How our peer-to-peer bonus program delivered on our values

“It was a really crazy week,” recalled Sammy, a sales account executive at Poll Everywhere.

It all started when the customer support team unexpectedly lost a senior representative right before the single busiest time of the year. Calls and tickets were expected to double – and there simply weren’t enough people to pick up the phones.

sammy-48862110f9d439e9bb8af0f9de53f629Sammy, along with her fellow sales reps, joined the account managers, ops team, and engineers to answer calls and write emails addressing user questions. Together, they responded to twice the number of inquiries – with a shorter average wait time – than normal. It was an impressive feat.

After the dust settled, Sammy looked in her inbox and found a surprise: her first peer-to-peer award. The CS team wanted to thank her for her tremendous help during that rough week.

“I loved it!” Sammy said. “It felt really nice to be appreciated and recognized for the extra work I was putting in.”

 

Of course, peer bonuses aren’t the reason people at Poll Everywhere help each other out. That’s part of who we are as individuals and as a company. Having a way to recognize that support underscores our commitment to it.

In fact, our peer-to-peer program (powered by Gift Rocket) was specifically designed to reflect our commitment to core parts of our cultural values:

>> One company (or, in fancier terms, “cross-functional company cohesion”): So much of the value we can provide for our presenters and their audiences is because of our ability to work together.

>> Autonomy to act like an owner: We trust people. There is no authorization system, no approvals. Just transparency. Everybody in the company gets an email that says who sent what, who received what, and why.

>> Professional growth: We deeply value professional and personal growth. Peer-to-peer bonuses facilitate the type of immediate and specific feedback that is necessary for that growth to occur. The recognition you receive is based on the impact you had.

Did the peer bonus program work?

We tried our peer-to-peer program for a year and then analyzed the data to see the results. Remember that we put no oversight on the recognition program – no rules – so we didn’t know quite what to expect. The numbers here reflect real employee choice and real employee initiative.

Way for remote employees to feel integrated

Remote employees – those working outside our main headquarters – disproportionately gave peer-to-peer bonuses. About a third of our company works remotely, yet “remotes” (as they’re fondly called) gave 66% of all bonuses.

Who gave and received peer bonuses by whether they worked locally or remotely
Employees working remotely gave the majority of the peer bonuses despite comprising just one third of the total workforce.

Rare and special recognition for an individual employee

Of the individuals who’ve ever received a peer-to-peer bonus: 71% have only received one, and no one received more than four. This wide spread aligns with our goal that bonuses be for above-and-beyond recognition.

Number of peer bonuses received by individual employees
Of the employees that had received a peer bonus, 71% received just one, suggesting they were in fact for extraordinary impact.

Cross-functional collaboration

Nearly all functional teams have received at least one peer bonus. The top four teams by frequency make sense given the degree to which their work supports other teams. No one sent a peer bonus to their own functional team, which means that 100% of peer-to-peer bonuses were cross-functional. Cross-company collaboration success!

Frequency of peer bonuses received by team
The most rewarded teams were those that generally supported others’ work. No team gave their own teammate a peer bonus.

Peer bonuses benefit company culture – and individual employees

It’s really nice to be appreciated.

“When I received the peer bonus, I felt surprised and appreciated – surprised because I felt like I was just doing my job, being a team member. At the same time, it was nice to know in a tangible way that other people on the team appreciated my effort,” said Brad, a member of the engineering team. He joined a project team midstream, and ended up staying on to do all the clean-up work long after the last person had rolled off.

No one helps each other expecting a bonus, or even official recognition. But being able to surface these acts of individual heroism says that we value them and the people who perform them. It helps make Poll Everywhere a nice place to work.

Ultimately, though, our users are the ones that benefit most. Our collaboration across functions and across teams ensures their needs are first and that we continue to deliver an amazing product every day.

Let us know in the comments below if you have any questions regarding what we did.