How Criteo improved employee happiness 17% with monthly recognition

Criteo is a global technology company that helps marketers and media owners reach their goals through the world’s leading Commerce Media Platform. Founded in a Paris start-up incubator, Criteo now employs 2,700 people in 20 countries, and works to sustain its entrepreneurial spirit across the globe. With rapid growth in recent years, the organisation needed a single, global program to deliver a consistent approach to recognition across the globe and develop their existing culture of appreciation.

Objectives

Criteo launched ‘Spotlight’ with the following aims:

• Motivating and engaging employees
• Global alignment to a single set of goals, values and behaviours
• Integration of the recognition platform into Slack
• Reducing the administrative burden previously associated with recognition

Design

There are three elements to the Spotlight recognition program:

• Merci: Non-monetary recognition
• Applause: Points-based recognition
• Standing Ovation: Quarterly award with approval workflow

Spotlight

Employees can access Spotlight on mobile devices, as well as desktop, from any location. Integration with Outlook and Slack has made it particularly easy to access as part of everyday activity, contributing to the impressive adoption and use of the program.

Highlights

Criteo followed Achievers’ recommended pre-launch strategy, and effectively leveraged their existing communication channels. Their pre-launch video helped to spark excitement ahead of launch. To maintain momentum post-launch, Spotlight is supported by strong ongoing communications and quarterly campaigns linked to business goals, such as Stay Connected, which proved successful during lockdown, and a Hackathon Boost where double points are awarded for innovation and cross-team collaboration. Other initiatives have included a year-end celebration where managers were given points scratchcards to distribute to employees and a Black Friday event that gave away double points.

Results

• 17 percentage point increase in how happy employees are with the recognition they receive since program launch
• Global recognition activity is now consolidated into a single platform, and Criteo has been able to align its entire organisation to a unified set of goals, values and behaviours
• Feedback from employees and the business has been extremely positive
• Stakeholders, leaders and managers have capitalised on the platform’s reporting and analytics to identify new communication opportunities for the business
• Target operational efficiencies were achieved within six months, freeing the team up to focus on their core activities