people a simple way to send a recognition message (with or without points attached), that is tagged to company values, shared on a company-wide feed, and tracked over time.  

That's the recognition loop: recognize, reinforce, redeem, report.  

Kudos runs on that loop, but the details of how each layer is designed, is what makes us unique.

The entire Kudos platform is designed to support our Vision: To unlock human potential by making contributions visible, valued and connected to lasting personal and organizational success.

So, here's how Kudos works — layer by layer.

It starts with a recognition message

First, let’s quickly get some tech-language out of the way (our Kudos Platform Glossary will help too!):

• Users: Every person in your organization who will be using Kudos.  

• Managers: Anyone in your org who has direct reports.

• Admins: These are the people who will have complete access and permissions to everything in your Kudos platform. They are the people managing your Kudos program, or senior leaders who want extra visibility into reporting and results.

And yes, we help set all that up! Now, let’s talk about how recognition works in Kudos.  

Every recognition moment in Kudos begins the same way: someone clicks Recognize someone, picks a person, group of people, or team, and writes a message. That's it. There's no approval queue standing between the thought and the send.

A few things happen when that message goes out:

• Recognition can come from anyone. Peer-to-peer, manager-to-peer, or company-wide.

• You can attach points, or not. Points are always optional in Kudos, and dependent on if you have Kudos Rewards (more on that later). A message with zero points is still a full recognition post — visible, values-tagged, and countable in reports.  

• Recognition gets tagged to a value. For every message, the sender must select values or qualities, like "Ownership," "Collaboration," "Timely,” that reflects the recognition (like a hashtag). This one field is what turns a wall of nice messages into a dataset about which behaviors are showing up in your org.

• The AI Recognition Assistant is there. For the person staring at a blank text box — perhaps there’s a language barrier, or it's 4:45pm on Friday, or they're just not a "words person" — the AI Assistant turns a rough idea into a clear, specific message with one click, and even helps suggest which qualities to tag.  

📓 Helpful resource: Lack of recognition is now the #2 driver of work-related stress (Deloitte, 2026). This is why orgs need to invest in recognition software, and why Kudos exists. Read more → Deloitte's 2026 Gen Z & Millennial Survey: 8 Takeaways for HR Leaders

How points and rewards work

Kudos is an employee recognition and rewards platform, but Kudos Rewards are always optional. You can run Kudos as:

1. Recognition plus all other features, or

2. Recognition + rewards, and all other features.

If you decide to have recognition + rewards, then this is where points are involved.

Think of this as pre-allocated point buckets tied to certain features in the platform:  

• Peer-to-peer recognition: Points are sent with recognition messages.  

• Awards: Points are attached to awards.

• Birthday and anniversary celebrations: Points can be included with an eCard.

• Incentive campaigns: Points are given when an incentive is completed.

Example: When a manager gives an award, it draws from that program's Point Bank, not from their own personal point allowance. That distinction is what empowers a manager to award exceptional performance without triggering an expense report. Point Banks also keep things accessible to managers who have large teams.

If you choose not to use rewards, then there are simply no points displayed or used in the Kudos application.

Points themselves have no cash value until an employee redeems them. That one rule is where your budgeting conversations will come in. Unused or expired points don't cost your org anything.  

Redeeming a reward: Employees browse the Rewards Catalog (gift cards, merchandise, travel, experiences, charitable giving, or company swag) and check out using their point balance.  

Your org decides what points-to-currency ratio you would like (a 10:1 ratio is the most common setup) and can set points to expire annually, quarterly, or never, which is one of the few levers that meaningfully controls year-over-year reward spend.

📓 Helpful resource: See how a rewards budget breaks down by industry → Building Your Recognition & Rewards Budget (PDF)

Where recognition lives once it's sent

A recognition message doesn't disappear into a private inbox. It appears on the homepage, where anyone can react, comment, or endorse the message. Just like a social media channel, this is a scrollable feed where anyone in the organization can view and engage with recognition posts.

From there, the message will live in a few more places:

• KudosTV: A live feed of recognition messages on office screens or digital signage, with QR codes so someone walking by can engage with the message on their mobile device.

• Profile: Everyone has their own profile where their recognition (sent + received), and awards and cards received, all live in one place.  

• Kudos Reporting: Every recognition message (sender, recipient, value tagged, points awarded, message content) creates a data record, and appears in your Kudos Reports that admins can use to monitor program performance.

This is the visibility part of recognition that is critical. By facilitating recognition often and showcasing it to keep it visible, you motivate more of the behaviors and values you want to see in your team.

How Kudos supports managers

Kudos surfaces team recognition directly on the manager's homepage. The "Your recognition at a glance" shows exactly how many of their direct reports they've recognized in the last 30 days.  

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Managers have additional access to certain programs (features) in Kudos, to allow recognition to happen more freely and to alleviate workload from admins:  

• Celebrations: Managers can create and distribute awards and eCards (for birthdays, anniversaries and onboarding) and receive weekly email reminders of the team’s upcoming celebrations.

• Engagement Report: To review key KPIs (e.g. activation, participation, reach), identify low-activity team members, and track trends.  

• Manager Leaderboard: Managers can see how they compare with other managers in your company.

How recognition becomes data

Just like any other tool, the activity in your Kudos platform is tracked and measured through Kudos Reporting. It's the difference between "we think our culture is good" and being able to show why.

The reports for your data serve three different audiences:

• HR and People Leaders: To prove your program's value to leadership with actual numbers instead of a survey score.

• Finance and Operations: To forecast reward costs from unredeemed point balances, and to audit spend by category and currency.

• Managers: To see who on their team is going unrecognized and how their own recognition habits stack up against other managers.

Here’s all the reports available through Kudos Reporting:

How Kudos increases engagement

This is where all the other features in the Kudos platform come in:

• Celebrations & Cards: Anyone can create an eCard and distribute it to be signed. These are also automated for birthdays and anniversaries, so no milestone gets missed.

• Awards: Whether it’s recognizing top performers or awarding the winner of the Halloween costume contest, Awards in Kudos are quick and easy to set up.

• Nominations: Configure nomination windows, assign reviewers, and automatically deliver awards to selected winners — without leaving the platform.

• Spaces: A dedicated hub inside the Kudos platform where any internal community can exist (ERGS, wellness groups, company events, hobbies & interests.) Each Space has its own feed where people can attach Albums and pin, comment and react to posts.  

• Incentives: Launch challenges you want your teams to complete (security training, completing an eNPS survey, sending more recognition). Incentives can be set for certain groups, scheduled, and proof of completion (optional) is captured right in the platform for easy review.  

• Announcements: Segment, schedule, pin, track, and save templates for all your important internal communications. Announcements appear in an Upcoming & Important section that sits at the top of the homepage.

Your entire company culture exists in one platform. Engagement is happening organically in Kudos.  

Recognition is being sent, a card is being signed, a summer walking challenge winner is being awarded, a Spotify playlist is being added in a Space, an Amazon gift card is being redeemed...

That’s engagement happening naturally in the culture you’ve designed. It’s not forced, it’s not mandatory. It’s real.

Mobile application and deskless workers

Your entire workforce can participate in recognition, whether they work at a desk, on a factory floor, or in the field.

For deskless workers: Admins can generate sign-up codes (instead of company emails), so deskless workers can log in using their Employee ID, for example, instead of an email.

Kudos is also available on all mobile devices, so the Kudos experience can happen anywhere, anytime.

How Kudos connects to everything else

We know that none of this works if it lives in a tool people must remember to open.  

The last layer is integration: Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Outlook let people send and see recognition in Kudos without leaving the place they're already working in.

HRIS platforms (Workday, BambooHR, ADP, UKG, Paylocity, and 50+ others) sync employee data automatically, so your org chart inside Kudos never drifts out of date.  

SSO, OAuth, and SAML handle login through whatever identity provider your company already uses, so security stays top-of-mind.

What to expect when partnering with us

We’re committed to helping you achieve your culture goals. Here’s what you can expect from the first call to the first 90-days after onboarding:

1. We’ll start by getting to know your needs and discussing if and how our platform can help.

2. Based on your requirements, we’ll provide you with a detailed proposal outlining the scope of the program.

3. From the very first call, you’ll receive expert advice and guidance on how to drive real results using our best practices.

4. We’ll assist you with every aspect of designing, setting up, and launching your recognition program with a recommended 6 – 8-week schedule (we can fast track if needed).

5. We’ll regularly check in with you to make sure your program is on track and provide you with continued support. Our Client Success Teams are always available to answer any questions you may have.  

Watch a live demo of Kudos

If you're curious about what the Kudos platform looks like and want to see it in action, you can watch a recording of our product demo (quick form, then it's yours!)

Frequently Asked Questions

How does employee recognition software actually work?

It gives employees a simple way to send recognition that's tagged to a company value, optionally paired with points, and tracked over time. The recognition message itself is instant; the value comes from the pattern it builds across an organization.

Do employees need points to use Kudos?

No. Points are optional in Kudos. A recognition message with zero points is still fully counted, visible, and tagged to a value — many organizations run programs specifically without a points component.

What happens to unused or expired points?

Points have no monetary value until redeemed, so unused or expired points don't create a liability or cost anything. Organizations typically see about 60% of allocated points redeemed in a given year.

How does Kudos help managers recognize their teams consistently?

The homepage shows each manager their recognition activity over the last 30 days, including which direct reports haven't been recognized yet, with a one-click option to send recognition immediately.

What's the difference between Kudos recognition and Kudos Spaces?

Both are features in the Kudos platform. Sending recognition is the sole purpose of Kudos. Kudos Spaces is a community hub inside the platform where common interest groups, ERGs, wellness communities, etc, can exist.  

Can Kudos integrate with our existing HR systems?

Yes. Kudos syncs automatically with 50+ HRIS and payroll platforms (Workday, BambooHR, ADP, UKG, Paylocity, and others), plus SSO/SAML/OAuth for login and Slack, Teams, and Outlook for day-to-day use.

Does recognition data actually tie back to business outcomes?

It ties back to the metrics HR and finance already track: engagement, participation, and reach at the program level, plus reward liabilities and redemption spend at the budget level — all pulled from the same underlying recognition data.

Kudos Platform Glossary

Admins: Users with full access and permissions to their Kudos platform, including Point Banks, integrations and user provisioning, all features and programs, rewards catalog, organization-wide reporting, and your platform’s customizable theme. Your organization decides who it would like to have admin-level access, with no limit to number of admin seats.

AI Recognition Assistant: An AI-powered tool built into sending a recognition message that helps a user turn a rough idea into a clear, personalized message with one click.

Albums: Photo and media collections, like event photos, that can be uploaded to a Space. Albums only exist inside Spaces.

Announcements: An internal communications tool with scheduling, audience targeting, and “mark as read” tracking for company-wide news.  

Awards: Formal recognition tied to specific achievements or events, funded through dedicated Point Banks so managers can create and send an award to a team member without administrative friction.

Celebrations: The automated recognition of individual milestones — birthdays, work anniversaries, onboarding — so key moments are never missed or left to manual tracking.

eCards: Digital cards used to celebrate individual milestones — birthdays, work anniversaries, onboarding — that users can sign and add personal messages to.

Employee Recognition and Rewards Platform: Software that helps organizations build a culture of appreciation by combining peer-to-peer and manager recognition, optional points-based rewards, and analytics in one system.

Endorse: A one-click way to add support to someone else's recognition post. A recognition message can be endorsed with or without points.

Engagement Reports: Reporting that shows recognition activity across the organization — participation, reach, activation, and trends over time — used to spot what’s working and what’s falling flat.

Homepage: The central hub for daily activity showing the recognition feed, the Upcoming & Important section for celebrations and announcements, and a personalized user experience.

Incentives: Engagement campaigns designed to drive participation in specific company initiatives (security training, a wellness challenge, completing an eNPS survey), tracked through a claim and approval workflow in the platform.

KudosTV: A live, continuously updated feed of recognition messages displayed on office screens or digital signage, often paired with QR codes so people nearby can engage with the message on their mobile device.

Managers: Users with direct reports (people who report to them), and get additional access to features in Kudos, including Celebrations, Awards & Nominations and their team's Engagement Reports.

Manager Leaderboard: A ranked view of all managers based on the percentage of their direct reports recognized over a rolling 30-day period.

Nominations: An in-platform workflow for running award nomination programs — submitting, reviewing, and approving peer or manager nominations.

Peer-to-peer recognition: Recognition sent between team members at any level, not just top-down from a manager.

Point Banks: Pre-funded budgets that admins assign to specific programs (like Awards, Incentives, or Celebrations), letting managers give out points without using their own personal allowance or filing an expense report.

Profile: A user's personal page in Kudos displaying their name, a profile photo, title, location, their points-to-give and points-to-redeem, their recognition activity, and cards and awards received. Everyone in the platform can view each other’s profiles to learn more about the person.

Programs: The organized initiatives and features running inside Kudos — Awards, Celebrations, Incentives — each with its own Point Bank, rules, and reporting. Admins have access to manage all programs, while managers and users have selected access. These permissions can be customized to your organization’s needs.

Recognition message: Direct recognition sent in Kudos that appears in the homepage. The receiver of the message will be notified of the recognition message through an email notification, an in-app notification as well as any selected integrations (Slack, Microsoft Teams).  

Reporting: The full suite of dashboards and reports available to admins and managers — covering recognition, rewards, awards, incentives, and engagement in one place. Reports can be customized and downloaded as CSV files or PDFs.  

Rewards: The optional rewards layer of Kudos, where users can redeem their earned points through the rewards catalog.

Rewards Catalog: The configurable selection of items employees can redeem points for, spanning gift cards, merchandise, travel and experiences, charitable giving, and custom company swag.

Sign-up codes: Admins can generate sign-up codes (instead of company emails), so deskless workers can log in using their Employee ID, for example, instead of an email.

Spaces: A social, visual community hub inside Kudos dedicated for groups like ERGs, health and wellness, hobbies and interests, and company events. Each Space has its own feed for posts, and the ability for users to create and upload albums.

Upcoming & Important Section: A dedicated area at the top of the Kudos homepage where upcoming celebrations and company announcements are pinned.

Users: Anyone who is granted access to Kudos within the organization.

Values-tagged recognition: A recognition message connected to one or more of an organization's core values or qualities (e.g., "Ownership," "Collaboration") at the time it's sent.

Your Recognition at a Glance: A small section on the homepage (only visible for managers and admins), showing leaderboard rank and how many direct reports have been recognized in the last 30 days.