Overview
Goal-Based Rewards allow organizations to incentivize employees for achieving measurable, ongoing performance objectives. Unlike traditional recognition programs focused on anniversaries or sporadic achievements, this feature ties rewards to clearly defined business, learning, and collaborative goals.
Admins can define, manage, and approve goals, configure reward eligibility, and provide visibility through social recognition to consistently motivate employees.
Why This Matters
Employee engagement directly impacts productivity, retention, and profitability.
Highly engaged teams show 21% greater profitability and 41% less absenteeism (Gallup).
Traditional recognition systems often fail to continuously motivate employees, leading to disengagement.
Goal-based incentives create measurable motivation and maintain focus on achieving objectives.
When to Use Incentives
Incentives are most effective in scenarios where you want to:
Reward completion of clearly defined targets, such as sales quotas, learning milestones, or wellness challenges.
Encourage ongoing improvement and sustained effort rather than one-time accomplishments.
Acknowledge systematic performance improvements and consistent goal achievement.
Example Use Cases
Sales: Achieving quarterly or annual sales targets.
Learning & Development: Completing mandatory training, certifications, or skill-building programs.
Wellness Programs: Actively participating in company wellness initiatives or challenges.
Operations: Meeting specific project deadlines, productivity benchmarks, or operational goals.
Award Creation Flow
How to set up Incentive awards
Step 1: To create a new Incentive-based award, navigate to Programs > Awards & Core Values > Create Award.
Step 2: Select the option "Incentive".
This is ideal for motivating employees to achieve predefined targets or milestones. Use this option to allow individuals or teams to claim rewards manually after successfully completing measurable goals.
Step 3: After selecting the award type, you’ll need to fill in award details like the name, description, image, and recipient type. Once you’ve finished adding the details, click Continue.
An award recipient can be an individual, a team, or kept flexible, allowing the award presenter to decide.
Step 4: The next step is to configure the reward where you can choose to reward points or gift-cards and merchandise. You can customize reward points based on the award type and objective.
Attach Certificate: Use this option to attach a certificate template to your award. Certificates are configurable and automatically populate with the awardee’s details. Go to Add certifcates to awards for detailed steps for attaching a certificate.
You can also choose to add Products from the store: Collections provide the flexibility to reward or gift employees with merchandise and gift cards, replacing the conventional points system.
Go to Setup product based awards for detailed steps to setup collection for the awards
Step 5: Define the nominee, nominator, and approver eligibility criteria.
These settings allow the super admin to award anyone or restrict awards to specific groups of users by setting up constraints on the nominator, nominee, and approver eligibility.
Use OR when matching ANY of the clauses is sufficient for eligibility. Use AND when matching ALL of the clauses is necessary for eligibility.
Step 6: Make the Approver Selection. Click on the pen icon and select First Level Approver. You can also use advanced filters to make your selection.
Advanced Settings
Some advanced features allowed in the award setup are as follows:
A. Set Questions for Nominator - You can create a set of questions for the nominator to answer, such as why they believe the nominee deserves this award. You can set up to 20 questions in multiple-choice or short text-based formats.
If the question is text based and mandatory, then we can mark the attachment also as mandatory field.
B. Citation Input : When a mandatory and public question is added we can skip the input of taking citation.
C. Nomination Validity - You can set a validity period, after which open nominations are automatically declined.
D. Self Nomination - When enabled, this allows a nominator to nominate themselves for an award.
E. Notify Stakeholders - You can specify the stakeholders you wish to notify when the award is given. This can include relations with the manager, HRBP, department head, etc.
F. Award Visibility - You can choose to post the award publicly on the feed or keep it private so only the sender and the receiver can view it.
The award creator can configure the setting for the award feed in public/private
a) To show/hide the Nominator details
b) To show/hide the citation given by Nominator
c) To show/hide the Award name/image
G. Privacy Control - If you want to you can give the choice to Nominator/Approver to change the privacy of award as public/private.
Centrally - It means the award nomination will be posted publicly and post will be visible to all the member's of the group.
Public - The award feed will be visible to all the member's of the group where the recognition is posted.
Private - Only the Nominator and Nominee can see the Award feed.
Note: If the award visibility is set to private then, the privacy control can not be configured.
Click Confirm and Create to complete the Award setup.
FAQs
Can I edit an award after it’s created?
Can I edit an award after it’s created?
Yes. Changes to reward values, receiver conditions, or evidence questions do not affect existing nominations. Changes to award name, icon, or criteria apply retroactively.
What happens if an award is deleted?
What happens if an award is deleted?
Deleting an award does not impact existing nominations.
Who can give goal-based awards?
Who can give goal-based awards?
Managers and admins can issue awards. Employees can self-nominate if the “Allow employees to claim this incentive” checkbox is enabled.
How frequently can an award be claimed?
How frequently can an award be claimed?
Admins define claim frequency per award: Daily, Weekly, Fortnightly, Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly, or Once in a Lifetime.
How is evidence of goal achievement submitted?
How is evidence of goal achievement submitted?
Admins can add questions that end users must answer or attach evidence for claim validation.
Are integrations with Slack, Teams, or other tools available?
Are integrations with Slack, Teams, or other tools available?
No. Integrations and automation workflows are currently out of scope for Goal-Based Rewards.
Can I restrict awards to specific teams or user groups?
Can I restrict awards to specific teams or user groups?
Yes. Eligibility can be defined for specific users or teams, and team size restrictions can be configured in advanced settings.
How are award visibility and notifications managed?
How are award visibility and notifications managed?
Admins can control award visibility (public or private) and choose who gets notified when an award is issued.
For feedback or questions, please reach out to [email protected].