Industry:
Finance
Number of employees:
13,400
Number of locations:
250
Platform features:
Employee recognition, employee communications, employee discounts
The challenge
With a new vision and business model to communicate to the large organization, Suncorp recognized the importance of looking at what behaviors and values were being recognized and rewarded across the business. Each of Suncorp’s 11 business units were running unique reward and recognition programs and, while tailored to their needs, didn’t reflect the new “One Suncorp” business model and newly launched behaviors. “There was quite a bit of inconsistency of what was being recognized, and how different behaviors were being rewarded,” Torsten Becht, Suncorp’s Executive Manager - Benefits, says. Torsten knew that to properly communicate and embed the company purpose, mission and values, he needed to engage buy-in across the business and take them on a change journey.
“We had to engage with the people who were really invested in those individual programs, and show them that we wanted to bring everything together without losing what was working really well.”
The approach
Suncorp’s change journey had two distinct elements. The first was identifying people within the business who would play a role in the project’s success. They created a steering committee that was key to driving change. The second was selecting a provider who could work with Suncorp as its change journey progressed and business needs evolved.
“The starting point for us was to find the right platform that would enable us to accommodate some of the nuances in different programs in the short term but also was then also able to bring all that together in a single program,” Torsten explains.
Reward Gateway was chosen because it was adaptable and able to be personalized, and provided transparency and access to a wide range of dollar-for-dollar perks and rewards in a single hub. This saved program administrators and employees both time and money and allowed Suncorp to position the rewards as critical parts of the organization's Employee Value Proposition.
Using feedback from the steering committee, Torsten worked with Reward Gateway to develop a single recognition program for the entire business. Suncorp launched its company-wide recognition program, Shine, in 2016 with a uniquely simple recognition and reward framework. Employees now have a single eCard that they can send to recognize anyone at any time, and can also nominate each other for quarterly or annual awards which go through an approval process and are awarded in Suncorp’s different business functions.
“We really focused on the peer-to-peer recognition, and made an active decision to not have it look like it was something that was being driven down from the top of the organization,” Torsten says. “The awards are directly linked to our vision, strategic priorities and the Suncorp Compass.”
The results
Employees use the Shine program to send a staggering 76,000 eCards every year, and receive an average of 200 nominations for company awards each month. Shine is now a critical part in the Suncorp employee experience, and something they take pride in promoting on a regular basis. “It is something we promote as part of our Employee Value Proposition; in the recruitment process we talk about Shine as an important part of what we do,” Torsten says. "We do a lot of communication, whether that’s through the CEO’s all- employee email, blogs, celebrations, photos, the intranet or stories online.”
Even at the senior management level there is a strong commitment to recognition and to making sure Shine is front of mind. “It’s proved really valuable because it’s made it so easy for people to just say thank you to anyone for anything. The simplicity of the program, the direct alignment of the recognition to what we’re doing in the organization has been really successful.”
