Rewards and Recognition FAQs

Q. How does Xoxoday ensure consistent recognition across the organization?
Xoxoday uses AI-led automation and prompts to drive fair and regular recognition. Our bot, Em, nudges managers and employees to recognize peers, highlights participation gaps, and provides insights into recognition patterns. With real-time reports, benchmarks, and reminders, recognition becomes a daily habit embedded in everyday workflows.

​Q. How does Xoxoday help organizations design a recognition and rewards program that aligns with company culture and values?
Xoxoday takes a consultative approach, starting with goal and culture discovery sessions to understand what motivates your workforce. We then help define award types, recognition triggers, workflows, and reward formats based on best practices and analytics. With training, change management, and continuous optimization using participation and sentiment data, your R&R program becomes culturally embedded and business-aligned — driving measurable gains in engagement, retention, and satisfaction.
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​Q. How does the rewards methodology work? Can the platform be customized?
Xoxoday follows a hybrid rewards methodology — blending proven best practices with flexibility to reflect your culture. The platform includes built-in engagement enablers like nudges, award suggestions, and recognition prompts to drive participation. At the same time, it offers deep customization for award categories, workflows, branding (badges, icons, pages), and reward types. Whether you use the built-in approach or your own framework, Xoxoday ensures consistent adoption and cultural alignment.
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Q. Does the platform support workflows for recognition approvals and reward distribution? Can these be customized by org unit or country?
Yes. Xoxoday supports fully configurable, rule-based workflows for nominations, approvals, and reward disbursal. You can customize approval chains, reward cycles, and nomination rules based on business units, locations, compliance needs, budgets, or tax requirements. This ensures timely and equitable award distribution at scale.

Please refer to the link below for more details: Reward Budget Automations.
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​Q. How are badges and recognitions displayed on an employee’s profile in Xoxoday’s platform?
All awarded badges, recognitions, and appreciation messages are prominently displayed on each employee’s profile within the Xoxoday employee recognition platform. These profiles act as living timelines of employee achievements, aggregating past recognitions with detailed engagement data. Badges and awards appear alongside personal and professional information, helping colleagues and leaders celebrate accomplishments and create a culture of ongoing visibility and pride.
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​Q. Are recognition points redeemable for shopping cards and products?
Yes. Recognition points can be redeemed through Xoxoday’s global rewards catalog, offering 1M+ options across 100+ countries. Employees can choose from 30+ categories, including e-gift cards, merchandise, Amazon products, experiences, company swag, donations, prepaid cards, and travel. The catalog ensures a simple, flexible redemption experience so employees can pick rewards that matter to them.

​Q. Are monthly rankings of top recognized employees and recognition givers visible to everyone?
Yes. Xoxoday provides a dynamic leaderboard that highlights the most recognized employees and active recognition givers. By default, it’s visible across the organization to foster healthy competition and engagement. Admins, however, can customize visibility by team, department, role, or campaign goals.
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​Q. Does the platform support creating custom awards, including both direct awards and nomination-based awards?
Yes. Xoxoday employee engagement solution allows HR admins to create fully customizable awards. You can set up both direct and nomination-based awards. Nomination-based awards can include configurable workflows with nomination windows, who can nominate, who can be nominated, review panels, approval actions, points, certificates, and winner announcements. Reward cycles can also automate these processes for efficiency.
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​Q. Is it possible to configure both monetary and non-monetary awards at the department or group level?
Yes. Xoxoday's employee recognition platform supports configuring both monetary and non-monetary awards for departments, teams, or groups. Managers can easily set up point values, link awards to core values, and associate custom badges or other non-monetary recognitions, enabling meaningful appreciation tailored to different organizational levels.
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​Q. Can managers provide monetary and non-monetary awards to employees?
Yes. Xoxoday's employee recognition platform allows managers to give both monetary and non-monetary spot awards to individuals or teams. Managers can configure points, badges, or custom rewards to deliver timely recognition when employees meet business goals or demonstrate positive behaviors.
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​Q. Can employees hide a recognition from the platform feed if the content is sensitive or personal?
Yes. The Xoxoday employee recognition system gives both the sender and the recipient the option to control visibility. Recognitions can either be shared on the social feed to celebrate publicly or kept private if the content is sensitive or based on personal preference. This flexibility ensures that employees feel comfortable engaging with the program, while still supporting a culture of appreciation and inclusivity.
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​Q. Can I send recognition to a dynamic, ad-hoc team that any user or admin can set up and manage?
Yes, Xoxoday employee engagement solution fully supports creating dynamic, ad-hoc teams for recognition. Both users and admins can easily set up, manage, and send recognition to these teams. The platform offers flexibility for peer-to-peer and team-level recognition without complex configuration, supporting both structured and spontaneous recognition moments.
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​Q. Is it possible to set various award levels in a monetary recognition program?
Yes, Xoxoday's employee recognition platform allows full customization of award levels within monetary recognition programs. Admins can define multiple award tiers, such as spot awards, performance incentives, and milestone rewards, each with specific monetary values.
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​Q. Can you bulk upload recognitions centrally by HR admin for any program configured in the system?
Yes, the platform supports bulk recognition uploads via CSV templates, enabling HR admins to manage large-scale recognition campaigns efficiently. This is especially useful for mass awards during festivals, organizational milestones, or company-wide initiatives, ensuring timely and accurate processing.

Q. How can employees redeem rewards that exceed their available balance?

Yes. Employees can redeem higher-value rewards by combining their available recognition points with personal payment methods such as credit cards, debit cards, or net banking. This flexibility ensures that employees are not restricted by their point balance alone. Instead, they can choose rewards that truly matter to them, even if the value goes beyond their current balance. By enabling co-payment, the platform enhances personalization and improves overall reward satisfaction.

Q. How does Xoxoday support the design and execution of industry-specific award programs?

Xoxoday is flexible enough to handle industry-specific award programs, such as the DAISY Award for nurses. The platform lets administrators digitize complex recognition processes while ensuring compliance with program guidelines.

Nomination forms can be customized to accept entries from peers, managers, or even external stakeholders like patients, capturing all required information. Submissions follow pre-configured approval workflows, routed to the appropriate committees to maintain transparency and structure.

Recognitions can be amplified through social intranet feeds, digital displays, or dedicated platform sections. Awardees receive points, and when needed, Xoxoday can integrate with local vendors to deliver physical plaques or badges. This end-to-end automation preserves award integrity while boosting participation and visibility through a modern, digital interface.

Q. How does Xoxoday help launch communication plans for recognition programs?
Xoxoday provides a strategic communication framework to drive awareness and adoption of recognition programs. It offers ready-to-use, customizable launch kits — including email templates, posters, banners, social messages, and more — all aligned with your brand and designed to engage employees from day one.

Additionally, Xoxoday’s customer success team works with stakeholders to create a comprehensive communication plan, defining target audiences, key messages, timelines, and measurable launch goals. These resources simplify program rollout, ensure consistent messaging across channels, and help maximize employee participation.

For reference, a sample kit is available here: https://help.empuls.xoxoday.com/en/articles/9063843-launch-communication-kit

Q. Can recognition go beyond text?
Yes. Xoxoday supports rich media formats for recognition, allowing employees to upload videos, images, and use GIFs, emojis, or templated messages. These multimedia options make recognition more expressive, memorable, and engaging, bringing appreciation moments to life across social feeds and employee profiles.

Q. Are there features for sharing ideas and organizing group events?

Yes, Xoxoday’s social intranet platform enables idea-sharing and event organization through features like community groups, social feeds, polls, and discussion forums. Teams can create open or private groups for hobbies, onboarding, CSR, upskilling, or cross-functional collaboration, and use these spaces to plan activities and share ideas seamlessly.

Q. Can award selection involve voting or jury panels?

Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform supports customizable award selection mechanisms. HR admins can configure voting systems for peer input, set up leadership panels or committees for jury-based selection, or implement rating workflows to finalize award recipients. These options help create transparency and inclusivity in recognition programs.

Q. Can award levels, values, and recognition categories be customized to business needs?
Yes. Xoxoday offers full flexibility to configure award levels, point or cash values, and recognition categories to align with organizational goals. Organizations can:

Q. How can organizations standardize award levels and train employees to recognize effectively using Xoxoday?
Xoxoday provides robust tools to standardize recognition practices across the organization. Admins can define predefined award levels with budget controls and automated duplicate detection to ensure fairness and consistency.

The platform’s AI-powered Personal Recognition Assistant offers timely prompts and suggestions, guiding employees to recognize peers appropriately. Additionally, Xoxoday delivers hands-on training for program champions and change agents, ensuring effective platform adoption, alignment with company values, and a strong culture of peer-to-peer recognition.
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​Q. How often do you review and refresh the award collection?
The Xoxoday R&R tool ensures that the rewards marketplace remains dynamic and relevant. Our catalog is reviewed continuously by dedicated business development teams, with new options added every week. Most catalog items are digitally integrated via APIs, ensuring a seamless experience for users.
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​Q. What options are available for awards?
Xoxoday offers a wide range of awards across 20+ categories to suit diverse employee preferences:

These options provide a seamless redemption experience, ensuring employees can choose rewards that are meaningful and relevant, wherever they are. Contact your account manager for a complete catalog and country-specific options.

​Q. How are awards commensurate and calibrated with the achievements, behaviors, and outcomes being recognized?
Xoxoday allows organizations to align awards with their goals, core values, and performance targets. This is achieved through:

This approach ensures that every recognition is meaningful, fair, and tied to organizational priorities.
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​Q. Does Xoxoday include an award advisor to guide employees on appropriate award levels? Is it customizable and selectively enabled?
Yes. Xoxoday offers an intelligent Award Advisor powered by AI and heuristic algorithms. It guides employees and managers in selecting award levels that match the impact and significance of each recognition moment, ensuring consistent and meaningful recognition.

The advisor is fully customizable to align with your organization’s recognition framework, including award types, levels, and criteria. Admins can also selectively enable it for specific teams, departments, or recognition programs.
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​Q. Can employees get cash awards or points rewards for patent filings?
Yes, program administrators can set up awards and criteria for rewarding employees who file for patents. These awards can be incorporated with a workflow where the employees can claim their rewards by uploading relevant documentation and a validation mechanism which will allow the reviewer to verify the uploaded documents to approve the awards.
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​Q. Is there provision to create multiple award categories such as above & beyond, new joiners, spot awards, client awards, or panel-based awards on Xoxoday's R&R platform?
Yes. Platforms support creating and configuring multiple award categories to match your organizational goals. You can set up awards for various scenarios including spot awards, milestone achievements, team contributions, or panel-based recognitions. These categories are fully customizable, allowing alignment with company values and objectives.
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​Q. Is there provision to create multiple e-certificate formats for different award types?
Yes. Multiple customizable e-certificate templates can be created and linked to different awards. These certificates can be branded, personalized, and automated for delivery along with the award announcement.
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​Q. How are awards calibrated to match achievements, behaviors, and outcomes?
Awards are designed to reflect desired behaviors, outcomes, and organizational values. Admins can:

This approach lets organizations tailor recognition programs to their culture while maintaining consistency and fairness.
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​Q. Does Xoxoday provide an award advisor to guide employees on appropriate award levels? Can it be customized or selectively enabled?
Yes. Xoxoday offers award guidance via both human consultation and its AI assistant, Em, which acts as a personal recognition coach. Em suggests award types and values by analyzing context, including the nature of the accomplishment, past recognitions, and equity considerations.

These recommendations are fully customizable—organizations can define award levels, criteria, and prompt types. Admins can also selectively enable the feature for specific departments, locations, or recognition programs, ensuring flexibility and alignment with company policy.
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​Q. How does Xoxoday support team or group nominations? Are award levels the same for each recipient, and how does it work for multinational teams?
The Xoxoday R&R tool makes team and group nominations easy through a streamlined workflow. A nominator can select multiple team members for a single award and assign either equal or role-based recognition values.

Admins have the flexibility to configure whether the award value is split equally among recipients or customized for each individual based on their contribution. For multinational teams, the platform automatically converts reward points to local currencies and provides access to region-specific reward catalogs. It also accounts for cost-of-living differences and local tax regulations, ensuring fair, compliant, and consistent recognition across locations worldwide.
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​Q. What types of award options are available? Are physical certificates, plaques, or branded deliverables offered? What are the cost differences between these options?
The Xoxoday R&R solution offers a wide range of award options to suit different recognition programs. Organizations can choose from physical certificates, plaques, trophies, or branded mementos, which are ideal for milestones such as service anniversaries, outstanding achievements, or special events.

In addition, there are digital options, including symbolic badges, automated congratulatory messages, and recognition posts on the social intranet feed. Employees also receive redeemable points with digital awards, creating a meaningful experience without physical costs.

Digital awards are typically included at no additional cost. Physical awards, such as certificates, plaques, or trophies, vary in price depending on factors like material (acrylic, crystal, wood), size, framing, and design. Xoxoday works closely with program stakeholders to review available options, provide physical samples for approval, and ensure that the chosen awards align with the company’s budget and recognition objectives.
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​Q. Can the value of awards be customized?
Yes. The Xoxoday employee recognition platform allows full customization of award values at each milestone level in your recognition or service award program. Organizations can set budgets based on historical program data, create new budgets, or define values using a cost-of-living index to ensure fairness across countries or regions. The platform’s flexibility helps align award values with your company’s specific program goals and budget guidelines.
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​Q. Are there any fees or markups built into award levels?
No, the Xoxoday employee engagement solution maintains full transparency in pricing. There are no hidden markups built into award levels or service award offerings. Awards are provided at procurement cost (scale pricing) plus a clearly specified transaction fee — typically 6% — applied at the time of award redemption. A detailed pricing document is provided during the program setup to ensure stakeholders have complete visibility into the fee structure.
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​Q. Does the tool allow registered users to pay bills by redeeming award points?
Yes, the Xoxoday R&R tool allows users to redeem their reward points for a wide variety of utilities, including bill payments, mobile recharges, and other digital financial services — depending on country-specific catalogs. These redemptions are powered by an expansive global rewards marketplace that includes not just gift cards and merchandise, but also experiences, prepaid cards, and utility payments.
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​Q. Does Xoxoday support auto-generation of award citations based on themes?
Yes, Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform includes an AI-powered feature that can auto-generate award citations, acting like a “recognition coach” to help create meaningful, personalized messages.

The AI generates citations by taking into account several factors:

This approach ensures that every recognition feels genuine, consistent, and reflective of both the achievement being celebrated and the recipient’s contribution.

​Q. Does Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform support the creation, modification, or removal of custom award categories?
Absolutely. Admins can create and configure multiple types of awards — such as spot, peer-to-peer, nomination-based, and jury awards — with customized names, messages, point values, and approval workflows. These can be aligned with your core values, business goals, or recognition programs, offering complete flexibility to evolve as your organizational needs change.

Q. Are experience-based rewards customizable?
The Xoxoday R&R tool offers a wide range of customizable, once-in-a-lifetime experiences — over 1,000 options across 40+ categories and 50+ countries. These include adventure activities, gourmet dining, museum tours, wellness packages, outdoor sports, and staycations. Organizations can further personalize their experience catalog based on unique requirements by adding more options to suit employee preferences.
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Q. How can monetary rewards be distributed in bulk?

Monetary awards can be distributed in bulk by uploading a CSV file. Monetary rewards can be distributed efficiently at scale by uploading a CSV file containing employee details and corresponding award amounts. This streamlined method reduces administrative overhead and ensures timely recognition of employees.

To learn more, please visit: Awards and Core Values.
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​Q. Who can allocate monetary reward budgets?
Reward budgets can be allocated to specific roles such as supervisors, department heads, admins, or designated wallet owners. Organizations can set up workflows to define the frequency and timeline for budget allocations, allowing for both one-time and recurring distributions. Automated processes ensure accuracy and consistency, while administrators retain control over budgets and approvals.

To learn more, please visit: Reward Budget Automations.
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​Q. How should cross-functional nominations, whether individual or group, be approved? Should this be done by an admin or reviewer?
Cross-functional nominations, whether for individuals or teams, are typically managed through a configurable workflow that routes approvals to designated approvers—such as admins, reviewers, or managers—based on your organization’s policies.

Xoxoday’s platform allows organizations to define:

This ensures transparency, fairness, and alignment with internal governance structures. Automated workflows reduce manual effort by nudging the right approvers and keeping nominations on track. By customizing these approval flows according to recognition policies, organizations can foster inclusivity, maintain equity across departments, and ensure timely recognition of achievements.
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​Q. How can I distribute monetary rewards in bulk using the Xoxoday R&R tool?
The Xoxoday R&R tool allows administrators to distribute monetary rewards at scale using a simple and efficient bulk upload process. You can upload a CSV file containing recipient details, reward values, and reasons for recognition. This enables mass awarding without manual entry for each individual. Once the file is uploaded, the platform automatically processes the rewards and notifies recipients. This feature is particularly useful for periodic campaigns, performance bonuses, or festive gifting at scale. Learn more here: Awards and Core Values.
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​Q. Who can allocate monetary rewards in the Xoxoday R&R tool?
The Xoxoday R&R tool provides flexible permission controls for managing monetary rewards across the organization. Admins can assign reward budgets to supervisors, department heads, or designated wallet owners, empowering them to distribute rewards directly to their teams.

The platform also supports automated workflows for budgeting, allowing organizations to define reward cycles, set frequency and timeline rules, and establish spending limits. This ensures a structured, transparent, and accountable process for allocating monetary rewards while maintaining oversight and compliance. Learn more here: Awards and Core Values.

Q. Does Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform support uploading files, photos, or media during the rewarding process?
Yes, Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform supports uploading files, photos, or media while rewarding employees. This enables richer, more personalized recognition moments.
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Q. Does Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform support mass or group non-monetary rewarding?
Yes, Xoxoday’s employee recognition platform fully supports mass or group non-monetary rewarding. This enables organizations to recognize multiple employees simultaneously for achievements, milestones, or contributions without monetary rewards, helping to foster a culture of appreciation at scale.
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​Q. Can non-monetary rewards be given by anyone, regardless of department, role, or seniority? Is approval required?
Yes. Non-monetary rewards can be shared by any employee, across departments, roles, seniority levels, or business units. The purpose of non-monetary recognition is to create an inclusive culture where everyone can acknowledge the contributions of their peers.

Typically, these awards do not require prior approval, allowing employees to recognize others instantly and authentically. This immediacy encourages meaningful appreciation, strengthens team morale, and fosters collaboration.

By design, non-monetary recognition programs are easy to use, ensuring that recognition happens in the moment without administrative hurdles, making appreciation a seamless part of everyday work life.
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​Q. Does the platform support a dropdown option to select a badge, and can value statements appear as a dropdown for each badge or award?
Yes. The platform provides an intuitive dropdown menu for selecting badges during the recognition process, making it easy for employees to navigate and choose the appropriate recognition.

Each badge or award can also have associated value statements that appear in a dropdown, helping ensure that recognitions are aligned with organizational values and core behaviors. This makes it simple for employees and managers to reinforce the behaviors and outcomes that matter most.

Administrators have full flexibility to create, manage, and display badges and value statements, while automation features help streamline recognition workflows. Together, these capabilities promote consistency, inclusivity, and more meaningful recognition experiences across the organization.
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​Q. Can any employee, regardless of department, role, cadre, or business unit, give non-monetary rewards?
Yes, non-monetary rewards can be given by any employee across the organization, regardless of their department, designation, or business unit. This democratized approach to appreciation encourages peer-to-peer recognition and fosters a culture of inclusivity and positive reinforcement.
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Does non-monetary recognition require approval before being issued?
No, non-monetary rewards do not require any approvals. Employees can directly appreciate their peers without delay. This frictionless process increases participation and helps build a spontaneous, recognition-rich culture.
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