How to Get Executive Buy-In for Employee Recognition Software

You know employee recognition software is vital, but your boss is skeptical. They don’t get the importance, especially when there are 167 other apps to pay for each month, even though modern employee rewards and recognition software often replaces multiple disconnected tools.

No problem! You just have to make them see the value, which you can do with a simple three-step process we devised. Keep reading to learn this process, how to ensure your pitch is successful, and how to choose the right employee recognition platform for your team.

Bring Your Employee Recognition Program to Life: 3 Steps to Secure Leadership Approval for New Software

Your boss isn’t crazy about employee recognition software right now. But after you go through this three-step process, they’ll finally see the light; we promise. Let’s get into it!

1. Make the Business Case for an Employee Recognition Platform

Your leadership team cares about tangible results. So, if you want to secure executive buy-in for employee recognition software, you have to prove its value in a compelling way, especially when positioning it as one of the top employee recognition software options for your organization.

Good news: the benefits of staff recognition are clear. Here are four of our favorites:

Better Employee Engagement

According to recent research, regularly recognized employees are 40% more engaged. This is important because high engagement leads to better productivity, stronger performance, and higher employee retention.

Now, can management professionals recognize team members without a dedicated piece of software? Of course, but software makes it So. Much. Easier.

With the right tool, you can recognize employees in multiple ways, capitalize on peer-to-peer recognition strategies, and even schedule recognition for the future so it doesn’t fall through the cracks. When these things happen, employee engagement is (almost) inevitable. This is particularly when social employee recognition software makes recognition visible, frequent, and easy to participate in.

Higher Employee Performance

Employee engagement is great, but if it doesn’t lead to better performance, what’s the point? Fortunately, employee recognition software can also help in this area.

In 2020, Gartner found that a well-designed recognition and rewards program can boost employee performance by 11.1%. Imagine what would happen if your marketing team drove 11.1% more leads. Or sales closed 11.1% more deals. Or customer success handled 11.1% more support tickets. These things would revolutionize your business, right?

Employee recognition software makes it happen by engaging each team member in their work and motivating them to achieve more than they did before.

Greater Employee Productivity

Employees who receive monthly recognition are 36% more likely to feel productive.

We know what you’re thinking, “That’s great, but my boss doesn’t care about employee sentiment.” Well, try this stat on for size: effective employee recognition programs boost productivity by 14%.

The truth is, employee recognition leads to motivation, which produces productivity. When employees care, they work harder and get more done. How do you make them care? Start by praising them for their accomplishments via easy-to-use employee recognition software.

Less Employee Turnover

If you really want leadership’s attention, say recognized employees are 45% less likely to change organizations within two years. Then hit them with this truth bomb: it costs $1,500 to replace an hourly worker and 100% to 150% of annual salary to replace a technical position.

Put simply, not investing in employee recognition, which a quality piece of software will help facilitate, could cost your organization thousands of dollars per year, especially for growing teams and employee recognition software for small business environments. Ouch!

A Positive Company Culture

Let’s recap everything we’ve covered so far: employee recognition software leads to better employee engagement, performance, productivity, and retention.

In other words, it creates employees who want to work hard, achieve amazing results, and stick around long enough to make a real impact. That sounds like a great place to work, doesn’t it?

Employee recognition software can also improve workplace culture by promoting company values: you reward behaviors, you want repeated and encouraging peer-to-peer recognition.

If your boss isn’t familiar with the term, tell them peer recognition is when employees acknowledge each other’s efforts. It can increase the probability of financial results by 35.7%.

2. Answer Frequently Asked Questions About Employee Appreciation

You’ve made the business case for employee recognition and rewards software, but your boss might still have questions. Here are common queries we see, and how to address them.

Why Can’t We Recognize Employees Manually?

This is an option, just not a very good one.

Most manual recognition programs can’t scale. Managers get bogged down in day-to-day tasks and forget to give simple employee feedback. How will they remember to acknowledge team efforts and give employee rewards on a consistent basis? The answer is: they won’t.

Tell your boss, “Employee recognition software keeps managers accountable, allows for simple peer-to-peer recognition, and makes the entire process easy for all. Plus, leadership can track which recognition efforts work best to improve performance.“

What’s the Best Employee Recognition Software for Your Team?

Every software is different. We suggest the one that helps you implement your unique employee recognition strategy, whether you’re evaluating top employee recognition software for enterprise teams or employee recognition software for small business growth. Generally speaking, this will require a few standard features, like:

• Custom branding options
• Peer-to-peer recognition tools
• Physical gifting options
• Customizable automation
• Data analytics and reports
• Integrations with other employee recognition software tools

First, research the software you want to invest in. Then tell your boss, “The best employee recognition software for our needs is…” Finally, proceed to tell them the name of the app and list reasons why you think it will help your company facilitate its employee recognition efforts.

(We’ll dive deeper into choosing the best employee recognition software for your team soon.)

How Much is This Going to Cost Us?

It depends on the tool and/or strategy you use to make employees feel valued. For example, Kudoboard can be used for just $25 a month. Other employee recognition platforms cost more.

You might want to set aside money to reward your team, too. The occasional knick-knack, gift card, or bonus can motivate workers and boost employee morale.

Do the math and tell your boss, “Our rewards platform will cost $X per employee, per month.” Then follow that statement with, “But companies that build a strong social recognition culture using employee rewards and recognition software often see positive ROI through improved employee engagement, performance, and retention.”

What If No One Uses the Software We Buy?

There are many things you can do to increase adoption: treat the rollout process like an event, train your team to use the software, make sure leadership champions the tool, etc.

Tell your boss, “If we implement the software correctly, it will get used. With platforms designed as social employee recognition software that encourage peer participation. Remember, our managers want better result,s and our employees want to receive recognition for their efforts. The right tool will help us achieve both things.” Then add, “But if things go wrong and the platform collects digital dust, we can always cancel our subscription. So, the financial risk is minimal.” 

Do We Need to Prioritize This Right Now?

The right employee recognition platform will increase employee engagement, performance, productivity, and retention. It will also reinforce your company’s core values.

Ask your boss, “What if we could boost qualified leads by 25% next quarter? What if sales went up by 10%? What if customer churn dropped by a significant margin?” Then remind them, “Happy, motivated employees get more done and produce better results. So, recognition software can revolutionize our entire company.” Finally, say, “I think that’s worth prioritizing.“

3. Commit to Tracking Your Employee Recognition Efforts

We don’t suggest a “hope and pray” strategy. You should monitor your employee recognition program to learn what works. Software simplifies this with engagement analytics, which is a core benefit of top employee recognition software and international employee recognition software platforms supporting distributed teams.

To help get executive buy-in, commit to tracking employee appreciation KPIs like:

• Participation Rate: The percentage of employees who use your recognition software regularly. You want this number to be as close to 100% as possible.
• Peer Recognition Given: The number of employees who formally recognize their peers’ contributions to company goals. Or, the number of recognitions given.
• Employee Awards Received: The number of gifts, awards, and other forms of formal recognition employees receive. Ideally, all team members will get a healthy amount.
• Employee Wellbeing and Performance: An overarching group of metrics that considers employee engagement, productivity, attainment of goals, absenteeism, and retention. We encourage you to look at hard numbers, “Employee ABC achieved 80% of objectives this quarter,” and employee sentiments, “Employee XYZ loves her job and is aiming for a promotion,” which you can access via one-on-one conversations and pulse surveys.

How to Prepare a Successful Pitch for Employee Recognition Software

The three-step process above will help you secure executive buy-in for employee recognition software. But only if your pitch is spot on. Here are three tips to help in this regard:

Keep it Short and Sweet

You’re not Bruce Springsteen; your boss doesn’t want to watch you “perform” for three hours. (Keep singing “Born to Run” in the shower, though. Full volume. We’ll never tell.)

Your pitch for a recognition platform should last 10-15 minutes, tops. Make the business case for this kind of software. Answer questions your leadership team might have. Promise to track the program and optimize it for success. Then bow out and let the chips fall where they may.

Honestly, if you go longer than 15 minutes, your superiors will get bored. If they’re bored, they won’t sign off on a recognition tool. Do yourself a favor and keep your pitch short and sweet.

Include Visual Elements

Make your pitch more engaging with visuals. You know, pie charts, bar graphs, funny memes that help prove your point. Whatever you can do to make your boss sit forward and take notice.

Visuals have another benefit: they make complex information more digestible.

You can say, “Organizations with strong recognition programs are 12x more likely to achieve strong business outcomes.” But if you show this information, it will hit harder.

Quick Tip: Tools like Canva make it super easy to produce quality visuals. Simply pull up a template, input your data points, and pretend that you’re a professional designer.

Ask for Approval

Remember, your pitch isn’t a performance. You’re not hoping for a round of applause and a bouquet. You want approval for employee recognition software. Ask for it.

The key is specificity. Are you asking for money? How much? Do you want to start a pilot program? How long will it last? Maybe you just need the green light to explore vendors. 

Whatever the case may be, aim for clarity. You won’t get executive buy-in if your ask is confusing. A strong pitch with a clear request, on the other hand, will get you far.

How to Choose the Right Employee Recognition Platform

Leadership signed off on employee recognition software. Congratulations! Before you pop the champagne, think about the platform you’ll use to elevate the employee experience.

In our humble opinion, there are three important factors to consider:

Platform Features

Choose employee recognition software that has top-end features if you’re comparing multiple employee recognition software programs across regions or teams. That way, you can make the most of the tool. The best engagement platforms have the following capabilities:

• Custom Branding: Your recognition platform should match your company’s vibe. Choose a tool that lets you add logos, change colors, and customize backgrounds. Kudoboard lets you do all these things (and more!) for a totally custom experience.
• Peer-to-Peer Tools: Top-down recognition is great, but don’t forget about peer-to-peer shoutouts. Choose an app that lets employees acknowledge contributions. Kudoboard simplifies this with an “invite peers” feature so they can participate in all recognitions.
• Physical Gift Options: We’re all for digital thank-you cards. In fact, ecards are kind of our thing. But there’s a time and a place for physical gifts. Choose a tool that enables users to send gift cards. Or integrates with a tool for company swag. Or, in Kudoboard’s case, makes it easy to turn virtual praise into beautiful hardbound books and posters.
• Helpful Automations: If you want recognition to actually happen consistently, automation helps a lot. Look for a tool that can auto-send birthday and milestone messages (and handle reporting on a schedule too). Kudoboard can automatically create and send ecards, so you’re not doing it all manually.
• Employee data that’s actually useful: A good recognition tool shouldn’t just send messages, it should tell you what’s working. Things like: how often people are being recognized, who’s getting left out, and whether engagement is trending up. Kudoboard gives you reporting so you can adjust your program based on real data.
• Integrations that fit your workflow: The easiest tools are the ones that plug into what you already use. Check for integrations with things like Slack and Microsoft Teams, plus anywhere else your company shares updates. Kudoboard works with Slack and Teams, and can also be shared through social and intranet channels, handy for hybrid and global teams.

Agreed Upon Budget

FAQs About Employee Recognition Software

1. What is employee recognition software?

Employee recognition software is a platform that helps organizations consistently acknowledge employee contributions through peer recognition, rewards, celebrations, and performance-aligned appreciation.

2. How does employee recognition software improve retention?

Recognition strengthens emotional connection to work. When employees feel appreciated, they are less likely to seek opportunities elsewhere, reducing costly turnover.

3. Can’t managers just recognize employees manually?

Manual recognition is often inconsistent and difficult to scale. Software ensures recognition happens regularly, visibly, and without relying on memory or individual effort.

4. What features should good recognition software have?

Look for peer-to-peer recognition, automation, reporting, customization, rewards options, and integrations with existing workplace tools.

5. How do you ensure employees actually use the platform?

Adoption improves when leadership participates, recognition is tied to everyday workflows, and the rollout includes clear communication and training.