Thales uses continuous recognition to involve age-diverse workforce and achieve an engagement score of 72%

Thales researches, develops, manufactures and supplies technology within the Aerospace & Defense sectors. The organization employ 6,700 employees across 46 sites across the UK and have a mostly online workforce.

The challenge

In 2014, Thales’ annual people survey highlighted that employees didn’t think saying “thank you” was part of the Thales culture, with managers, in particular, feeling that they didn’t have the discretion to reward their employees for going the extra mile. To combat this, Thales put together a project team to implement a robust recognition offering which would link with organizational behaviors and business performance.

At Thales, 41% of employees were over the age 50 - appealing to all demographics was key

One of the biggest challenges facing the team was designing a program that would engage employees across the entirety of their workforce which includes multiple and remote sites, shift workers, and offline employees. At the time, according to the CIPD, 30% of the average workforce in the UK was over 50, whereas, at Thales, 41% were over the age of 50. Any recognition offering had to appeal to people of all ages.

The team carried out research and benchmarked against other companies to understand their approach. This was used to build the strategy and approach which would best fit their culture. From the outset, the team knew they would need to build a platform which was accessible and appealing to all, with the team’s vision for it to provide tools and understanding to drive Thales values and desired behaviors. Thales’ team turned to Reward Gateway, who already provided their employee discounts, to take their shared workforce understanding and turn the project into a tangible recognition offering.

The approach

Working with Reward Gateway, the team implemented a branded recognition hub which provides a “Recognition Toolkit” – a central area to educate employees on the importance of recognizing colleagues and how they could do so. Key to the design of the hub was the focus on Thales’ values and behaviors, and how they help the business achieve its goals. To further encourage employees to interact, the recognition branding broke from the traditional Thales brand and used a bold, colorful design to encourage excitement.

Within the recognition scheme, the team deployed a range of eCards which employees can send to each other at any time and from any device. With the eCards tailored to match Thales new recognition design, they covered simple sentiments such as Thank You and Congratulations, and also linked to desired behaviors. InstantAwards™ were introduced to allow Thales managers to reward their employees who go the extra mile with a monetary award. The team chose three levels – Bronze ($15), Silver ($30) and Gold ($65) – with the awards linked to Thales’ desired behaviors. Employees can then redeem their reward at their retailer of choice through the recognition hub.

Thales’ team also introduced the “Above and Beyond Awards” allowing employees and teams to nominate colleagues across five categories which are aligned to Thales’ values. Those who win receive a $325 voucher which can be redeemed at their chosen retailer on the hub and teams who win can celebrate with a group activity of their choice up to the value of $130 per person.

The results

The next annual people survey revealed the true success of the program. At the time of launching the recognition hub, the team saw their UK engagement score increased to 62%, and a year later it rose even further to 72%. On top of that, 60% of employees are now actively using the recognition hub compared to 43% in the previous year.

Since the team launched the hub, over 2,500 eCards have been sent with the most popular being their “Thank You” eCard. They’ve also seen great success with the manager led monetary awards and over 3,200 of them have been sent since launch. Over a third of employees have had the joy of receiving a monetary award and in the last year, the team have seen the amount of monetary awards sent by managers increase by 57%.

There’s been a strong uptake with the “Above and Beyond Awards,” too. Employees have nominated 455 colleagues, with 370 employees being winners for their contributions either as an individual or team. To take this to the next level, the team are monitoring trends across the business to find ways in which they can improve the offering and further celebrate the success of those working at Thales.