AFCU had a bi-annual bonus program that required a great deal of effort from many people to execute. While the high-touch program was what AFCU wanted, many employees had begun to work remotely—and the bonus program had to adapt. AFCU turned to Awardco to create something wonderful.
Thankfully AFCU had implemented Awardco in October 2019 for their service award programs. The launch of their service award program had been so successful that AFCU approached Awardco to see if there was any way to use Awardco to facilitate the semi-annual bonus program. Awardco came up with a unique digital solution within a matter of days, and rolled it out to AFCU’s entire workforce within two weeks.
"After COVID hit we had over 1800 employees go remote. Our HQ campus became a ghost town. We couldn’t do the high touch thing anymore, but still wanted to engage our workforce,” says Jodi Gonzales, HR manager at AFCU. “Because of the nature of remote work we didn’t even know which employees were where, and there was no way we could use our old system of bi-annual distribution. We had gotten so much positive feedback with our service anniversary program that we reached out to Awardco to see if they could do something to help us with our bonus program.”
In working with Awardco, AFCU not only adapted to current circumstances to facilitate their bonus program, but they saved incredible amounts of administration time and logistical headaches, too. Whereas before an entire department would have to stop work for a day just to complete the bonus program twice a year, now with Awardco the entire program could be managed by two people in just a few hours. Managers still connect through personal messages, bonuses are still distributed, and employees still receive the high-touch treatment—all digitally through Awardco.
AFCU’s implementation of Awardco has been so well received across the board that additional employee recognition programs have begun, such as a spot recognition initiative that gives out gift cards for those that go above and beyond.
“Before Awardco we had no idea how many gift cards were going out or when, but now we have real-time budgetary updates. It’s been a game changer.” - Jodi Gonzales, HR Manager, AFCU