American Express — Reward Blue
Financial Services / Employee Experience
Strategy + Transformation
Sales + Employee Enablement
Client
American Express
Timeline
Multi-Year Engagement
Services
Employee Recognition Strategy + Experience
Challenge
A recognition platform creates the opportunity for appreciation. Building recognition into everyday work takes more.
American Express had established Reward Blue as a global recognition program, but sustaining awareness and participation required more than periodic promotion. Leaders, new hires, remote employees, and colleagues across markets encountered the program differently.
The opportunity was not simply to drive employees back to a platform. It was to help recognition become easier to understand, easier to remember, and easier to practice throughout the employee experience.
Strategic Insight
Reward Blue already contained a powerful behavioral framework: Praise Effort. Reward Results. Celebrate Loyalty.
Together, these ideas broadened recognition beyond awards for extraordinary performance. Everyday contributions could be acknowledged. Meaningful outcomes could be rewarded. Long-term commitment could be celebrated.
Recognition could also cascade through the organization; from company to employee, leader to employee, and peer to peer.
The strategic opportunity was to help recognition move beyond the program and into everyday work.
What We Created
An interconnected recognition experience designed to make appreciation easier.
Fusion helped extend Reward Blue across an interconnected ecosystem of employee touchpoints.
Environmental communications brought recognition into the workplace. Digital experiences and communications created recurring visibility. Print and localized materials helped explain the program across markets. Leadership communications encouraged participation and modeled recognition. Employee stories made the behavior tangible. New-hire and remote-worker concepts explored ways to introduce recognition across different employee experiences.
Programs such as Employee Appreciation Month and the Reward Blue Global Games created concentrated moments of participation while supporting a broader goal: making appreciation part of everyday work.
Notice someone’s contribution. Acknowledge it.
A framework for extending Reward Blue beyond periodic promotion and supporting recognition as an everyday employee behavior.
Integrated awareness and participation concepts, including Employee Appreciation Month and Reward Blue Global Games.
Environmental communications and physical touchpoints that made recognition visible within the everyday workplace.
Digital communications, portal-related experiences, and recurring touchpoints designed to keep recognition accessible and relevant.
Tools, stories, and communications that helped leaders and employees understand and participate in Reward Blue.
Flexible communications designed to support different markets, locations, employee populations, and working contexts.
RESULTS + SIGNALS
What success looked like.
Reward Blue continued to evolve after the work represented here. Subsequent American Express reporting continued to identify Reward Blue as part of the company’s global colleague recognition and appreciation approach, including reporting that 86% of colleagues received recognition or appreciation through Reward Blue in 2019. Later reporting continued to reference Reward Blue, providing evidence that the recognition system endured well beyond an individual campaign.
RECOGNITION ARCHITECTURE
Praise Effort. Reward Results. Celebrate Loyalty. gave employees and leaders a simple framework for acknowledging different kinds of contribution.
MEASURABLE PARTICIPATION
American Express later reported that 86% of colleagues received recognition or appreciation through Reward Blue in 2019.
ENDURING SYSTEM
Reward Blue continued to appear in American Express reporting many years after the work shown here, demonstrating the longevity of the recognition system.
WHAT THIS PROVES
Strategy + Transformation
Sales + Employee Enablement
Related Work
