Team To-Dos
Review checklists of key decision points to set up your program for success.
* Your program configuration is unique to your company. Names and features may vary.
We are recognition experts, not tax or legal advisors. We share our best practices, but each client situation is unique. Alignment with the right people inside your organization will help ensure a seamless implementation and a successful rollout of your new recognition program.
Finance/Legal
Your Finance team will be a crucial partner in decisions around billing models, budgeting, invoicing, taxes, and other financial implications related to implementation of the Culture Cloud recognition program.
Do you have an established tax policy around employee rewards? Have you checked your state’s laws regulating how to handle points at employee separation? Consider bringing your Finance and Legal teams together to discuss what’s best for your company.
BOR vs BOI
When investing in a recognition program, it is important to understand the total cost of ownership. Deciding on a billing model for recognition points is the first step.
There are two models for recognition points: Bill on Redemption (BOR) and Bill on Issuance (BOI). In reviewing each model, there are advantages and disadvantages that you’ll want to consider and discuss with your finance team.
With BOI, you pay for points upfront and billing occurs as soon as points have been issued to your organization or to your employees. With BOR, you only pay for awards that are actually redeemed. There are implications for both models when it comes to invoicing, shipping, point values, expiration and taxes. Review the chart below as you consider decisions with your finance team.
Budgeting
Each program configuration is unique. We share guidance and best-practice approaches that have consistently delivered high impact for our clients.
Key considerations
You’ll need to partner with your Finance team to determine the following:
- When do you expect to pay for recognition points (ie, Bill on Issuance or Bill on Redemption)? The chart above provides the pros and cons of BOI and BOR. Our clients choose Bill on Redemption most of the time, however we can support either approach.
- When do you want to expense points? Points can be expensed at issuance even if billed on redemption. We recommend expensing the points at issuance to be consistent with your budget. Employees can bank their points over several years which can create surprises if points are expensed at redemption.
- When do you plan to tax employees? Culture Cloud features reports specifically designed to support processing taxes (the “Payroll Issued Report” and “Payroll Redeemed Report”). Tax requirements vary by country and province. Your payroll and tax teams should be consulted to understand the appropriate tax treatment for your organization.
- Do you want to gross-up points or not, and if so, by what percentage? Our recommended best practice is to gross-up. Clients typically gross-up by 30-50% in the United States.
- Do you want gift cards to show at face value or spend value? “Face value” means the company absorbs any mark-up (if applicable) over and above the face value. “Spend value” means the employee absorbs that cost within the value of the gift card. (This means the employee receives less than face value spending capability).
Recognition spend
Each organization has its own goals. We partner with you and set targets to help achieve the cultural outcomes you’re looking for. After implementation, we find that best-in-class organizations plan annual recognition budgets in two ways:
• Awards ($325 per employee)
- Individual (Peer: $100 per employee, Nomination: $25 per employee, Anniversaries: $50 per employee).
- Company & Team (Group deposits: 2x/yr - $50 per employee, Initiatives: $50 per employee).
• Services (Budget varies $25,000 - $100,000 per year)
- During Years 1-3, utilize education and communication tools to encourage program adoption.
- In Year 4+, consider ROI/impact research to optimize your program and inform adjustments.
During Years 1-3, utilize education and communication tools to encourage program adoption. In Year 4+, consider ROI/impact research to optimize your program and inform adjustments.
Gross-up best practices and considerations
We recommend discussing gross-up approaches with your legal and tax teams. We provide reporting to show points issued or points redeemed. The reports for issuance will provide the total amount of points issued. The reports for points redeemed will provide a face value amount for gift cards, the selling price, tax, and shipping for you to determine what should be included in the gross-up.
Most clients choose to gross-up employees for the awards received.
Shipping
Clients can choose to ship with our preferred carriers (FedEx and UPS) or utilize their 3rd party shipping account.
Shipping and taxes for a bill on redemption (BOR) model is not a percentage of the invoice. Shipping is charged based on the delivery location, size of package and level of expedited service selected. Sales tax is charged based on the taxes required by the local taxing jurisdiction(s) where the shipment is delivered.
Invoicing
In setting up your program, we invoice bill on redemption (BOR) clients when an award is shipped to a recipient and bill on issuance (BOI) clients when points are deposited in a recipient’s account.
Our recommended best practice for invoicing is to send a PDF invoice via email to one central location. If a client needs to bill back their departments, a specific location or billing code can be established up front and the associated invoices will be processed for easy bill-back purposes.
Tax Implications
Tax implications for Bill on Issuance (BOI) vs. Bill on Redemption (BOR)
Most of our clients adopt the bill on redemption approach, which is often the most tax advantageous. Typically, companies utilizing a bill on issuance model will incur an upfront tax liability, while taxes are deferred in a redemption model. We encourage you to meet with your legal and tax teams to decide which model is the best fit for your situation.
Outstanding points upon company separation
We encourage employees to redeem points before they separate from the company. We recommend that clients work with their legal and finance teams to define a process for employees to redeem outstanding points prior to separation.
Additionally, clients can allow employees who have separated from the company to contact O.C. Tanner to redeem outstanding points. In this scenario, the employee retains ownership of their points and works directly with O.C. Tanner to redeem. If points are taxed at redemption, the redemption detail will be provided on the redemption file.
Employee Separation
When an employee departs your organization, it’s important to have a plan in place for what will happen to their recognition points.
Consider the following financial and legal issues around employee separation:
- Different states have varying rules around breakage. Be sure to check your state’s laws around the rights of the employee at their time of departure.
- How will points be taxed in your state?
- Have you considered what will happen to an employee’s points when they voluntarily leave the organization or are terminated? If an employee should pass away, how will you handle their points?
Technology
You will need support from your IT team in the following areas to ensure a seamless implementation and successful rollout of your new Culture Cloud recognition program.
SSO (Single Sign-On)
To deliver maximum security and convenience to Culture Cloud clients and their employees, O.C. Tanner uses SSO authentication.
Technical Requirements
We recommend you use your own Identity Provider for Single Sign-On (SSO) to take advantage of using your federated authentication service. By using your own Identity Provider, you control who has access to Culture Cloud and require 2FA or other security methods. If you don’t have SSO available, we offer a non-federated authentication service as an alternative.
We support both SAML and OpenID Connect v1.0 for Single Sign-On (SSO).
When using SAML, we require the following to be configured:
- Must support and use SAML 2.0
- Must support using HTTP POST binding with TLS.
- Must support providing O.C. Tanner with a metadata URL or be able to export an XML file.
- Must use at least a 2048-bit key size for your signing key. Must use at least RSA 256-bit algorithm for signing the SAML response.
When using OpenID Connect v1.0 (OIDC) we require the following to be configured:
- Must provide a well-known configuration URL.
- Must provide O.C. Tanner with their own unique set of credentials for authorizing on behalf of the Authenticated user.
Upon receiving your well-known configuration endpoint, O.C. Tanner will provide you with your unique redirect URI upon having successfully configured your Identity Provider.
SSO File Requirements
We will need to establish each participant’s Login ID that will match on SSO. To do this, we’ll need information from the population file, such as employee ID number, email or current login ID for participants.
Preliminary Questions
To set up SSO authentication, we’ll ask some preliminary questions:
Do you currently have a federated solution (Identity Provider) already in place and are you using SSO with other vendors?
What is your Identity Provider solution?
Does it meet the requirements for SAML? What is the login ID you will send as the subject in the SAML response? This login ID must also be in the data files sent as part of the program.
Are you able to provide O.C. Tanner your SAML 2.0 metadata? If so, please attach the metadata file or URL.
Does it meet the requirements for OpenID Connect?
What is the preferred username coming from OpenID Connect? This data element must also be in the data files sent as part of the login ID program.
Do you include the JWKs URI for signature verification in your metadata or well known configuration?
Do you support the authorization code grant type for OAuth?
Do your Corporate Password Standards meet or exceed the following:
- Minimum of 8 characters
- Requires complex passwords
- Maximum of 6 failed login attempts
- Password expiration of 90 days
- Password history of last 8 passwords
- Minimum session expiration of 60 minutes
Once these questions have been answered and the requirements are communicated, the next step is to put your federation team in touch with O.C. Tanner’s security team to discuss implementation.
For current clients – how SSO changes:
Culture Cloud will use the same SSO connection that you had with your previous O.C. Tanner recognition program, but there are a few important differences:
- We’ve added a layer of security to our authentication process. Our current technology leverages either Service-Provider-initiated (SP) or Identity-Provider-initiated (IPD) Single Sign-On (SSO). The new technology leverages both SP/IPD for a more seamless experience.
- These descriptions refer to where the SSO request is made. If it’s from O.C. Tanner, then it’s SP-Initiated SSO, as we are the Service Provider (App) initiating SSO to find out the authenticated user. If the SSO request comes from your intranet or Identity Provider first (IDP), it means the Identity Provider has initiated SSO and sent a user who is authenticated with a request to go O.C. Tanner’s Service Provider (App).
- This means that your employees’ login experience will change slightly with the new technology.
- Your employees may be prompted to enter their login ID or email address and enter the name of the company they work for. This identifies the employee and routes them to your Identity Provider via SSO, and then they can login as they currently do.
Your employees may go through this experience the first time they visit the site or mobile app and again in the following scenarios:
- When their previous session has expired
- If they logged out of their previous session
- If they have a new computer, device or phone
- If they’re using a new browser, incognito or a private session to visit the website
- Or if any of the above applies when they click on a link in the email they receive
Help Desk
Basic troubleshooting tips:
- Culture Cloud powers recognition experiences: it is not phishing.
- Culture Cloud works in all browsers. Users should choose Edge rather than Internet Explorer. Be sure users are on the latest browser version.
- If a user is having issues on the Culture Cloud mobile app, make sure they are on the latest version/operating system of the mobile app from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android).
How should the Help Desk respond if colleagues have trouble accessing or using the platform?
- Ensure the user is not using a bookmarked old link or a link from an old email.
- Provide user this link to log in: www.culturecloud.com
- If they are still having issues, check whether they have a higher security level than a typical employee, to see if the allow list was completed for the higher security level.
Culture Cloud uses the same SSO connection employees have had in their previous O.C. Tanner recognition program, but the login experience will be slightly different. Colleagues may notice some differences in the following scenarios:
- When they first log in to Culture Cloud
- If they are logged out of their previous session (which happens every 28 days, subject to change)
- If they have a new computer or device
- If they are in a new browser
- If they are accessing Culture Cloud through an emailed link
If users are asked “What company do you work for?” when logging in, they should enter a company tag (note that company tags are not case sensitive). Company tags are usually the name of the company and/or a web domain the company uses for emails (for example, octanner.com).
Regarding data migration from previous O.C. Tanner recognition program:
- Award Store “favorite” items and saved addresses will not migrate
- Everything else will migrate, including: History, Orders, Avatar photos (if populated before upgrade), * Privacy settings, Budget History and current budget data, scheduled eCards and Nominations.
Data File
The new Data File (your employee population) is the engine that makes Culture Cloud’s integrated suite of capabilities possible. It simplifies the user and admin experience, making it more seamless, more engaging, and more inspiring.
Implementation overview
While we have HRIS integrations with Workday, SAP and sFTP, as you implement Culture Cloud’s employee experience programming, it’s helpful to plan for population data file requirements (based on your program’s criteria) in the following areas:
- Culture Cloud experiences (employees eligible to participate in recognition, service awards, wellbeing, leadership, celebrations or team initiatives)
- Global Award Store (rules around award fulfillment and geography)
- Admin Tools (role-based permissions for reporting and program budget planning)
The process
- Our data team will communicate with you to better understand your program goals and ensure that on-going, up-to-date data transfer is automated and seamless.
- Based on our conversations, a data file spec will be given to you to share with your IT administrator.
- You’ll then need to work with your IT team to build an automated query pulling from their HRIS system. When available, the query will be tested by our data team to ensure program accuracy. (This typically takes 2 weeks, contingent on the integrity of client-provided data.)
Data Field Types
Client Identification Information
This is data provided by O.C. Tanner to be included in the user population file that will ensure proper routing and handling of the data within the O.C. Tanner system. This includes field header names and a unique client ID that will be included in the file name.
User Identification and Contact Information
These are data elements such as user name, ID, email, and contact phone number. It is used to store and uniquely identify each user record. It is also used for site login and communication purposes.
Security Role
This data indicates what site access within Culture Cloud each user should be given, i.e. administrative, recipient, initiator of recognition, etc.
Manager
This information is used for approvals and for making relationships in the system between users and their direct reports.
Notification Email
Email address used for notifications and Leader/Peer Comments when they are being sent to someone besides their direct manager.
Effective Hire Date
This is the date used to determine when a user should receive communication regarding their service anniversary. It will be used for both award anniversaries and off-year / non-award anniversaries. This date should be adjusted to account for any bridge of service requirements prior to sending to OC Tanner.
Birth Date
This is the date used (month and day only) to determine when birthday communication is sent to the user.
Business Unit
This information tells us where in the organization each user is located. It is also used for employee searches, reporting, and budgets.
Business Unit Hierarchy
This is used to create relationships between each business unit, and to enhance reports and the budget tool.
Billing Information
This links a user to their correct billing location for invoicing purposes and includes the billing contact, address, and email where invoices will be sent.
User’s Country
When multiple countries are configured, this makes the redemption process easier by routing users directly to their country’s Award Store catalog.
Language
This allows the user to view the site in their preferred language (if that language has been configured for the program).
User’s Preferred First Name
This allows a user to be searched and referred to by their preferred first name, instead of a formal or given name, for a better recognition experience. (Users can also provide or change their preferred name after logging in.)
Work Address
The work address for each employee is for award or award invitation shipping purposes; if using location codes, each must be unique to the address and attention.
Home Address
The employee’s home address is needed if any award invitations or notifications are shipping to their residence. It can be updated by the recipient when the order is placed.
Label Lines
These are fields that print on the award label and invoice; they are often used to identify cost centers, departments, or other information for sorting packages and invoices.
Additional Client Fields
Any number of additional client-defined fields can be provided on the data file, mainly to enhance reporting. They include fields like Job Title, Department, and Cost Center.
FAQs
What should be included on the data file?
Each submitted data file should contain data for all participating users (i.e. full population file) each time data is sent to O.C. Tanner.
How do I submit the data file?
Files should be submitted to O.C. Tanner via an SFTP file transfer process. The file name should begin with “DTLD_” to ensure proper routing. A custom client ID, provided by O.C. Tanner, is required after the “DTLD_”. The file name should also include a date stamp.
How often should the data file be sent?
File frequency is recommended to coincide with your payroll cycle; weekly and bi-weekly file submissions are the most common. We currently do not accept daily file feeds.
What’s the file format?
Each file should be submitted as a tab-delimited text file. Additionally, UTF-8 encoding should be used on all files. Failure to do so may result in missing or changed special characters (i.e. letters with accents, etc.).
Architecture
Culture Cloud is designed for ease of use and flexibility, delivered in a variety of ways:
- Through SSO, employees can engage with Culture Cloud the way they prefer, through our web, mobile and integration interfaces.
- We have centrally managed authentication with foundational best practice SOC2 compliant security methods. Culture Cloud easily connects with any enterprise system that your employees use through our API library and pre-built integrations with popular tools like Teams, Slack, Zebra and many others.
- HRIS/HCM population data transfers securely and seamlessly via native Workday or SAP integrations as well as sFTP.
- Culture Cloud offers unmatched flexibility and can be configured and adapted to meet your specific needs – our system is uniquely positioned to service global populations at scale and is architected to respond in real-time to elastic capacity needs.
Allow Listing
As your team adds four O.C. Tanner domains to your allow list, we strongly recommend additional security steps for a smooth software upgrade.
Beyond email security and delivery, the domain allow listing should also account for both web browser isolation and/or proxy servers. There may be additional processes you will need to do based on your company’s security software. Please consider all the places that these domains will need to be allowed, including your preferred security software for web browsing and email.
Cookies must be allowed for Culture Cloud to work. To access Culture Cloud, your company cannot block third party cookies and users cannot use cookie blockers or ad blockers that are installed as a browser extension.
We will provide you with a list of URLs. Please work with your IT team to allow network and email domain access.
Integrations
Culture Cloud’s APIs lets your recognition program connect and communicate with your HRIS, intranet, performance management, referrals, wellbeing, or CRM software—so you can share data and maximize your program’s impact.
We also offer many pre-built integrations that can be added. Click here to learn more.
HR/Communications
Culture Cloud was designed to make administration easy, but no technology can replace the talent, enthusiasm, and great work of an HR team. To help HR teams plan for a successful launch and sustained growth of the Culture Cloud recognition program, we’ve provided ideas on best practices and communication strategies.
Program Launch
HR plays an important role in encouraging pre-launch enthusiasm for Culture Cloud by spreading the word. Consider adopting some or all of these strategies:
- An executive announcement in a company-wide meeting
- Leader announcements in team meetings
- Regular emails from HR or the executive team
- Messages in Slack, MS Teams, Yammer, Workplace by Facebook, etc.
Automated system emails will invite employees to log in to Culture Cloud and download the mobile app at launch. We invite you to consider the following tips to maximize the effectiveness of your new program.
Launch day: shower everyone with points
Highly recommended. Nothing gets people to log in and check out a new recognition program quite like finding out that they have received some points.
Whether budgets let you go big or small, consider using Group Deposit to appreciate every employee, with points, on launch day.
Week one: enlist champions
Light a fire for Culture Cloud through a network of champions. Identify a few leaders and employees as champions, and teach them to give recognition often and share their success stories. Here’s how:
- Make a list of likely candidates throughout your organization.
- Meet with champions and rally them to the cause.
- Teach champions how to lead recognition by example and inspire others.
- Encourage champions to share their positive recognition experiences.
- Recognize and reward champions to celebrate the impact they are creating.
Week two: inspire appreciation
Culture Cloud Learning microcourses create lasting behavioral change, increasing recognition by up to 350%. Five interactive, self-paced modules are available for upload to your Learning Management System. If interested, contact your client success specialist. Roll out any or all of these courses to fit your needs:
- The Case for Integrated Recognition
- Recognition Best Practices
- Encouraging Effort
- Recognizing Results
- Honoring Career Milestones
Week three: reward early adopters
Use your Solution Impact Dashboard to spot top recognizers and then reward them publicly (and generously) for leading out. If you haven’t already, consider inviting early adopters to become champions.
Also consider creating a contest. Use Initiatives to establish company-wide recognition goals and benchmarks and reward employees who achieve them.
Week four: encourage Initiatives
Delight leaders with the possibility of creating their own team-level programs to set goals, establish rewards, and inspire their teams to succeed:
- Meet with leaders to demonstrate how Initiatives work.
- Have leaders choose a goal and create a new Initiative for their teams.
- Launch Initiatives on a team-by-team basis to motivate and inspire success.
Week five: begin measuring outcomes
Soon after your Culture Cloud upgrade, a Culture Survey will be sent to a subset of your employees to measure employee passion, engagement, enthusiasm, and belonging. Use your Solution Impact and Culture Survey dashboards to:
- Create an action plan to identify the culture changes you’d like to see.
- Track improvements over time within your organization.
- See how your organization is performing versus other Culture Cloud clients.
- Combine results with other measurement tools, if any, for a complete picture.
Sustainment
Encourage sustained engagement in recognition activities through employee onboarding, leader training, special occasion events, and everyday recognition.
Onboarding New Employees
New employees are crucial to your organization’s success and it’s important to recognize them early and often. Consider including information about your recognition programs (including service anniversaries) at employee orientation. Remind new employees to watch for comments and invitations and to explore and participate in the Culture Cloud recognition program. Be sure to activate new user emails and send claim account reminders.
You might encourage new employees to send an eCard to someone who is helping them onboard in their first few weeks at your company. Culture Cloud provides an automated cadence of reminder emails to help new employees understand the program and remember to recognize teammates.
Training Leaders
Leaders play a critical sustaining role in the success of your recognition program. Consider utilizing O.C. Tanner’s micro courses to teach recognition best practices to new managers. Culture Cloud is designed with leaders in mind, with extra tools for leaders to easily recognize every team member, track recognition and create and monitor Initiatives. The Leader Tools section of the Culture Cloud User Guide explains these helpful tools in detail.
Special Occasion Events
Use Culture Cloud’s capabilities to do something special for notable events. For example, when an employee’s family welcomes a new child, you might recognize this special time with a baby-themed gift box or gift card for groceries. On Employee Appreciation Day, you could recognize every employee with a group points deposit or a special gift branded with your company logo.
Everyday Recognition
It’s the little things that count, and being recognized for the work you do every day boosts morale and engagement. Consider leveraging recognition points in connection with employee trainings, company-wide celebrations, and other recognition moments for individuals, teams, and departments.
Awards
There are certain considerations related to Awards that will require conversations within your organization.
Global Award Equity
If you give a $100 award to an employee in the United States, how much should an equivalent award be valued in the Philippines, France or Brazil? We can help you determine the appropriate award budget by country.
Our proprietary “Adjusted to Local Market Model” for global equity is used by hundreds of clients around the globe. This tool uses your allocated budget, international salary differential data, and cost of living data to generate a budget recommendation for each country. Our project managers can help guide you through setting global budgets for each country where you have award recipients.
Our Global Reach Calculator is an interactive tool that can help you determine the percentage of global employees we can send awards to without crossing a border and worrying about Customs clearance. Should international shipments be part of your program, we’ll leverage the Landed Cost Calculator to estimate duty, tax, and freight charges.
We look at international shipments in two ways: free trade zones and export. In free trade zones (which include over 80 countries), O.C. Tanner and our fulfillment partners ship using the best available shipping carrier and delivery method for the award destination location. We prepay freight charges and will include them on the original product invoice.
We export awards to over 150 countries on a regular basis. We prepay all freight, duties, taxes and importation fees. O.C. Tanner is the Importer of Record (IOR) and we clear shipments through Customs.
O.C. Tanner charges an international service fee on the total product costs of all international shipments exported from the United States. This fee helps cover the additional overhead costs of procedures associated with exporting awards to mitigate client involvement in clearing shipments through customs and bearing all risks associated with shipments until they arrive.
Because we staff offices across the globe, whenever an award recipient needs help, they’ll always speak to an O.C. Tanner employee. We never pass them on to an outsourced call center.
Consider what needs to happen within your organization’s internal processes related to Global Awards Equity decisions. Which departments will be affected by these choices? Which stakeholders need to be included in these conversations?
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