In our first post recapping our thorough interview with Reward Gateway client Copart UK, we discussed the successful launch and build of its reward and recognition, communications and benefits portal, Copart Rewards.
After such a strong start though, one of the questions I field most often as a Client Success Manager is: How do we keep the momentum of our program going? The team at Copart UK is no stranger to this challenge, but I’m excited to share with you their roster of ideas that continually fuel programs and engagement.
I’m so pleased to see that you had such a successful launch, but I know it can be difficult to keep the excitement going past the first few months post-launch. How are you continually evolving the program for your people?
Leann Carroll: I think… if you want buy-in for something that’s quite a big change, if [employees] feel involved, then they are engaged in the beginning. And so when they see their ideas come to life, we would tell them the ideas we got from everybody and what we’ve implemented. And [we] thanked them for that, then that was enough.
After launch, we involved the employees through our survey tool on the platform. So we asked for new ideas, [and] we got quite a lot that way, and we implemented some of them. Obviously, my previous experience with Reward Gateway [plays in], and I attended [Reward Gateway Live] last year, and the Summit, so I got a lot of ideas from there. I came away from this event with a notebook full of ideas that other people had given. And Debra Corey [...] did a session on reward and recognition, and I took ideas from her books, too.
I thought to myself, how are we going to get people on there on day one? So we use the recognition from the eCards, and we actually welcome them on their first day, which helps draw employees to the platform from day one.
How have you managed to maintain a balance between non-monetary and monetary reward and recognition as your strategy evolves?
So we already had the financial [recognition], [but] there was nothing non-financial – or if there was, it wasn’t visible. Receiving a reward, for anybody, is good, but actually being recognized or receiving something from somebody that doesn’t cost anything, I think, means a lot more. And one of our values is “celebrate our people” – which we did do, but not publicly. So you wouldn’t know that someone’s just celebrated their fifth year or [that] it was their birthday.
We have a dedicated hub for our communication and recognition [now]. So anything that we would blog on there, anything that anybody’s done within the business – and actually, [those posts] receive the highest views for us, so we know that people are looking at it. So they are seeing that we are celebrating what people are doing, and they’re able to engage: They comment, heart emojis, thumbs up – so it’s very interactive.
How can you extend recognition to other parts of your people strategy?
Our corporate social responsibility strategy is called ‘Copart Cares.’ And we actually have a dedicated hub that will have anything to do with our corporate social responsibility. Any recognition, we plant a tree with the employee’s name, so we have a virtual Copart forest. And you can actually see that forest, and you can click on the tree, and it tells you where it’s planted, and in the name of which employee. And we have an HGV driver academy that we launched [at the] beginning of last year, as well. And every time someone becomes a qualified driver, we plant a tree for them.
How has enabling employee engagement technology changed your corporate culture?
As well as trying to embed our values, we wanted to see a change in culture, and we are still on that journey. There’s a lot that we are doing – we’re rebranding internally, as well as the platform. But we can see the change in culture. And like the feedback that we’ve received from the managers saying, overnight, it’s changed: We see people having fun at work. They’re doing quizzes, lunches, sharing the pictures we’ve asked for to put on the blog, so that everybody else can see. People are interacting and liking them, and then they’re following [the blog].
What’s the story behind your rebranding?
When we first launched it, I implemented it. I had to rely on Reward Gateway’s marketing and design team to help me. But it was just a very flat, static homepage, so everything was just on there. It started to get really busy. So we now have separate hubs: We’ve got the Copart Cares; we’ve got the benefits; and we’ve got the discount hub. We’ve got the communication and recognition hub, and it’s a lot easier to navigate around. We have a section around information on where to get your payslip from, so there’s just general information on there as well as the interactive stuff.
What does Copart do regarding employee feedback?
I got this from [Reward Gateway Live] last year: We’ve created a section called ‘Ask our CEO.’ So everybody is encouraged to ask a question and our CEO will respond… and we actually advertise them on the blog. So people know that their requests, or their questions, or their ideas are being looked at. Some of them we can implement, some of them are a bit more difficult to respond to. But we are responding to [their] questions on a weekly basis.
You’ve mentioned that this is a continuous evolution for Copart within reward and recognition. What’s next and what changes are you most proud of?
We are at 96% engagement now. I wanted that in the first week – but we did have over 50% in the first two weeks.
The peer-to-peer recognition is probably one of my most favorite areas, because if you’re recognizing one of your peers, is a bit like player’s player – that’s really important to people. It makes people feel good.
Whether you’re just getting started on your employee engagement journey or haven’t stepped foot on the track yet, reach out to one of our friendly experts to schedule a conversation and see how Reward Gateway can help your corner of the world become a better place to work.
