Mattering at Work: How ICF Integrates Meaningful Recognition Across the Employee Experience

MODERATOR: Alright. Well, let's get started. Welcome to today's webinar. We're so glad that you could all join us.

Just some housekeeping items. We will send out a link to the on demand recording of this webinar later today, so watch for that in your inboxes. If you have a question for our panelists today, please drop it in the Q&A box or in the chat. We should have time at the end of today's presentation to go through some of those. And if you'd like to earn your SHRM or HRCI credits for this webinar, we'll share those codes at the very end too.

Today, we are joined by Lindsay Landry, employee experience lead at ICF. Lindsay spends her days thinking about how to make work feel more human, one recognition moment at a time. She partners with leaders and employees to design meaningful recognition, onboarding, and connection building programmes that meet people where they are. Lindsay is a firm believer that genuine appreciation fuels connection and culture and that recognition works best when it's simple, genuine, and a little bit fun.

Away from work, Lindsay is usually solving a puzzle or planning her next Disney trip with her husband and two kids, and she brings the same curiosity to recognition that she does to puzzles, looking for the pieces that make everything click.

So without further ado, take it away, Lindsay.

LINDSAY LANDRY: Thank you so much, Raven. I'm so thrilled to join this webinar today and to just spend time with you all and talk a little bit about my experience at ICF and how we have really worked to build a recognition programme to meet the employees where they're at.

Today, we're gonna talk about something that sounds simple but is incredibly powerful when it's done well: Mattering at work. And at ICF, recognition started as a programme, and over time, we realised it needed to become something a little bigger, more of a connective thread woven through the entire employee experience.

A few years ago, recognition was happening, but not always consistently. It wasn't always visible, and sometimes it wasn't landing in the moments that mattered most to employees.

So that was a bit of a turning point for us, and we realised that it wasn't just about tools or points. It was about how people felt showing up to work every day.

So today, I'll share a little bit about how our approach has evolved, things that have worked well, and, of course, what we've learned along the way, and how small intentional improvements can lead to meaningful cultural shifts.

So just before we dive in, to give you a little bit of context on ICF, in case you have not heard of our company until today, we are a global advisory and technology services provider with more than eight thousand employees worldwide. We are headquartered outside of Washington DC in Reston, Virginia. We've been around since 1969, when we were founded by Lucky Lester, who was a member of the Tuskegee Airmen. And he founded ICF to help fund minority owned small businesses in the DC metro area.

Since then, we've evolved to expand our services to many types of clients, many types of industries. And we've really, while we've had so much growth, all that growth has been done while being very people centered. About half of the work that we do involves us supporting the federal government, and the rest includes things from international to state, local, energy, utility clients, and more.

And our kind of North Star, our purpose is to build a more prosperous and resilient world for all. And that guides us not only in the work that we do with our clients, but in also how we support and show up for our employees.

We want our employees to prosper in their careers, in their life, and through the experiences that they have here at ICF.

And why does that matter? Because scaling recognition across a fairly large and complex and growing organisation requires intention. So what worked when we were a little bit smaller had to evolve as we've grown.

So a little bit of background there on ICF.

But a few years ago when we were really taking a look at recognition at ICF and what really falls under that umbrella, what we had at the time and what we wanted to do, we clarified a simple but ambitious vision. We wanted to offer a best in class recognition programme that improves the experience, helps to increase engagement across the organisation, retention, and deepens the sense of belonging.

Because as you know, we all know, recognition only works if it's human.

But before I go further, I would love to hear from you all in the chat who are joining us live. What is a moment, an example, anything big or small where at work you felt seen, that you belonged, or that you were heard?

So it could be anything just from a colleague sending you a note at the beginning of the day to ask how you were doing, someone, you know, shouting you out in a team meeting, whatever it is. So, I'll pause for a moment just so we can see what people may share in the chat.

Awesome. Yeah. Brandon shares formally celebrating a one year anniversary. Yeah. I think a lot of people, that's not always one that gets kind of a bigger fanfare or celebration around it, and that's that's a huge moment. You know, the first year at anything and a new job, there's so much that you're taking in, that you're learning, and, you know, contributing in that first year. So for a company to take the time to celebrate that one year milestone is pretty huge.

Getting the opportunity to present on work that you did behind the scenes, Matt, yeah, I think that's huge. You know? Sometimes it can feel like you're a worker bee just churning out really great things. You're the one crunching the data. You're the one creating the slides, and then someone else kind of carries it forward and presents it. So I think that people getting the chance to kind of be the voice for their own work that they put all the time and effort into is wonderful.

Yeah. Oh, Pierre. Wonderful. Yeah. Being, you getting recognised during a team huddle for helping a team member while they are away on PTO. Yeah. PTO is super important. We all need to take it. We don't wanna not use it.

But, of course, we're all pretty important to the organisation, and so mostly it's felt when you're not here, especially for extended periods of time. So just taking a taking a chance to send a note and and acknowledge that person is big.

Let's see. A team member sending an ecard acknowledging and celebrating collaboration across the team project. Yes. This doesn't have to just be within the team that you're a part of. You can reach out across the organisation and give someone kudos or say thanks. That can be huge.

Dana's here is a leader presenting recognition award for our team in a larger group to help the larger group understand the impact the project had on our company. Yes. That has so many layers to how that's so impactful, not only for the team that's receiving the award. That in and of itself feels great.

You feel seen. You feel heard. And then to kind of amplify that recognition in front of a bigger group. And then the impact it has for the bigger group to kind of see, wow.

This is what great work looks like and gives people something to be proud of at their company and to aspire to. So wonderful. Thank you so much. I love interactive things, so stay tuned.

There'll be a couple more moments on this call to hear from you all. So feel free to chime in with anything you've got as we move through the call.

So over the last five years and maybe even more, our work environments have changed drastically.

We have navigated a pandemic. There has been a huge rapid pace of digital transformation, AI coming into the picture quickly, and just lots of uncertainty over time. And despite being more connected than ever, I mean, we have tiny computers in the form of phones in our hands constantly available to get information and connect with someone at a moment's notice, people report feeling more disconnected and lonelier at work than ever. And so a little perspective when you're thinking about your organisation and its recognition programme.

And there's all, we're always somewhere as a programme or even as an individual on a scale of surviving to thriving. And some days, you know, we're crushing it. We feel great. We're feeling seen and recognised, and others, were struggling just to get the basic stuff done.

But when you're looking at your recognition programme as a whole, there's a few things that you can just keep in mind to kind of do a pulse check for where you think you're at. Like, where, how close are you to the surviving or thriving end of the scale?

So if you, if your programme feels a little more surviving, that could mean that people feel like feedback is infrequent, and it only shows up when something's wrong. Yeah.

We all know that doesn't feel good. That's not, we don't only want the ping to go, hey. Haven't gotten that from you yet, or did you get a chance to do this one thing? And when you're juggling thousands of other things, that's really not great.

But on the other end of it, thriving, you're getting good coaching, helpful feedback along the way, and actionable clear next steps, and kudos for the things that you're doing really well. So that that definitely feels way better, doesn't it?

On the other side of surviving, another thing can feel, that recognition doesn't always feel consistent or you're, you kind of think, oh, well, it doesn't matter because people, it's all just about who you know and only people who are very connected are going to get really good recognition.

But if you're thriving, if you feel like you have created a programme that is fair, available to all, recognition can be given in multiple directions at any time, and it's, it can be very specific. So not just a general thank you for your your help, but very, very specific.

And if it's tied to impact, like, not just, hey. Thanks for doing that, but you did this, and here's the difference that it made.

And then last, you know, if you're kind of sitting in that surviving space, it can often feel like there are unclear priorities and shifting expectations. Oh, well, you said this was our goal, and this is what we wanted to do, that you know, two weeks ago, and now it shifted to this, and it just feels like a goalpost is moving. Right?

But if you've got a thriving environment, then there's clear goals, priorities. People have a really good understanding for what doing well and what good looks like. And if I put in the work, then I know that most likely I can be rewarded and appreciated and recognised in this way.

So recognition alone isn't going to move every single person in your organisation from surviving to thriving. We are way more complex than that. But what it will do if you have a really good and robust recognition programme is it's gonna move the needle. It's gonna help someone take those little baby steps towards feeling like, wow.

This company is the place that I wanna be. I feel like the offerings here are helpful for me, and this is a place where I feel like I'm thriving. So I would love to hear from you.

If you're looking at this scale and I tried to simplify it with kind of four points along the way. But if you're looking and thinking about your own programme, would you put, would you kind of gauge it to be more of a one, two, three, or four? One being closest to surviving and four more on the thriving end.

Oh, good. Alright. A three, a four. That's great.

Another three.

Okay. It's all threes and fours so four. That's really good to hear. Okay. Two four two and a half. Yeah. Another four.

Yeah. That is that is fair. I mean, if you, if you work at a recognition company and you're not feeling like it's four, that wouldn't be good.

Oh, good. Yeah. Well, that's great. I'm so glad that so many people feel like you've really you've got pretty helpful programmes that are there to support our employees and help them to feel seen, that they belong, that they're heard, and that their great work can be recognised.

Because, you know, when you're you're working with people in an organisation, you're assuming positive intent, you know that they're all doing their best, to their best capabilities and that with the time available that they have, you do want to be able to be intentional to award, reward, and recognise that.

Well, wonderful. And, you know, at ICF, we have made some deliberate choices to invest in recognition as part of a broader employee experience strategy.

And part of that, it also includes visible executive support. The leadership buy in that we've been able to get has really made something made all of this possible.

But next, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about our holistic approach to recognition and how we have added to it over time to grow it into the programme that it is today.

So you can see lots of things here in our recognition space, and they did not all happen overnight. I promise you. It all started with our service awards programme. So for every five years that someone is with the company, we get to take time to share appreciation, kudos, congrats, lots of messages, and contribute to a Yearbook for our friends and colleagues.

In addition to the Yearbook, they also receive a symbolic numeral that is tied to the number of years that they've been with the company, and they also get to select a gift.

So that is a really nice experience not only for the person who has invested their time, their work, their energy to the company and and the great contributions they've made, but it's a really great opportunity for the rest of us as employees to pile on and be part of that experience to say, hey. We see you. We're glad you're here, and we wanna celebrate you.

So it's a really nice amplification of all of us collectively being able to be part of that anniversary.

Another component is our values awards. So annually, a few years ago, we established these kind of top level awards to award to five to seven people across the organisation who really exemplify our core values.

There's a process that they go through to be nominated from each of our groups, and it's a really wonderful way to not only recognise them and celebrate them, but to kind of elevate that for others to say, wow. This really embodies what we want everyone here to kind of drive towards. So, that's been a really wonderful part of our programme. They receive a trophy. They are recognised during all hands. There's feature articles about them, and they also receive points towards our recognition programme.

Speaking of that programme, our recognition programme, it has been branded as You Matter, which I think is so fitting because that's really what we want the big takeaway to be. We want people who are receiving recognition at any level, in any form, to feel like they matter. And any person who is receiving recognition can go here and see it, and there's so many wonderful things about the recognition and the way that they can send it.

On the site, people can get, receive points for awards, and then they can cash those points in for gift cards, items. They can donate to different charities, things like that. And we've also moved our anniversaries programme to be on this platform. So it's kind of a one stop shop for all of the wonderful things here.

Another piece that you can see thank you, Jamie, in the chat. We recently, last year, we added retirement books to our portfolio of recognition offerings.

This came from, a request from a leader saying, hey. We have someone who's been with our company for a really long time, and I know we do those Yearbooks for the people with anniversaries, but can we do one for someone retiring?

Instead of just saying, no, that's not a thing we have. I said, well, let me see. And I worked closely with our client success partner, Pierre, and we were able to to try it out. We did a couple of pilot programmes for two different people with anniversaries at the end of 2024, and it was amazing. They both had over sixty comments for each of those retirement yearbooks.

And, the nice thing is that it's a great memento for somebody to get to look back on a career well done, a job well done as they kind of move into that next phase of, you know, getting to figure out what we would all do with that with all that time if we weren't working.

So we formalized that programme at the beginning of 2025 and have done over close to twenty five retirement yearbooks since then and have a couple in the works right now. So that's been a really phenomenal way not only to celebrate the retiree, but for the way that the rest of us get to engage and participate and be part of that experience. So we get to kind of celebrate that achievement, send them off with some really great kudos.

Yeah. The image that you see here on the screen, that's kind of a little bit of a snippet of what that looks like. But we've got a really great process for collecting information about who has a retirement and then kind of the end to end experience from kicking it off to collecting the comments to printing it and mailing it is about six weeks. So you just kinda have to give some lead time.

The good thing with the retirement yearbooks too, since sometimes people decide fairly quickly, like, hey, you know what? I think I can retire next month or the month after. Is this is something that's still great that someone, even if they've finished, if they receive it a couple of weeks, a month after they retire, timely, still appreciated, and still appropriate to send and a really nice way for them to reflect on their time.

Another thing that we've really done to kind of emphasise the importance of participating and the value of sending recognition through our platform because, oh, well, you could email someone, or you could send them a chat through Teams or whatever it is or Slack.

But part of the the WIFM for people to do this is all of the recognition that people receive throughout the year, all of that is pulled into their performance reviews at the end of the year. So it's a really nice reminder. When they receive the recognition throughout the year, their manager does receive a notification in real time. So throughout the year, they kind of get those pings and all those awareness moments to say, wow, look at this great recognition and kudos that your direct report's receiving.

But at the end of the year, it's nice to see it collectively to go, wow. This person received, you know, ten ecards and five awards this year. That's amazing.

And it's a really nice kind of reflective moment, not only for the manager, but for the person who's taking the time to write their assessment as well to go, wow. Okay. I have done some pretty great things this year.

And then another piece that has really helped overall for our programme, I think, is just having some really helpful communications and reinforcement from having an Intranet page that tells people all about our programme, all of the different offerings and pieces of it.

We've been, we are regularly included in our company's weekly newsletter, and we take moments to elevate employees and recognise them for a variety of reasons. And there have been really great connection points from our programme as an offering company wide to some of the awards that have been given out from our corporate responsibility team for volunteering. Each of our groups has used our programme to be able to award people in different ways. So I think that consistent reinforcement has really helped a lot.

And one of the things that's important with our programme is that it's always been part of our culture. Recognition in some way, shape, or form, it's in our DNA. It's just the type of people we are. But being able to formalize it with our You Matter programme has has been huge. So we're about seven years in to having a formal programme.

And, ultimately, our biggest goals have been to make it easy for people to recognise employees and managers can access the site to be able to send recognition.

It's inclusive, so all full time, part time, and on call employees are eligible to participate.

It's visible. There's a really wonderful wall of fame features, so you can just see all of the great recognition that people are giving and receiving, and you can like it and comment kind of, like, on other social media platforms.

And there's some really nice insights that managers can see into their team's recognition, not just what they've received, but how much they've been giving as well.

It's flexible. Recognition can be given from all directions, whether it's from a manager, a peer, someone in in a completely different part of the organisation.

It's really accessible in that way to allow the recognition to be able to come from whoever is is just noticing what you're doing.

And then the last piece that we really, one of our goals was to make it timely. It only takes a minute or two to send recognition. It's pretty quick.

And so this allows for some really good real time appreciation, kudos, or thanks to be sent. And you can also think ahead and schedule it. So if you know, oh, I'm gonna finish this project with this person on this day, and I don't wanna forget to send them an ecard or nominate them for an award. Being able to schedule it can be really helpful.

So when we looked at recognition at ICF, we really had a bit of a mindset shift. So recognition isn't just a standalone programme. It's really part of a broader life cycle in the full employee experience journey.

So, I mean, I'll go through each phase of the journey and just talk to you a little bit about where does recognition kind of fit in and how have we used it to amplify, reinforce, and all of that.

Oh, and I see a question here. How is recognition throughout the year consolidated into Workday? So that all the recognition from throughout the year is pulled into a data file, and then we have a really wonderful HR data team who then is able to upload all of those into each person's file.

Yeah. So it there is a little bit of a a manual process, but it's not, like, one person at a time because that definitely wouldn't be possible. But, yeah, that's been a a huge a huge thing that adding that to our performance review process has been a big differentiator for people, I think. Yeah. Great question.

Yeah. And keep them coming. If you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer those as they come up.

Okay. So let's take a look at different parts throughout the employee life cycle and where where may there be an element of recognition.

So, of course, first, you start. You know, you're a new hire. You're coming in, and you're brand new at this job. What does that mean?

Well, we have an an email that goes out to new hires. They're at the end of their first week. One, hey. You've made it. Your first week is done, but welcoming them and let, and reminding them that we have a recognition programme.

We reinforce it. We give an overview of our recognition programme early in the onboarding calls so that people know this is a core part of our culture and something that we really wanna encourage everyone to participate in. And we encourage our managers and buddies to send a welcome email to their new team team members.

So I think just starting it early is really crucial, for people to see this is a norm at our company. This is something that we value. It's important, and we want you to participate in it.

Next, the part we spend probably most of our time every day, we do our jobs. Right? And within, like, different aspects to doing your job, we've been able to create custom e cards, aligned to each of our values and aligned to some of our initiatives, like high value collaboration, for specific campaigns throughout the year. I already mentioned that recognition is included in part of performance management.

And just wherever we can, finding small ways to reinforce that recognition is a part of ICF's culture, whether it's a quick reminder at the end of a call. Hey. If this presenter shared something that was helpful to you or insightful, send them a quick ecard, nominate them for an award, whatever feels like the right fit. So there are lots of opportunities throughout the work that everyone does to just take a small moment to recognise them.

Next, you know, sharing in success. There's so many ways to do that. You know, we typically recommend ecards are used if someone's kind of meeting expectations. Are you doing what you should be doing, that's part of your job, or is it a happy birthday or a congrats?

Awards really are, we have varying award levels, and the awards are meant to be sent when people really go above and beyond, when they're giving extra time, going outside of their typical job expectations, or just really delivering great results to clients. So that's where the awards can really come in and make a difference.

Our service anniversaries, you know, we want people to feel celebrated every year that you're at a job. I think that's worth getting even a shout out, which has been one nice thing that's been, an addition to our update to our anniversaries programme recently is now even though we do make a bigger celebration of the five year anniversaries, a manager is more easily able to know, oh, it's your third anniversary or your eighth anniversary, and just at least take time to send you a note and say, hey. You've been here this many years, and I wanna just say thank you.

We have the broader company level awards that I talked about a minute ago. But each of our groups, the groups themselves have really leaned in and been able to use the points that they have to come up with ways to use those as part of their quarterly and annual awards process. And it's really been a good alignment between a core message of recognition, this is the place to do it, and the group seeing value in this programme.

And then throughout the year, sometimes we'll just have different spotlight stories on some of these recent award winners. So it's a good a good, you know, moment to celebrate them, but also for the rest of us to get a chance into, being able to celebrate in what they're doing and be inspired by them.

So next, you know, we all, growth and success, we would all maybe, like, define that a little bit differently. For some of us, the goal is to one day become the CEO of our companies, but there's only one person in that chair typically. So for the rest of us, what does learning and growth look like? And what does a success and a fulfilled career look like?

Well, when it comes to recognition, just the ability for peers to recognise each other is a game changer. Instead of waiting and hoping that your manager notices or their manager and it to be a full top down approach, that is huge for people to feel seen and notice because most often it is your peers who are closest to seeing the hands on work that you're doing every day.

In addition to us making a bigger celebration of the milestone five year service anniversaries, we do have a process annually so that people take a moment to reflect on their annual anniversary. We tell them thank you. We share a few resources to remind them, and their managers are reminded as well.

And then we are able to use our programme for other broader corporate initiatives, things like our volunteering programme, corporate responsibility, awarding kind of the first finishers of compliance training. That's always a good motivator, a chance to get some points if you finish that essential task that we all need to complete every year. So lots of ways to just think about how you may connect it to that particular phase.

Next, you know, we talked in the beginning about what's the difference between surviving and thriving. Well, how can we help an employee thrive? We have a well-being incentive programme in place that's really wonderful. There's lots of ways that you can kind of earn contributions to that.

And for some people, that includes earning money towards their HSA, but for others, that allows them to potentially earn points in our You Matter programme. So I really love that we kind of have that option for people who may not be enrolled in one of the medical programmes.

And then we kind of lift up recognition and highlight it a few different times each year. Employee appreciation day in March is always a wonderful opportunity to do that.

Every July for the past few years, our recognition team partners with our benefits and corporate responsibility teams to do a whole month, where each week, we have a different theme of, of caring and just reaching out and connecting with colleagues and sending some recognition as as well.

And then in September, World Gratitude Day is kind of our third pin of different bigger campaigns that we do, to encourage people and remind them that whether it's big or small, just taking a moment to express your gratitude for someone can make a huge difference.

And then last, you know, people move. Sometimes within the company, there's lateral moves. You're, there's a promotion to another team, whatever it might be. But to you know, it's a nice opportunity when someone does make that kind of move for that new team to maybe send them some welcome to the team ecards or give them some shout outs and feature them in different emails to say, hey, here's the newest addition to our team.

And then when people, you know, as through the performance cycle, if someone does get promoted in that particular year, taking a moment to give that shout out. I know plenty of people will post and update their position on LinkedIn, and that's a good opportunity to kind of chime in and tell them kudos as well. So I think there's great moments throughout the entire life cycle here.

And then last, you know, people leave. We all don't stay exactly at the same job for our entire time.

And like I mentioned, the retirement books, that is one of my favourite things that we have as part of our programme.

For anybody who does leave for maybe another opportunity or whatever their reason, we do give them a sixty day window to, after their last day, to still be able to redeem their points.

And then there have been a few instances where we've had beloved colleagues pass away, and we have done some really beautiful memory books for people to just reflect and share moments, and then those books have been shared with their families.

So, yeah, different reasons definitely for people leaving, but I think just holistically looking at the entire life cycle, there's all these little moments, big or small, where whatever you wanna include as part of your broader recognition programme, it's all going to make an impact for people.

So with that in mind and just for me sharing a little bit about the things that we have included and, you know, to date, I feel like there's always more that we can do, and I'd love to add, but, I'd love a chance to learn from you.

So not everybody does things the same, but I'd love to hear in the chat what are some things maybe after I've gone through a little bit of our list of things we have throughout the life cycle. Anything come to mind that you have at your company that you wish you had, that maybe touches on one of these phases in the life cycle?

MODERATOR: And, Lindsay, as we're letting people get their comments in the chat, Desi did have a question. Back in the iSTART area, can you share how you ensure consistency in the welcome outreach from a manager and or a buddy?

LINDSAY: Yeah. So as part of the onboarding, each of our managers and buddies receives a journey in Workday, and part of that does link them to a welcome email template and encourages them to send it. I mean, we don't have data tracking that they all follow through and send it, but I think at least prompting and offering that resource to everybody upfront and reminding them of the importance of their role in the onboarding process, makes a huge difference.

So, we do hear from our new hires that they are getting a warm welcome from their managers, their buddies, and their broader teams. So I think that really just connects back to our culture of just recognition and and bringing, a caring company. But good question.

Yeah. But what about you all? What are some things maybe that you've, you can think about that align to any of these phases throughout the life cycle of an employee, big or small, that you maybe think your company is doing well or maybe even that now that we talked through some of these that you has given you kind of an idea to say, oh, you know what? It would be great if we did this.

Yeah. I love that idea. Being having leaders send, inviting you to send ecards to your new team members within the thirty days because while people have a manager, and in our company, we have assigned buddies to be that kind of warm welcomer and helper, it is a team effort to welcome people and help them feel part of the team.

Oh, I love this one. This is one that I would love to add to our programme. So you have a congrats on graduating ecard to celebrate earning a degree or congrats on your new role ecard to celebrate a job change or promotion. That is awesome because there are so many moments in people's lives and great opportunities to celebrate them, whether it's getting a new degree, a certification, a life event, whatever it is, I think all of those are great.

Oh, a skip level, taking someone to lunch. Yes. I mean, there's, I think we don't have as many of those in person touch points depending on the job, and we, as a company, are fairly dispersed now. We have people in lots and lots of locations, some people primarily working from home, some hybrid, some in the office. So without kind of those typical water cooler conversations, anyone taking time to meet with you separately, give you some of their, you know, your time is your greatest gift you can give anybody. So I think that's huge.

And Megan says our company gives awards every five years each year and receives certificate and a letter from our owner. We also have a twenty year board, so every associate who's been here twenty plus years will receive a magnet to put their name on over the twenty team board at their location. Oh, I love that.

Let's see. Personalised birthday ecards where all team members in the department sign it. Yes. You know, when I was reflecting on my own journey to get involved in recognition, and I've been part of the recognition space for over three years now, but looking back and seeing that kind of breadcrumb trail and all those moments throughout when I've always tried to find a way to be grateful to people, express thanking, adding all of that throughout.

But I can actually trace it all the back way back to my high school. When I was in high school, you know, four score and seven years ago, my high school actually printed out paper every single day and lined the hallways of the people who had a birthday that day. So it would be one paper, eight by eleven of each person and their name, and then we could all walk by, pull a pen out of our backpack, and sign a happy birthday. So that has been a huge impact for me to see the way at the end of the day people would go take that down, be so excited to see all the messages they got.

And I don't think that's something that goes away from the time you're really little to, you know, a hundred years old.

Having all of that makes a huge difference.

Oh, I love that one. That is a great one. I think I love being able to double down on the recognition too. So when someone on your team gets an ecard, the leader who is notified, adds it to the Teams channel so you can all see that great work and celebrate and cheer that on. I love it. Yeah. Because it's what's better than just getting recognition once?

Having it be reminded for other people.

An annual award related to your company values at both the site and company level. A simple handwritten thank you card available at weekly team meetings with ten minutes built into the agenda for people to write someone a thank you card. I mean, is there anything more meaningful, today than a handwritten note, especially if someone takes the time to write you that note, walk it out to their mailbox, send it through the postal service, and receive it in the mail that typically most of our mailboxes are full of ads, junk, and bills. So getting that note from someone means a lot.

And I love that idea at a team meeting to do that. A pet ecard contest where people submitted photos of their pets and they were turned into ecards. People love sharing photos of their pets. Okay.

That's an idea I'm gonna have to borrow because, we use Viva Engage. It's an internal social media platform offered by Microsoft, and the top and most visited favourite group in the whole entire thing is our pet photos group. So I can see how this would definitely be a success here.

Oh, I love that. Oh, appreciation-gram cards to distribute to employee desks after. Oh, that's so nice. Wonderful.

Well, these are all wonderful, wonderful ideas. If you have more, please, please, please keep sharing them. I think there's so much that we can all learn from each other. I already feel like I've walked away with a couple of other ideas, and I hope that throughout our time on the call that you all do as well.

A couple other things that I just wanted to share.

While we do have a pretty robust and full recognition programme, there's always more. Right? There's always new ways you can think of, big or small, to enhance your programme.

And a few things that we've done recently, to enhance our programme in the vein of continuous improvement, and we kinda done these last few in rapid fire.

The first one we added in December of 2025 was, a feature called AI Recognition Coach, and this is wonderful. This, you write, you draft your first message and kinda put in what you'd like to say to this person, and then it will give you feedback, if you say improve my message. It gives you feedback one on, you know, how impactful, how meaningful your message is, and then it recommends maybe a few edits for that message. So that has been wonderful.

The other thing, so we've had the anniversaries programme for quite a while, but this year, we moved it over onto the same platform as everything else for recognition, our You Matter programme.

And through this, it's been a huge upgrade, for us both in the experience for the celebrant and for all the employees who contribute to add a message to their Yearbook.

It's also reduced, it used to be that the success or the number of comments a yearbook received fully rested on the shoulders of that person's manager. And while they all have good intentions, it wasn't always time or or great execution there.

Now you can browse to see if there's any upcoming anniversaries of people that you know after signing a yearbook. You can search for anyone you'd like, share that book with others that you know, because there are people in our networks that are outside of our direct kind of org chart teams. So I think that that is a really wonderful add, and we've gotten lots of positive feedback. And already, just from launching at the end of January, we have seen the average number of peer comments increase from an average of about six comments to a yearbook to about ten.

And our leader response rate previously, we had about sixty one percent of our leaders sign their direct reports to yearbooks. Now we're up to at least seventy four percent. So seeing those kind of tangible results for making the programme more accessible, easier for people to participate, and for all of us to get to see, wow.

When you go in, you can see, look, five people have already signed Lindsay's anniversary yearbook. Let me go in and be number six. So that's been a really wonderful add.

And then another feature we added was sometimes, you know, you have some points, you're sitting on them for a while, you're so close to being able to get that item that you'd really love, but you're not quite there.

So now people can purchase points with their own credit card to help them kinda get right over the line and then be able to redeem it for the item that their heart's desire has been on for a while. And then within thirty days, they are refunded for the amount of points not spent on that particular item.

So that has been really wonderful and a great way to add additional flexibility for people to redeem the points that they've earned for their impact that they've made.

So for all three of these, they weren't, they weren't flashy launches. It wasn't us just seeing something shiny and new and going, yes. Let's add that and let's add that. These were all responses to real needs and improvements to programmes that we already had and parts of our programme. And one question that we often ask is, is this actually making recognition easier, more meaningful, or more human? And for all three of these, it's a resounding yes. This is all of these have enhanced the experience for our employees.

So at ICF, recognition isn't just a programme that we're offering to employees from HR or just a snazzy platform. It's a truly a programme owned for, by our people. The platform we have is wonderful, and it supports this behavi​our, but it's the culture we have that sustains it.

And one of the biggest things that we've learned is really taking the time to reflect on why you may wanna make changes or additions and not just what you're launching can be huge.

And when the recognition you're giving and what you're adding to your programme aligns to your values, matches your employee needs, helps to really reinforce and support support your daily work, it sticks.

So I'm really thankful to be able to share with all of you about our programme today. If anyone has questions that we haven't covered yet today, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

So first, thank you. Thank you all so much for joining this call today and learning more about mattering at work and how ICF has integrated this across the employee experience. So thrilled to get to chat with you all. And add me on LinkedIn. I would, and you can find more information about ICF over here on the right.

MODERATOR: Lindsay, thank you so much. We do have a couple questions in the Q&A.

There were a couple around inspiring leaders.

So how do we entice managers to be more intentional with recognition? Some do this better than others, and employees definitely notice the gap.

LINDSAY: Yeah. No. I think that's definitely true. And that's, there's always more, I think, that we can do and that can be done. For our leaders and and those who are people managers, we have a lot of trainings, and we actually have a people managers playbook. And there's an entire session, section in that playbook dedicated to recognition best practices, what's expected of them, links to ways that can make it easy for them.

So I think that's been something that's really reinforced it, and just showing people that it does matter.

One of the things that has really shown how leaders are invested in our programme. For employee appreciation day this year, we had some broader campaign items. We have reminders for employees to participate. And then I started to see company, like, messages to different divisions and groups from those leaders being shared saying, hey. It's employee appreciation day. You all make a difference, and we're grateful for you. So I think that was a really wonderful reinforcement to show that it's sticking and that they can see the value in being part of it.

Yeah. Great question here. How do I help myself and leaders to be more timely in giving recognition to colleagues? Here's my hack.

Put a reminder on your calendar. Whatever cadence feels right. I mean, every day maybe or, once a week, once a month, every couple of weeks, just that little ping to say, hey. Have you, have I taken that opportunity?

Another thing that we have in place from the platform is if there are people who have gone in and sent recognition before, we have reminders that they receive if it's been thirty, sixty, or ninety days since they have sent any recognition, which is I think a very nice nudge. And people have reached out and said, oh, actually, that was really helpful and a good reminder.

So really helpful there.

How do we show the ROI on the retirement yearbooks when requesting budget? That's a great question. So our retirement yearbook programme, it's been a a fairly minimal cost since it's printing a yearbook and mailing that. So I think we've just been able to see the impact that it's had for those receiving it and those getting to participate. But cost wise, it isn't a huge lift there.

Let's see. How do we entice managers to be more intentional with recognition? Yeah. I think that's always a challenge is when there are some people who are better at it than others.

I think one thing is having some leaders who consistently lead by example. And the more and more that it becomes the norm and, like, a second nature and they see, oh, these other leaders are doing, sending an ecard on these days or starting their meetings off with a shout out for the people on their teams who receive recognition. There's just little habits that managers can have to just show that they care.

And I think part of that too as a manager is knowing your team and your direct reports and how do they prefer to be recognised.

Because not everybody wants you know, who loves the feeling when everybody's standing around you singing happy birthday? I mean, some people may, like, savor it and love it, and others are like, I kinda like it, but also it feels a little bit weird to get the spotlight for a minute. So just knowing the person and what works well for them, what they prefer, whether it's a call, a message, or some people do love the little secondary reinforcement of their recognition on a team call.

So I love seeing that too, and I love as a teammate seeing the recognition that my colleagues get. It inspires me. It makes me proud of them, and it makes me wanna do my best work to kinda go, wow. Okay.

These, I see these people on my team were recognised this past month, so I wanna be part of that group.

MODERATOR: Well, Lindsay, thank you so much. Thank you for letting us kind of see behind the scenes a little bit of your programme and get inspired.

And thank you to everybody who attended today. Those credits are here on the screen, and do join us in June. We'll be doing a webinar on a new report that's coming out from our Institute researchers on the State of Generations in the workplace. So we look forward to seeing you all then.

LINDSAY: Thank you so much, Raven. Thanks, everybody.