Employee engagement

Eyes on the prize: Why customizing Bonusly improves participation

Maja Orsic
March 4, 2020
0min

If you're saving up to install a state-of-the-art sound system in your car, I'd venture a guess that music is really important to you. 👨‍🎤🎶

By launching Bonusly, your organization is demonstrating a commitment to employee recognition and making sure everyone feels included and appreciated. After all, people tend to invest in the things they care about.

Keep reading to find out how you can customize Bonusly to fit with your organization's brand and company culture and why customizations have a major impact on program adoption. 🎨🔥

Settings customizations

Bonusly-Hogwarts-customized--01

Appearance of the Bonusly app and widget

New HR initiatives are often met with resistance, which is why it's so important for Bonusly to be fun and easy to use. You can reduce new tech friction by customizing the appearance of your Bonusly app and widget so they’re consistent with your organization’s branding.

When you opt for a custom color scheme using your organization’s brand colors and logo, Bonusly will feel more like a homegrown recognition program than a third-party service. 👯‍♀️ That way, Bonusly will seem familiar to people even if it's new to them!

Branding of automated emails

Once you’ve got the appearance of your Bonusly app and widget customized with your brand colors and logo, all it takes is one click to apply your custom color scheme to Bonusly notification emails. By doing that, you'll create a consistently branded Bonusly experience for your employees across all channels.

Custom currency

Getting creative with what you call your Bonusly currency is another quick change that can strengthen the connection between Bonusly and your brand. Chobani, for instance, calls its Bonusly custom currency "Cups." Dribbble calls its Bonusly custom currency "dribbbpoints." 🏀

Look closely at the previous image to see what I chose to call Hogwarts' Bonusly custom currency. Hint: it's something yummy that all witches and wizards love!  🍫🐸

Company Value Hashtags

Do your employees know your company's core values off the top of their heads?

By adding your company's core values to Bonusly as Company Value Hashtags and encouraging (or requiring) people to add core value hashtags to the bonuses they give, everyone will start to see your values in action and gain a richer understanding of what your abstract values mean in practice.

Hogwarts-Values

Rewards and Awards customization

Custom Rewards

Custom Rewards that are specific to your organization and account for your employees’ unique desires can boost program participation and become a real point of pride. Look no further than this tweet about one of Dribbble's custom rewards to see how Custom Rewards can prompt people to share their positive experiences with Bonusly with their social networks and boost your employer brand in the process.

What a meeting! Our team pooled together their @bonusly points to get @simplebits to lead the @dribbble all-hands call as his muppet persona. I'm in tears and my face hurts from smiling. 😂 pic.twitter.com/Ufr4xSxXhF

— Zack Onisko (@zack415) August 23, 2018

To read more about Custom Rewards and learn how they can help your organization be more inclusive, check out this piece.

Claimable and Manual Awards

There are templates for Claimable and Manual Awards that can help you run HR initiatives more smoothly, but you can also create Claimable and Manual Awards from scratch to promote your organization's unique cultural values.

Hogwarts-Quidditch-Cup-Award

Is volunteering especially important to your company? Create an award for it! Are you running a new recycling and composting program at your office? Create an award for it! The extra effort you put in to tailor your Claimable and Manual Awards to your organization will be worth it.

Automated Award messages

The last customization idea I'll share here is pretty lightweight but very impactful.

Change the default messages for the Welcome, Work Anniversary, and Birthday Awards to amplify your company's traditions. If you usually celebrate birthdays in the office with cookies and milk, mention that in your Birthday award message! 🥛🍪 

Bonusly-Hogwarts-Birthday-Award


By connecting online interactions to things that happen offline, you can make these day-to-day experiences richer and more meaningful. At the same time, you can also accommodate everyone's personal preferences. Bonusly admins can easily make award bonuses private since not everyone feels comfortable celebrating their birthdays at work.

 

What else?

We've always built customization options into Bonusly so that the interactions your employees have with Bonusly add to their experience with your organization as an employer, but we certainly haven't thought of everything. What other customization options would you like us to add to Bonusly? Let us know in the comments. We’re all ears! 👂👂

Speaking of customization, Bonusly demos are personalized for your needs. We've consulted with HR folks at veterinary clinics, startups, and investment firms, to name a few, and we'd love to help you figure out how to improve the employee experience at your organization! 💚 Get started:

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If you're saving up to install a state-of-the-art sound system in your car, I'd venture a guess that music is really important to you. 👨‍🎤🎶

By launching Bonusly, your organization is demonstrating a commitment to employee recognition and making sure everyone feels included and appreciated. After all, people tend to invest in the things they care about.

Keep reading to find out how you can customize Bonusly to fit with your organization's brand and company culture and why customizations have a major impact on program adoption. 🎨🔥

Settings customizations

Bonusly-Hogwarts-customized--01

Appearance of the Bonusly app and widget

New HR initiatives are often met with resistance, which is why it's so important for Bonusly to be fun and easy to use. You can reduce new tech friction by customizing the appearance of your Bonusly app and widget so they’re consistent with your organization’s branding.

When you opt for a custom color scheme using your organization’s brand colors and logo, Bonusly will feel more like a homegrown recognition program than a third-party service. 👯‍♀️ That way, Bonusly will seem familiar to people even if it's new to them!

Branding of automated emails

Once you’ve got the appearance of your Bonusly app and widget customized with your brand colors and logo, all it takes is one click to apply your custom color scheme to Bonusly notification emails. By doing that, you'll create a consistently branded Bonusly experience for your employees across all channels.

Custom currency

Getting creative with what you call your Bonusly currency is another quick change that can strengthen the connection between Bonusly and your brand. Chobani, for instance, calls its Bonusly custom currency "Cups." Dribbble calls its Bonusly custom currency "dribbbpoints." 🏀

Look closely at the previous image to see what I chose to call Hogwarts' Bonusly custom currency. Hint: it's something yummy that all witches and wizards love!  🍫🐸

Company Value Hashtags

Do your employees know your company's core values off the top of their heads?

By adding your company's core values to Bonusly as Company Value Hashtags and encouraging (or requiring) people to add core value hashtags to the bonuses they give, everyone will start to see your values in action and gain a richer understanding of what your abstract values mean in practice.

Hogwarts-Values

Rewards and Awards customization

Custom Rewards

Custom Rewards that are specific to your organization and account for your employees’ unique desires can boost program participation and become a real point of pride. Look no further than this tweet about one of Dribbble's custom rewards to see how Custom Rewards can prompt people to share their positive experiences with Bonusly with their social networks and boost your employer brand in the process.

What a meeting! Our team pooled together their @bonusly points to get @simplebits to lead the @dribbble all-hands call as his muppet persona. I'm in tears and my face hurts from smiling. 😂 pic.twitter.com/Ufr4xSxXhF

— Zack Onisko (@zack415) August 23, 2018

To read more about Custom Rewards and learn how they can help your organization be more inclusive, check out this piece.

Claimable and Manual Awards

There are templates for Claimable and Manual Awards that can help you run HR initiatives more smoothly, but you can also create Claimable and Manual Awards from scratch to promote your organization's unique cultural values.

Hogwarts-Quidditch-Cup-Award

Is volunteering especially important to your company? Create an award for it! Are you running a new recycling and composting program at your office? Create an award for it! The extra effort you put in to tailor your Claimable and Manual Awards to your organization will be worth it.

Automated Award messages

The last customization idea I'll share here is pretty lightweight but very impactful.

Change the default messages for the Welcome, Work Anniversary, and Birthday Awards to amplify your company's traditions. If you usually celebrate birthdays in the office with cookies and milk, mention that in your Birthday award message! 🥛🍪 

Bonusly-Hogwarts-Birthday-Award


By connecting online interactions to things that happen offline, you can make these day-to-day experiences richer and more meaningful. At the same time, you can also accommodate everyone's personal preferences. Bonusly admins can easily make award bonuses private since not everyone feels comfortable celebrating their birthdays at work.

 

What else?

We've always built customization options into Bonusly so that the interactions your employees have with Bonusly add to their experience with your organization as an employer, but we certainly haven't thought of everything. What other customization options would you like us to add to Bonusly? Let us know in the comments. We’re all ears! 👂👂

Speaking of customization, Bonusly demos are personalized for your needs. We've consulted with HR folks at veterinary clinics, startups, and investment firms, to name a few, and we'd love to help you figure out how to improve the employee experience at your organization! 💚 Get started:

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