The Human Experience Imperative: Why Recognition Matters (ft. Alyssa Johnson at Workhuman Live 2025)

Speaker A: Hey, what's going on? Thank you for tuning into another episode of While We Were Working. It's the show that helps busy HR professionals stay in the know of all things tech compliance and just things that you were busy missing because you were busy at work. And so we try to fill you in. I'm Joey Price, uh, your host, as well as also co host Tammy Nutt, our VP of Research and Insights. Ah. aspect 43. And this week, we're at a different location. We are at work human live 2025, and we have a special guest joining us here today. We have Alyssa Johnson, who's joining us from Work Human. And let's go ahead and jump right into it. Uh, Alyssa, you know, one thing I love about Work Human is, uh, that you all care about the person beyond the work. And so, uh, who's Alyssa outside of your role at, uh, workhub?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Well, first off, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure and an honor to be here. Uh, so, as you mentioned, I'm Alyssa Johnson. I am the SVP of customer excellence at Work Human, but outside of Work Human, I am the mom of two, uh, almost kind of tween girls. My husband and I live outside of Boston. I'm from the Boston area originally. Um, we are eagerly awaiting summer in Boston, which is just around the corner, so we can spend as much time on Cape Cod as possible. Um, I am also a relatively new skier, so. So despite growing up in New England, I learned to ski as an adult. Both my husband and my girls ski, so we have found it to be a fun family activity. Although I have no ambitions beyond a, um, Easy Blue.

Speaker A: The bunny course is, uh, um, but

Speaker B: it's a great winter activity, so.

Speaker A: Awesome. So you're learning pizza? Uh, French fry.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: I have to constantly remind myself of both of those things. But, uh, I did get through the last winter ski season with no falls or tripping anyone getting off the chairlift. So I'm going to take that as one super important.

Speaker C: I think it is very important for

Speaker B: someone at my age.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. All right, well, Tammy, I'll go for the first question, and you follow up with a second. And, uh, so. So, Alyssa, you know, as we move closer to a world that's reliant on technology, uh, and more specifically, this big push for artificial intelligence, why is the human experience still important that work?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great question. Um, at the end of the day, it's because business is still running on people. Um, culture is the engine of that and you know, tech can predict behavior, but ultimately, you know, humans are the one that are creating the meaning, the trust and the belonging within our organizations. So if we lose the human experience, we ultimately lose the very thing that's going to make companies resilient and innovative. Um, you know, we think at work, human recognition is one of the last authentic signals of what matters at work. Um, it's deeply human. And you know, we believe that companies that are going to win in the AI era are the ones that never forget that the I in. In AI actually stands for intelligence, not, you know, um, or stands. Yeah, for intelligence, not intuition. And that's. It's still our job as humans, um, to, to lead the intuition.

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that's incredibly important. It's incredibly important. Absolutely.

Speaker C: So, um, you know, we, you mentioned that recognition work sees that as one of the last truly ways of doing things. So how does a modern recognition program differ from kind of some of the more traditional programs that all of HR is really familiar with? Sure.

Speaker B: Yeah. So I'd say, you know, traditional programs were often, um, more transactional. So holiday gifts, anniversary pins, once a year, thank yous. Modern recognition is frequent. It's peer to peer and it's tied to values and performance. So it's not about checking the box, it's about reinforcing your culture in real time. Um, you know, recognition today or the way that we do it at work, human is not about the gifts, but more about the story. So what was done, why it matters, and how it moved the business forward. Um, there's a couple specifics that I would call out just as people are thinking about implementing really effective recognition programs. One would be it needs to be authentic. So recognition becomes more meaningful when it's clear why it's being given. So telling employees how their work has made an impact, um, and really takes the words of good job to a very different level. Um, you know, tying monetary recognition to those specific achievements also sends a different message, um, than just giving everyone a bigger paycheck at the end of the quarter. Um, so those spontaneous in the moment feedback also reads as really sincere and is impactful. The second area is frequency. Um, so providing recognition at least a few times per month is the minimum frequency that it's necessary to see the positive impacts on engagement, well, being turnover, um, and other key business outcomes. You know, the data shows that there's no such thing as too much recognition as long as it's genuine and appropriately given. Um, the last one I would call out, which is really critical and I Think this is where the role of the HX organization is not necessarily the exclusive owner of, but really has a huge role to play in driving it forward, which is embedding a, embedding, um, within the fabric of your organization, embedding recognition as part of the, of the culture. So, you know, recognition can be a practice or it can be a way of life in an organization. So, like, the distinction between the two is really what makes a noticeable difference in the daily experience of employees. So simply having a recognition program is not enough. You need a culture of recognition in which, like, gratitude, praise, um, you know, are freely given, they're regular, and they reach all corners of the organization. Um, and what we find is that 36% of employees who report having a recognition program within their organization, nearly, um, twice the number of those people, um, strongly agree that recognition is fully embedded in their organization. Um, so by embedding recognition into the culture, you're actually more than doubling the impact, um, of your kind of recognition initiatives.

Speaker A: I love that. Did you want to.

Speaker C: No, I think, I think it's such, um, an important difference of how the practice and the purpose of it has evolved to what we know humans need.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Yeah. So to that point, humans need recognition, but somewhere out there in the world, because, you know, not everyone has adopted, uh, work human or the belief, there's executives out there who may believe that recognition is unnecessary at best and a distraction at worst. Uh, if you were face to face with one of those executives, what would you say to win them over, uh, and convince them of the importance of recognition?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. I mean, I would say if you think recognition is a distraction, um, it's because you haven't seen it done right. And poor recognition is empty, it's inconsistent. Um, but when it's done right, it drives real business impacts, it drives retention, it drives performance, and ultimately it drives your culture. M. And the data doesn't lie. So employees who feel recognized are five times more likely to be engaged and 56% more likely to be less likely, rather to be looking for another job, which ultimately is what we all want in our organizations. Um, you know, at the end of the day, we're already investing in people. Recognition just helps us get ROI in real time.

Speaker A: So you're able to tie the seeds of recognition to the fruit of, uh, retention and greater productivity. So it's incredibly important. So CEO out there, executive out there who doesn't believe in recognition, there's truly a business case for it. Uh, we're seeing it in our research and also work uh, human is living it out not only within your organization because you use the tool for users of the tool.

Speaker C: So um, one of the things that every organization, well, most every organization has to do that nobody really likes is the whole performance management aspect of things. Yeah, the annual, quarterly, it doesn't really seem to matter how often that review has to happen. Uh, the approach is not always the best and it's really challenging. And so how can the kind of the continuous recognition approach approach really helped to make performance management easier as well as more effective?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, recognition ultimately turns performance management from an annual event to a daily conversation. Um, you know, when employees get real time feedback on what's working, they can repeat it, they can scale it and they can grow from it. Um, you know, the other thing that I personally love as a leader in the organization is that managers and leaders gain visibility into the efforts and the outcomes that they would otherwise miss. So some of us have fairly large organizations. We don't see all of the incredible work that happens every day. One of the things that I love about our um, our recognition program, which at work human we call Spark, but all of our clients call them something different, is that I can see the recognition messages that come through and it gives me a real insight into the work that's being done within my organization and cross functionally. So it starts to create a more human and less biased, more data rich view of the, of performance across my team. And you know, it gives me also moments of micro coaching throughout, um, throughout the days, the weeks and the months that otherwise I wouldn't have. And those things really add up over time. Um, so it's been hugely helpful for me as a leader and we hear that from clients on a regular basis as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, that makes uh, so much sense because I think about even one of the use cases which we've seen some of the power user organizations, uh, in healthcare, uh, if you are a nurse supervisor and maybe you supervise nine to 12, maybe even 20 nurses, uh, within your department, you're not at every shift, you're not at every interaction. And so for uh, peers to recognize one another who may be in the trenches a little bit more, uh, is a super important opportunity for the true, uh, the true evaluation of how someone is showing up at work. And uh, and I even think that it's important so that you get the best of your team, not just when the manager is looking, but you know, that every interaction with team members or customers could ultimately bubble up by way of recognition. So super important.

Speaker B: Yeah, and actually what I love about, um, what I love about our Spark program as well is that I see the recognition messages, but then I can also comment on them. And so that gives me an opportunity to reinforce the behavior and to share with my team that, like, I see you, I see the great work that you were. Yeah, I might not have been there, um, but I see the work you're doing, I see the contribution you're making and I value you for what you're doing, uh, for the team and our clients in the organization. So yeah, I love that part.

Speaker C: It also seems like, you know, it's a great opportunity to see what has happened before you. I mean, you're newer to Beer came in, you've been there about a year. So being able to see in your team what they've been doing prior to you coming just gives such great insight into who they are, what they do, and just moves that relationship forward automatic.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It gives me a different level of context which is so valuable and helpful.

Speaker A: So, you know, aspect 43. We are, uh, known, uh, affectionately for having, uh, different bubbles of tech there. We believe there are at least 70 different types of HR tech within the total, uh, ecosystem. Um, but work humans traditionally been referred to as kind of in that recognitions and rewards uh, bubble only. Um, but from the things we've analyzed, we've seen that work human and even what we talked about today, we're human, can be so much more than that. Uh, tell us a little bit about how recognition is, uh, the starting point for positively impacting employee performance and, uh, team engagement.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I think recognition is really the lens that shows you what's happening in your culture. Um, you know, every thank you tells a story of who's leading, who's collaborating, what values are alive, what, you know, what performance is emerging and the data becomes human intelligence, which is a word that we hear a lot more human. But ultimately it's the insights that you can act on to kind of see how talent is developing, reinforcing priorities and ultimately helping, you know, to build a more resilient organization. Which I know is something that's important to kind of all of our organizations these days. Um, what we say here is, you know, recognition is the spark and culture, performance and business outcomes, um, artifier that follows.

Speaker A: I like that.

Speaker C: So how are some of the high performing clients of work human really tying recognition to those business outcomes? Can you give us an angel here?

Speaker B: Tell us a story. I have a couple examples I can share with you. Um, there were so many examples actually to think through. And I tried to pick a few, um, that represent kind of different industries. But the one thing I actually love about my job and the clients we serve at work human is we have so many clients across different industries, different sizes, um, and um, they're kind of cheap. Geographic span is, is pretty enormous in most cases. Um, but one I would call out specifically, we have a, a, ah, global consumer goods client with over 20,000 employees that, that operates across 10 countries. And they found that um, there are plants that have frequent monetary recognition outperformed others by 24%. And in contrast those plants with low recognition activity saw a 6% year over year decline. So pretty interesting to see the impact of recognition from that perspective. Um, we work a lot with technology organizations, so we have a technology client that was focused on identifying future innovators. I think. M. You know, what I imagine many of your listeners are also grappling with is we're thinking about skills and how we look at, you know, the talent that's in our organization and how we propel that into the future. And so this company was looking at how they identified future innovators and we found that those who received nine or more monetary recognition moments throughout the year were five times more likely to receive what this organization calls as their innovation award in the future. Which is incredibly insightful in terms of how you think about, you know, how talent is developing within your organization and how you continue to shepherd those people along the journey and support them. Um, the last one I'll give you is a life, um, sciences manufacturing organization who was looking at the impact of recognition on lost, um, time incident rates. And so we looked at a subset of their plants and we found that in locations where people were highly recognized, we saw 66% fewer lost time incidences and 50% fewer, um, reportable safety incidents overall. Which is pretty incredible when you think about the impact, um, of, you know, kind of safety instances within some of those organizations. Um, you know, so ultimately when you design a recognition program around a company's individual business priorities, which we are very focused on at work human, it really amplifies what matters most. Um, you know, and ultimately the best programs don't just celebrate great work. They really help to create and inspire more of it. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Speaker C: Those are, those are some impressive statistics for those companies and great insights that I don't think normally have been connected to the heading from a recognition standpoint, but provide so much insight.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting too. And I think one of the Things that that's, that we try to do to support clients in that is we have an entire team of data scientists and um, and you know, people that are looking at all of the recognition data and helping our clients to make the connections to how their recognition uh, program actually impacts um, their business. Which is you know, just a really nice kind of value of working with us. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A: That's great. That's great. So um, you know according to our research, I ah, believe it was in what our 2025 uh, intro tech buyers landscape. Uh, one of the things that bubbled up as the number two challenge is product adoption. So think about the uh, HR buyer who is like I'd love to procure new technology but I remember what it was like moving our payroll or I remember what it was like signing up for uh, this um, our TA technology. Um, to that end, how have you seen companies overcome the challenges of adopting work human? And how does your customer success team play a part in, in reducing some of that friction that anyone listening probably has a PTSD of their last implementation gone wrong? Right. So how's your customer service team alleviating some of that friction?

Speaker B: No, it's a really great question. I personally love that question running at the customer excellence organization. But you know adoption challenges are usually not about the tech, um, it's usually about the relevance and the ease of deployment. Um, so at workhuman, our product can easily be embedded into the places that employees are normally right. So it's part of their just the regular kind of workflow that they're in. So whether that's teams or slack or outlook, it's natural, it becomes not a chore and we put a lot of very uh, a very concerted effort into making sure that recognition just becomes part of the fabric of how you're working. Um, you know, our customer excellence organization also doesn't just train users. We are really co designing the experience with our clients so that we can reflect the culture, culture and the values and we can meet the organization where they are. Every organization's on a different place in their journey and so we really take a lot of time and care and energy to make sure that we are um, crafting a rollout and ongoing support that's going to meet the needs of the organization and is tailored to the different employee populations, the different challenges that are occurring and ultimately the goals of the program because everyone is a little bit different. Um, but ultimately when employees see recognition, um, you know, tied to what they care about, they engage. Um, and that's that's really how we move forward to drive impact.

Speaker A: Yeah. And one of the things I, uh, saw in our analyst day was just that if an employee who's using your tool, uh, if they have a question about anything, they can call and the human connected to Working Human, or better said, an employee is going to pick up the phone. So in this world of, you know, um, customer support that's not always tied to the original product. Could you speak a little bit about that experience and what people like about that?

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I think at Work Human in particular, we've put a real dedicated focus on customer service and customer excellence. M and so to that point, any, you know, any of the recipients of recognition moments, um, there is a phone number that any of them can call if they need service or support. If they have questions about their program, um, someone picks up the phone within, um, you know, two to three seconds, there's a live person that's an employee. For Human, we don't outsource that. Um, we're available 24 7, we're available in 50 plus languages. Um, and those are the things that, you know, we feel is important as an organization. Again, part of that just comes back to our philosophy on and really making sure that we are, um, looking at the whole person and really trying to kind of treat people and meet people where they are, um, and delight and give a wonderful experience.

Speaker A: Awesome. That's great.

Speaker C: Tell me one misconception about recognition that you want to just hit to bed right now.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, so I would say one myth is that it doesn't matter to the business, um, that it's nice to have. And the truth really is that recognition drives performance, um, and it fuels retention. And it's one of the clearest signals of what's going on inside your company, um, and frankly, what's not. And, um, you know, we just, it's interesting. We just announced, you know, here actually at Work Human Live yesterday that we partnered with the Wall Street Journal to launch the Wall Street Journal's first Chief People Officer Council. Um, because, you know, the world is really finally catching up to something that we At Work Human have believed for a long time, which is people leadership is business leadership. Um, that recognition gives chief people officers and HR executives the insights that they need to shape culture, guide talent, strategy and influence the bottom line. Just like a CFO or a CF or a CEO would. Um, so the M myth that recognition is soft is outdated. Um, in today's world, it's one of the smartest Investments a business can make.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I believe it. I believe it. You're preaching to the choir here. But, but it was, it was so great. If we want to double click on that, uh, that partnership with the Wall Street Journal and, uh, seeing the roadmap of how you all will work together over the next couple of years, it's great for the Chief Pitbull officer to have that visibility, um, with a publication that is known for thought leadership, um, innovation and just being a trusted voice for the CEO. It can help that CEO, uh, who maybe didn't know that there's more potential, um, within their HR function or their, um, uh, people. Operations function to maybe dial in performance and outcomes a little bit better and have some of those conversations with them. So I thought that was, that was cool.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're really excited about that. And we were talking about this yesterday, and I think the big thing there is that this, we believe this gets opportunity for the chief people officer to have a seat at the table as opposed to having the CEO or someone else kind of translate their voice at the table. Uh, so we're really excited about the opportunity.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. That's great. I mean, hr, you know, chief people officer, we, we hire everyone into the table, so you might as well be there. Right?

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, Alyssa, this has been, uh, a great conversation. I wish, I wish we could go for hours, but I know you're busy. I want to get you back to the, to the conference. How can people learn more about you and we're human. And the work that you're doing.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Um, so, yeah, absolutely. Please reach out to me at any point. You can find me on LinkedIn. Um, Alyssa Johnson. You can also. Can also reach me at. Directly at work. Human. So It's Alyssa Johnson, workhuman.com. um, but yes, please certainly feel free to reach out at any point if there's anything that we can help you with.

Speaker A: Awesome.

Speaker B: I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Glad you're here and you have to come back. Um, maybe we'll have like a fireside chat at a ski lodge one day

Speaker B: as, uh, just don't make it at the top of the mountain. I don't go go that far.

Speaker A: Ski watch is good.

Speaker C: Those were truly excelled as ski was in grace.

Speaker A: Yes. A good.

Speaker C: Yes.

Speaker B: Good time of day.

Speaker A: Awesome. Yes. Yes. Cool. Well, it's been another great episode of while we were working. Uh, listen, a true pleasure to have you here, and it was great to spend time Tammy and myself being more acquainted, uh, with the work that work, uh, human is doing, how you're showing up in the marketplace place. And it'll definitely fuel, um, our research, uh, for, um, our next couple of projects. So, uh, if you're listening, make sure you give a five star review on itunes or Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. And stay tuned for more great episodes. So see you later.