What’s new.
Version 53, release date April 2022
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Birthday recognition
You can now recognise birthdays across the company with the birthdays module. Birthday recognition is available across all plans and can be activated at any time.
To activate automated birthday recognition, go to the More tab and work through the wizard. You can choose from:
In-built messages or add you own - birthday recognition messages are randomly selected when posted
Standard image bank or no images - images are randomly selected when posted
Type or reward - financial or up to three perks for the employee to select from
NOTE: If you opt for perks as a birthday reward, you can choose to issue the perk 7 days prior to the employee’s birthday - ideal if you want to give employees a day off for their birthday.Inclusions or exclusion of contractors
Once set-up is confirmed, automated birthday recognition will be active.
Recognition
New employees can optionally provide their day and month of birth on registration. For employees already registered, they can opt-in on next login:
The system then automatically manages the process.
Where perks are given to employees prior to their birthday, they and their manager will receive an email prior to the day so they can redeem their perk before the big day. On the day, emails are sent to the employee, their manager, and colleagues as well as a post going on the wall.
Reporting
The administration portal shows every birthday recognised.
Birthday recognition details can be viewed and the recognition can be cancelled if needed.
Version 52, release date February 2022
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Documents
We’ve improved management of documents, renaming it ‘Useful Information’ and adding the option for links to connect your recognition program with other employee sites.
In admin, the Document section has moved from the More tab, into settings. From Documents, you can add PDF’s or links to information that supports your program. Document set-up has been simplified to only require a document name and file or link. You no longer need to add a description or thumbnail.
Existing documents will automatically migrate to the new Useful Information format. The location of Useful Information on the home page has not changed, appearing on the left rail:
Version 51, release date February 2022
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Recognition in admin
We have re-designed the way you manage recognition to bring all configurations and settings into one place. This change not only makes set-up and management of recognitions easier, it includes a new and improved interface to give company, departmental and for global programs, country recognitions.
On the Recognition tab, a new table design of all recognitions will display:
Recognitions can be filtered by Date, Company Value, Reporting Group and Status:
When View is selected, the recognition details display with improved insight. You can now see everything about the recognition including all social interactions and any associated reward.
You still have full control to edit the recognition if needed:
To simplify recognition administration, all the recognition configurations previously on the Settings page are now on the Recognitions page.
To update settings, click the cog icon from the Recognitions page:
From here, you can scroll through the tabs to manage all configurations and settings for recognition:
You can also manage all content and settings for the recognition form:
Update your Company Values and reward options:
With this release, the company wide recognition process has been improved to streamline giving company recognition and offer more options. Click on Give Recognition to start the process:
Company recognition can be given to one or multiple employees with the additional option of selecting a department, a country (in global programs) or the whole company - in one click.
Simply complete the form to give company recognition:
Version 50, release date February 2022
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Reactions and Auto-Comments
This release including features that improve the social wall, making it even more interactive and engaging. Employees can now react to recognitions on the wall as well adding personalised comments.
To react to a recognition, hover over the like symbol and a range of emoji ‘reactions’ will appear:
Employees can now also add a quick ‘auto-response’ to the recognition - a pre-written message they can choose in a single click. Additionally, they can write their own personalised comment:
Version 49, release date September 2021
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Registration updates
All employees are required to register when they log into their recognition account for the first time. The registration process has been re-designed to capture all essential information based on your recognition configuration.
First time users will need to create their avatar based on system preferences. They will be prompted to either upload an image or build a custom character:
They will then complete profile details. This page is usually pre-populated with name and email address, the employee can select their timezone and a system password (unless SSO is enabled). Employees may also be asked to select their manager if not been pre-populated from your HR system.
If your configuration asks managers to map their own teams, this part of the registration process ensures new starters and unassigned employees are mapped to the correct manager. Having a full team mapped to each manager is essential as it determines the employees that a manager receives notifications for as well as determines the employees that are included in a manager’s reports and analysis:
IMPORTANT:
If your require managers to map their own teams, ensure you regularly confirm all people manager are flagged within your administration portal. When employees search for their manager, only those flagged as managers appear in the results. New users will not be able to find their manager and therefore, will not be able to complete their registration if their manager has not been identified. If you have any questions about this, please contact your Account Manager.
If you have perks enabled, employees will be prompted to choose their favourite perks before completing registration. This helps managers to give meaningful perks and helps build a relationship between manager and employee:
Version 48, release date August 2021
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Recognition enhancements
Recognition has been improved with the addition of images, emojis and animated GIFs. When formulating a recognition, employees can choose emojis to add by clicking on the smile icon within the recognition form:
In addition to emojis, GIFs and images can be enabled. To give your employees the option to add GIFs or images, from the administration portal select Settings > Recognition > Configuration. To enable GIFs, select Yes in the Allow GIF Selection field. To enable images, select Yes in the Allow Image Upload field. These options can be enabled individually or concurrently.
IMPORTANT:
To ensure the suitability of GIFs being published with recognitions, GIFs are limited G rated options.
If enabled, a GIF and image icon will appear in the recognition form, which can be clicked on to search and select the relevant images:
GIFs are displayed in recognition appropriate categories including clap, dance, high five, handshake, thank you, mic drop, cheer, excited, proud, well done and win.
Images that enhance the recognition can selected from the employee device. While both images and GIFs can be enabled, employees can only post either one or the other with their recognition message. Images are automatically re-sized so they are suitable to display on the wall:
If you have any questions about these features or need help adding them to your program, please get in touch.
Version 47, release date July 2021
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Company awards: Voting
Company Awards have been updated to include the option for admin to select award nominees and ask employees to vote on the most deserving recipient:
You can run multiple company awards at any one time with both nominations and/or voting methods. As you work through the set-up wizard, select the most suitable award format and which employees you are requesting to either nominate or vote. Any award can be selected for individual departments, multiple departments or company-wide:
When the nomination period commences, employees will receive automated notifications requesting they make a nomination as well as reminders if no action is taken. Employees can click on the notification to vote, or click through from the nominations panel within their account.
Nomination activity including voting is posted to the wall to reminder all employees to participate however vote details remain private.
Once the voting period ends, admins have full visibility of results so can verify them prior to announcing recipients. Prizes can be allocated by the system or they can be manually allocated based on preference.
Have any questions about how to set-up Company Awards? Please contact your Account Manager.
Updated Manager and Team performance reports
The Reports tab now includes two separate and more detailed reports for manager and team performance.
The team performance report can be run by month, analysing performance of individual teams and includes current manager, # employees in each team, # registered/logged in, # recognitions the team has given/received, # recognitions per employee, # financial recognitions, etc.
The manager performance report can be run by month, analysing an individual managers’ performance and includes if they registered, most recent login, # recognitions have they given, what social interactions have they made, etc.
Version 46, release date April 2021
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Group recognition
Team or group recognition will now be posted as a single entry on the recognition wall. All employees being recognised in the group recognition will be listed, any likes or messages will be shared to all and activity based notifications will go out to each person who is part of the moment.
This new grouping on the recognition wall will also apply to Service Awards - grouped by the milestone. Where there are multiple awards on one day (eg. 4 x 2 years and 2 x 5 years), the milestone will be combined on the wall and comments and messages will be sent to all those who have received the same length of service award.
Additional updates to wall include:
Option to add a comment/message of congratulations appears after the recognition has been ‘liked’
Comments show in date order (newest first) no matter who commented, Director comments are no longer highlighted
‘Recognise Again’ is displayed for all colleagues not just managers and has been updated to an icon
Grouping will display on external posts such as TV or integrations (eg. Slack, Teams, Workplace, etc)
Company posts such as service awards and ad-hoc rewards have been personalised to display as being given by the CEO/MD, not the company name
Entries on the recognition wall that are older than 12 months will be archived (reporting is not impacted)
Employee profiles
The employee profile has been improved with an updated layout to show recognitions given and received more clearly. A recognition timeline has been added with new tabs for company values usage recognition interactions (network graph).
Key information across budgets, recognition history and action lists has been given a clearer tabular layout (found under My Data and Outstanding Actions):
Version 45, release date February 2021
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Company awards
Company awards can now be integrated into your recognition program, leveraging of the power of recognition to drive the awards. This add-on is automatically enabled and can be accessed on the More tab. The online wizard guides you through the set-up.
In the initial version of company awards, employees can be requested to nominate others for an award, based on recognition within the selected eligibility period. The business can then decide on and award the award winners.
Multiple company awards can be live at any one time. For each award, select a descriptive name, who is to be included (all employees or by department/s), the eligibility period and the nomination period. Nominees must have received at least one recognition within the eligibility period in order to be nominated for the award:
Company awards can have a reward/prize determined outside the program, added directly to the recipient’s recognition account or you can opt for no rewards:
Employees can create a nomination in a few clicks by selecting Nominate Award, entering the reason for nomination, tagging colleagues who may want to add support to the nomination and then selecting Nominate:
Nominations and comments of support are posted to the recognition wall, amplifying the actions of those being nominated. Employees company-wide are encouraged to get involved by creating their own nomination or endorsing a nomination already posted:
The administration portal provides full visibility of all awards including nomination details and support reasons. All nomination information can be downloaded to simplify the determination of recipients. Once the achievers have been determined, there is a simple administration process to announce each recipient and issue any rewards. If rewards are to be added to the employees’ reward account, this happens automatically once the award is processed.
Have questions about setting up Company Awards? Please contact your Account Manager.
Version 44, release date November 2020
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Simplified recognition form
We want recognition to be habitual, simple and easy to give. We have improved the recognition form to streamline giving, capturing all important information in a quick and easy format.
Employees click on the search icon to select who they would like to recognise:
Selecting a recipient opens the updated recognition form with the option to add more employees to recognise, compose the recognition message and tag with a company value. Print the recognition, hide the reason and tag anyone else who should know about the recognition can be selected from icons:
Budget holders can add reward by selecting Add Reward and choosing a suitable reward for the moment:
Wall Filter
There is a new wall filter to view the wall by recognition type - Recognition or Service Award (if enabled). This is in addition tab view of country, reporting group, colleagues, my recognition:
Version 43, release date August 2020
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Recognition TV
You can now easily display live wall entries on any screen in your workplace or locations by generating a dedicated URL from your admin portal. Enter this URL in any browser on a smart TV, iPad or other device and the latest recognitions will be displayed one at a time, in a continuous loop.
The recognition stream is simple to set up and display without any complicated configuration. To set up your stream, log into your admin portal and go to Settings then Workstars TV:
Simplified company values
Company value set-up has been simplified to use only the title your values, behaviours, competencies or pillars.
When creating a recognition employees simply select the value (or equivalent) to tag from a drop down list:
Images and descriptions will no longer display in the form or notifications so will be removed as part of this update.
Version 42, release date August 2020
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Recognition emails
System emails have been improved and new emails introduced to provide clearer instructions to employees and managers and encourage better recognition habits. The new emails that have been introduced include:
Reminder to complete outstanding actions
Reminder to managers to map their team (where required)
Encourage employees to make their first recognition
Encourage managers to recognise their team members
Encourage employees to ‘like’ their favourite Perks (where Perks are available)
Advise when proxy access to a Director account is granted, used and revoked
All emails are monitored for impact and engagement to ensure they are valuable and enhancing your recognition program.
Program Branding
Program branding administration has been improved so you can manage all elements from one page in the administration portal. There are also new tips to make sure your recognition images display as desired:
Company profile image
Service awards, company recognition or company awards have been personalised and now appear to come from the CEO or MD, rather than the company. The CEO or MD does not have to do anything, these recognitions are still managed through the system or by administrators, however they display on the wall as coming from the top.
Please note: You can now flag your CEO or MD within the ‘Position Details’ section of their account if your configuration is not company managed:
Version 41, release date July 2020
Here are our latest features and improvements:
Client catalogue
This update includes improvements to the client catalogue feature. If you want to offer internal rewards or company branded merchandise, or if you want to manage rewards with your own suppliers, the client catalogue feature makes it simple to add different reward types - merchandise, days off, water bottles, hats, vouchers, etc.
You can add any product to the client catalogue with three different pricing options - fixed price, price range or option based pricing (eg. size, colour, denomination). You can add products to any country in all the supported currencies.
When employees order from your catalogue, their reward balance is automatically updated and an order created for you to download and process.
To enable your own catalogue, go to Settings then Redemption.
Recognition Report
To improve flexibility when exporting recognition data, all data can now be download from the Recognitions tab.
Download meaningful data by filtering the date range, company value, reporting group and/or status then select the cloud icon to download:
Please note: Administrators with ‘Analysis’ access now have access to the recognition tab and can download recognition details. Their access is view and download only, meaning they cannot give recognition on behalf of the company or manage any recognition already issued.
HR Data Sync
If you wish to automate your data feed via our API you can now enable this within your System Settings. This feature requires both employee and hierarchy data in separate XML files in order for the system to process the information.
If you have any questions about automating your data feed please click on the ‘Documentation’ link and go to ‘How to sync your HR data’, or speak to your Account Manager.