Jackson & Coker, a top healthcare staffing company with a national reach, takes employee happiness seriously.

At their headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia, their 250+ employees enjoy access to on-site restaurants, a company gym, and even childcare services. In comparison to employee perks offered at similar companies, they're way above average.

But when Jackson & Coker surveyed their employees in 2018, they discovered that employees weren't receiving consistent recognition. Although many of their managers were already recognizing and incentivizing their teams, they needed to standardize their recognition and rewards across the entire company.

After launching Cooleaf in February 2019, Jackson & Coker saw a lift in employee recognition. But there were other benefits to the platform, too. In 2020, when COVID-19 hit, Cooleaf gave team members a way to connect and show appreciation while working from home. Now, Jackson & Coker employees feel more connected and appreciated than ever.

Recognition, engagement, and community, all in one place

Chris Koenigshof, VP of Human Resources at Jackson & Coker, knew that the company needed a platform that provided “recognition, a sense of ownership, and a sense of community.”

Cooleaf partnered with Jackson & Coker to craft a programmatic approach to engagement that included:

• Peer-to-peer recognition to empower team members to publicly recognize the great work of their peers.
• Manager recognition to enable managers to recognize team members for going above and beyond.
• Virtual activities to promote health & wellness, team-building, and innovation.

During the pandemic, Cooleaf gave Jackson & Coker employees a way to stay connected with other team members and celebrate heroic actions. Cooleaf's library of virtual team-building events and challenges — like step challenges, recipe swaps, and virtual coffee chats — helped to foster a sense of community.

According to Chris Koenigshof, VP of Human Resources, Cooleaf enabled Jackson & Coker to transition to remote work while maintaining a culture of connection and recognition. “Cooleaf really allows us to stay connected and help us feel like we’re all part of one company," he said.

Building a community

The rollout of Cooleaf was quick and easy. Employees began "recognizing" their peers from the very first day, and within a few months, every employee had been "recognized" or given recognition at least once.

To get employees involved with the launch, Jackson & Coker ran a "Name This Community" challenge and asked employees to submit their best name ideas for the new platform. The winning name (Spark) was incorporated into the platform's theme, along with the company logo and core values.

Cooleaf's engagement tools also allowed Jackson & Coker to promote professional and personal growth with interactive challenges. Cooleaf's virtual challenges make it easy to award points for living core values, taking online courses, or sharing innovative ideas.

"We ran a Cooleaf challenge where people could submit ideas for innovation and gave points to everyone who participated. We ended up with tons of great responses, and we're still working through that list of ideas," said Chris.

Driving the right behaviors

Cooleaf allowed Jackson & Coker team members to spotlight positive behaviors in an easy, public way.

"As leaders, we want to recognize and positively reinforce great work, but we don’t always have the time to do it," Chris explained. "With Cooleaf’s peer recognition feature, we see people going above and beyond or helping someone else, and that behavior becomes reinforced over time, leading to better results.”

Jackson & Coker sends a yearly survey to measure employee engagement and recognition levels. In their last survey, employees scored 89% favorable in answer to the question "I regularly receive appropriate recognition when I do a good job" — a 6% increase from the previous year.

To keep new recognitions and activities top-of-mind, Chris's team enabled Cooleaf's integration with Facebook Workplace. New content from Cooleaf is automatically pushed to Facebook Workplace, so it's easy for employees to stay connected.

Bringing core values to life

Cooleaf also gave Jackson & Coker employees an opportunity to give back during the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, Cooleaf partnered with Feed the Need, an Atlanta-based organization that delivers meals from local restaurants to area hospital healthcare workers and first responders.

During the campaign, Jackson & Coker employees could donate their points to Feed the Need and participate in challenges focused on giving back to their community. Jackson & Coker employees contributed over $600 from their rewards bank.

“It fit really well with our core value of others first," said Chris. "We were able to bring employees together and make an impact on the community in an amazing way.”

Celebrating team milestones and achievements

Jackson & Coker's managers also leveraged Cooleaf’s recognition tool to reward their teams for performance. They replaced their traditional incentive prizes with Cooleaf reward points, which allowed them to streamline all types of recognition into one easy-to-manage system.

“In order to build momentum, you really have to emphasize the right behaviors over and over, day after day," said Chris. "Having Cooleaf has allowed us to do that. Since launching Cooleaf, peer-to-peer recognition continues to grow, and our employees feel more recognized and rewarded."

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