Industry:
Automotive, glaziers, electrical, and plumbing
Number of employees:
1,300
Platform features:
Employee recognition and rewards, employee discounts, employee communications
The challenge
After several years utilising Reward Gateway | Edenred's employee engagement platform, discounts, and communications, O'Brien identified a real need to transform how it recognised its people.
Fiona Blaine, Employee Experience Lead at O'Brien, says: "O’Brien has partnered with Reward Gateway | Edenred for several years, and the relationship has evolved from a platform provider to a partner in reshaping our recognition culture. "
This move was prompted by leader and employee feedback, which revealed clear growth opportunities: "Recognition was not being experienced consistently across the organisation, leaders used different approaches, and many employees, particularly in frontline roles, had low awareness of our platform and limited reasons to engage with it."
In 2024, O’Brien decided to improve the employee experience by elevating how its people were recognised and appreciated, especially its dispersed frontline teams.
The approach
In consultation with Reward Gateway | Edenred, the O'Brien team designed the O'thanks recognition program to cultivate a recognition culture across the organisation. The design principles that guided this initiative included:
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Focusing on the recognition experience, specifically on how it feels to be appreciated
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Empowering leaders with easy, flexible ways to recognise
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Keeping recognition frequent, simple, and real-time
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Maximising when and how leaders and team members used the @hO’me employee engagement platform
A core part of this process was developing the distinct O'thanks branding, which made the program feel like a natural extension of the O'Brien brand. To launch this new program to its dispersed teams, O'Brien celebrated with O'thanks launch parties across its locations and teams, while promoting the benefits of the mobile app for quick and easy recognition moments.
To get leaders on board, O'Brien provided clarity on their role and supported them to build a recognition routine. Recognition was embedded into business rhythms including team meetings, monthly Town Halls, and company activities, as well as emphasising the importance of regular peer-to-peer recognition.
The O'Brien team introduced consistent internal communications celebrating service milestones and new starters and leveraged internal communication channels like the staff Facebook page and Microsoft Teams to celebrate and reinforce recognition moments. O'Brien also aligned its recognition program with key employee experience activities, like recognising safety standouts during Safe Work Month.
In conjunction with an ongoing campaign of differentiated recognition moments throughout the year, the O'Brien team were able to encourage strong and sustained engagement with the recognition program.
Fiona says this strategic approach has reaped huge benefits for the business.
“The quality of recognition has improved and more people are being recognised across all areas of our business.”
The results
O'Brien doubled recognition in 2025, compared to 2024, and saw a 3.6x increase in eCard usage across its auto and glazing frontline teams.
Fiona attributes these amazing results to the way the recognition program was designed and rolled out, with the O'Brien team laser-focused on building structure and consistency through custom recognition and routines specific to frontline teams.
The O'Brien team gave leaders ownership over both monetary and non-monetary recognition, empowering them to give recognition in a timely and impactful manner. Monthly updates on spend and progress were provided to help leaders stay engaged and accountable.
The mobile app was also a critical component to this rollout, as its allowed frontline teams to give recognition (and respond to it) on the go. O'Brien also ensured high visibility of O’thanks moments through public celebrations in team forums and across communication channels.
By providing simple, repeatable processes that made it easy for leaders and team members to engage, Fiona says the O'thanks recognition program saw incredible growth over 2024 and 2025.
"Our frontline teams responded exceptionally well because we focused on the experience of recognition, not just the process. This approach helped normalise recognition as an everyday behaviour."
The key takeaways
The impact of centralising and digitising recognition has been transformative for O'Brien.
People now know exactly where to go to recognise others, with clear guidance and support available whenever they need it. Recognition is easy and instant from any device, enabling employees to receive acknowledgements in real time and redeem rewards immediately, all within an accessible hub that also centralises Communications, Employee Experience, and Health, Safety & Wellbeing.
Leaders can recognise achievements on the spot during site visits, peer-to-peer recognition has increased as teams celebrate each other’s efforts more consistently, and “in-the-moment” recognition during shoutouts at Town Halls and team meetings all reinforce timely appreciation across the organisation.
“Our people have strongly engaged with our O’thanks recognition program because it’s simple, fun and accessible for everyone. The ability to customise our @hO’me platform and integrate recognition seamlessly has been a key contributor to the program’s success, particularly in connecting meaningfully with our frontline workforce. Partnering with Reward Gateway | Edenred has helped us build a recognition culture that is consistent, empowering, and impactful. ”