How GM used recognition to bring its Behaviours rollout to life

General Motors (GM) is a global automotive leader known for iconic brands such as Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac. As the company continues evolving across gas, electric, software, and autonomous driving, leaders recognised that the work ahead was not only technical, but cultural as well.

GM introduced its new Behaviours to help employees better understand the actions and mindsets needed to support the business, strengthen collaboration, and connect day-to-day decisions to GM’s Purpose, Vision, Strategy, and Values.

To help bring those Behaviours to life, GM used recognition as one tool to reinforce the rollout across teams and regions.

The challenge

With more than 62,000 salaried employees worldwide, GM operates in a complex, fast-moving environment where clarity matters.

And with Behaviours already in place, goal was not to introduce something entirely new. Leaders saw an opportunity to make them more actionable. Some Behaviours were carried forward to preserve strengths in the culture, while others were new or updated to better reflect the shifts needed to execute GM’s strategy. The aim was to give employees more clarity on what the Behaviours mean, what they look like in practice, and how they connect to day-to-day decisions that drive the business forward.

That raised on important question: how do you move Behaviours off the page and into everyday work at scale?

Why recognition made sense

Recognition already had a strong foundation at GM.

Since launching its global GM Recognition program, the company had used the platform to reinforce Behaviours, connect teams across regions, and highlight employee stories in one place. As Sandra Garcia, GM’s Recognition and Special Projects lead put it:

Because that foundation was already in place, GM used recognition as one of several tools to support awareness of the new Behaviours.

The solution

To reinforce the rollout, GM launched an 11-week campaign within Achievers and partnered closely with Achievers’ Managed Services team. The objective was clear: build awareness of the new Behaviours, deepen familiarity with each one, and encourage peer-to-peer and leader recognition tied to the featured Behaviour. All of this was designed to encourage participation through intrinsic motivation, rather than points or prizes.

The campaign followed a simple rhythm:

• Two awareness weeks to introduce the new Behaviours
• Eight weekly spotlight campaigns, each focused on one Behaviour
• One wrap-up week to celebrate participation and sustain momentum

Each spotlight week included consistent visuals, clear messaging, and on-platform challenges that encouraged employees to recognise peers in ways aligned to the featured Behaviour.

To spark early engagement, GM added a gamified twist: Early Recogniser digital badges. Employees earned badges by completing weekly challenges, such as recognising multiple peers tied to the spotlight Behaviour or recognising someone outside their immediate team.

The campaign didn’t stand alone. GM reinforced it through leader communications, manager toolkits, team discussion guides, and links to internal culture resources, so employees heard the same message across channels.

The results

The campaign drove strong participation across the platform and helped employees engage with the Behaviours in an intentional way.
Key results included:

• 85% engagement among individual contributors, the highest in program history
• 300% increase in sent recognitions over the year-to-date average
• 12,486 digital badges earned
• Steady increases in recognition tied to the featured Behaviour each week
• A more balanced distribution of recognition across all eight Behaviours

Before the campaign, recognition activity was concentrated more heavily on one Behaviour. After the campaign, recognition became more evenly distributed across other Behaviours.

That shift broadened the range of Behaviours reflected in the recognition platform and gave employees more visible examples of how the Behaviours showed up in day-to-day work.

The continuation

For GM, the campaign wasn’t a finish line. It reinforced a broader belief that culture becomes real through visible, everyday examples, and recognition helps bring those examples to life.

Today, recognition continues to help GM reinforce its Behaviours, spotlight real employee examples of living the Behaviours, and support internal culture storytelling. Building on this momentum, GM recently launched Top Leadership Award program within Achievers designed to elevate storytelling even further and celebrate employees who exemplify GM’s values and behaviours values and translate them into tangible outcomes that advance GM’s strategy and purpose.