Building a Culture of Employee Recognition

Earlier this month, we hosted over 1,500 employees from our offices around the world at our annual Sales Kickoff (SKO) event. The uniqueness of this event and the focus on our team was a terrific illustration for me of what makes Genesys a great place to work: our people and our amazing culture.

We have some of the brightest, most innovative and dedicated employees in the customer experience (CX) industry. And it’s our unique community that keeps so many of them at Genesys for so long. For the five years I’ve been here, we’ve had below industry average turnover, even during times of massive change. I attribute this to the core tenets of who we are.

At Genesys, we agree that our work environment should be one where:

• We proactively recognize one another’s achievements.
• Employees take personal responsibility for their work and behavior.
• Managers listen and acknowledge both wins AND misses (because let’s be honest, it’s often the failures we learn the most from).
• Executive leaders are approachable, honest and sincere.

Giving credit where credit is due

One of the best things about Genesys is our affinity for peer-driven recognition. We’ve provided many opportunities for employees to recognize the outstanding work everyone is doing. An example of this is our Impact Awards. Announced at SKO, this honor offers our employees an opportunity to nominate their peers for truly making a positive impact at Genesys and beyond. We recognized both business and humanitarian efforts of those employees who give back to the world in which we live – because while work is important, we know that there are more important things in life.

Genesys Impact Award Winners
Top: Pushpa Ramachandran; Left: Alberta Boakye, Bill Hand; Middle: Alice Deer; Right: Gildas Cherruel

Tone from the top

A great culture of recognition takes a team of leaders, managers, and employees who care – and who recognize employees for their contributions. A simple ‘thank you’ goes a long way – and most often, those messages of gratitude mean the most.

At Genesys, it’s not uncommon for an employee to get an email or phone call directly from our President Tom Eggemeier, sharing a thoughtful and specific message of gratitude. Our employees regularly pay it forward in the form of natural peer recognition as well as through our Genesys Customer Innovation Awards recognition program.

When employees know they are appreciated, they actively champion one another, resulting in a virtuous cycle of people who strive to continue to do their best work and to do well by their team — and by the business.

Engagement means commitment

Our best practices are supported by Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report, which points out that “engaged employees produce better business outcomes than other employees -across industry, company size and nationality, and in good economic times and bad.”

The Gallup report also noted that engaged employees are more than twice as likely to remain in their jobs and are more likely to refer friends and family. These positive factors can mean a reduced need for recruiting, hiring and training investment for the business. In addition, Gallup found that engaged employees foster higher customer engagement levels, which leads to increased customer loyalty. As a company focused on customer experience, we recognize how closely connected happy employees are to happy customers.

And isn’t that what it’s all about? Creating a workplace environment that encourages employees to bring their whole self to work, makes them feel connected to the company’s goals and drives them to take great care of customers? We think so. That’s why we work tirelessly to do our best to maintain a culture that makes work rewarding, engaging and fun. And that’s a big reason Genesys has been named a top place to work by the likes of the San Francisco Business Times, Silicon Valley Business Journal and Glassdoor.

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