Case study: Elevating employee recognition: Guidewire x blueboard

In 2016 the recruitment team at Guidewire wanted to re-energize their lackluster employee referral program with rewards that would get employees talking. When they discovered Blueboard experiential rewards, they knew they'd found the ideal solution. Today, Guidewire uses Blueboard to power multiple employee recognition programs, from anniversary awards to spot recognition—and their people love it. Join Mark Daniels from Guidewire and Taylor Smith, Blueboard CEO to get recognition best practices and strategies based on our 6+ year partnership.

Transcription:

Mark Daniels (00:08):

Hello everybody.

Taylor Smith (00:10):

How's everyone doing? We got a small group in here. Don't be shy. If you wanna come up closer to the conversation, you're welcome to.

Mark Daniels (00:16):

We can't see you in the lights, but we know you're there. Yeah!

Taylor Smith (00:19):

Totally. So yeah, my name's Taylor. I'm co-founder and the CEO of Blueboard. And what Blueboard is? We are a new type of rewards and recognition platform. Our whole shtick is that we believe that people give so much time and energy to their jobs that how cool would it be if a company could reciprocate and send employees on cool experiences outside of work to spend quality time outside of work if they wanted to do that. So when people get a Blueboard reward, instead of getting a gift card or an iPad or something, they get to choose the experience that's most meaningful to them. So we send people to get a couple's massage, their husband or their wife. You could take the kids to a bus behind the scenes tour at the zoo where you could even go jump out of a plane and everything in between. And we invited Mark to come chat about his journey working with Blueboard because he found us very early on, two years into our journey in 2016. And Guidewire's been a customer now for about six years and we've grown the program together and seen some really cool results. So we're just going to dive in and talk about that today. Mark, I'll just throw it to you to introduce yourself.

Mark Daniels (01:24):

Thanks Taylor. Glad to be here. I am Mark Daniels and I work at Guidewire Software, which is a Bay area based company that creates software for the property and casualty insurance market. I know not very sexy but exciting company to be at. And I have been there for almost 10 years, which in software company terms is approximately a million years. And one of the reasons I'm still there is because I love the Guidewire culture and what we're trying to do. My role at Guidewire is part of the people team. My title is often just includes the global mobility piece, which is moving people all over the world. But my role also includes several other programs that we've put all together really on this journey of employee engagement as a function for employees. So we bring people in the door, how do we build them to become part of the Guidewire community and feel engaged in that community? So there's many aspects to how we do that. And our employee recognition program as well as our wellness program, our global mobility program, are all ways that we do to keep employees engaged. So glad to be here today and talk more about that journey working with Blueboard.

Taylor Smith (02:35):

Totally. And I was thinking it would be a good place to start to just talk about gvi Guidewire's philosophy towards its people before we dive into recognition.

Mark Daniels (02:45):

That sounds great. So when I joined Guidewire 10 years ago, we were at only a thousand employees. We're now at 3,300. So we've had growth over that time period. And really if you boil it down, yes we make software, but our greatest asset is absolutely our people. So we can't create software, we can't install our software if we don't have the right people engaged in our community. So from the onset, the HR team is striving to build and retain our employees. Many companies would be of course. But really to take that to a next level so that we have employees that are engaged and productive and doing great work and loving being a Guidewire, that's what we're all about.

Taylor Smith (03:28):

Yeah, that's something that stuck with me just through working with you guys over the years is you really do put your people first and come up with some pretty creative ways to keep them engaged. And so let's go back in time to 2016. You're thinking about launching some type of recognition program with some type of partner. What was your vision for the program and what did you wanna achieve?

Mark Daniels (03:48):

Yeah, it's interesting to think back because as we thought about employee recognition, we were a smaller company then and smaller budgets. And we really were trying to be creative in terms of what could we do to really reach the employee base that we have at Guidewire. So Guidewire's average age is 28. So we have a very young workforce, we have a global workforce and we wanted to focus on what really matches what we're trying to do in all the aspects of the employee life at Guidewire. And that's about engaging events, bringing people together different types of team building experiences. And when we started looking at the employee recognition options, more traditional options, it just feel like it didn't fit. The catalog with an engraved watch that you get on your anniversary just didn't seem like the right mix. And so we were engaged with the experience and recognition and then kind of Blueboard crossed our path at just the right time. And we initially went with a referral program. We were trying to get more and more referrals as we were going through this hyper hiring growth. And so I guess we tried each other out, so to speak, by doing that with a referral bonus where you get a Blueboard experience if you had the most referrals in a given month or the most referrals that were hired. I think you can read about the case study with your materials there, but the results were amazing. And that started this journey that we're on with Blueboard.

Taylor Smith (05:21):

And just to give people a sense of what that looks like from an employee point of view, often companies have employee referral incentive programs that are driven by cash. So hey, if you refer an employee that gets hired, maybe there's a thousand dollars cash bonus, $2,500 cash bonus. The program at Guidewire was different. It was like, hey, if you refer an employee that gets hired, you're going to get to basically go on a trip to anywhere that you want and the company's going to pay for you to have a long weekend, so people, were you know.

Mark Daniels (05:48):

I remember some of our first winners were from our Dublin office and they had purchased and they went skydiving. And so they had purchased the video of the skydiving. And so that was featured on our internet basically saying we need more referral bonuses. Look who won and put Dublin. And you see him jumping out of a plane. So that's pretty, yeah!

Taylor Smith (06:06):

I think it drove 3x or 4x the amount of referrals when you guys were a big hiring process.

Mark Daniels (06:12):

Absolutely, so we thought, oh, we're onto something here coz the cash bonuses did not result in the same kind of result.

Taylor Smith (06:19):

Yeah, totally. So that's how we started. And then we had this idea of, okay, we can do more than employee referral incentives. It's landing really well with people. Obviously Guidewire's paying for people to go have these adventures outside of work. People really loved it. Before doing that though, I know you're looking at other vendors and other products that were out there. Do you wanna talk about some of the other things you saw out there?

Mark Daniels (06:40):

Yeah, so we opened this up and sometimes I think in HR we might be drawn to the big technology solution because it seems like if only we had that tool that would make our employee recognition work and we tried to step back from that mentality and say if hey, this turnkey solution that has 10,000 different prizes you can pick from, maybe that's not the solution for us. Let's step back and talk about what recognition actually looks like at Guidewire and what that recognition culture would look like. And so from there we had a cross-functional group that designed a new strategy for recognition and that included a whole series of different types of recognition from peer to peer recognition, which was as easy as opening a Slack channel, cheers for peers. And so basically there I can just say, Taylor, great job in that presentation today.

(07:34)

Loved what you did. Smiley emoji. So there's no cost to that, it's public. I tag his manager. And then we progressed onto, okay, what are some tools where managers can recognize employees for a great job at different tiers like Blueboard setup. And so again, it felt like a great match to go from our referral program from the recruiting team to make this an enterprise wide solution. And then as we continued on that journey and the recognition by managers was working great we then moved into our service award program and we started honoring anniversaries at 1,2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 because we're over 15 years old now as another way to use these experiences and celebrate people on their anniversary. So again, it was part of this larger comprehensive strategy which we all branded internally, Guidewire cheers. And then Blueboard came in as kind of part of that overall vision of sharing those experiences with employees and then the employees share those experiences that they went on.

Taylor Smith (08:39):

Yeah, I think one of the things that we like to talk about is the fact that a lot of times when you give someone a reward or even a bonus, it can be taboo to talk about you don't get a bonus on a Friday and come talk to people around the office on a Monday. You just don't do that. And so we find a lot of people have a hard time building a cult, a true culture of recognition where you can actually talk about the rewards that you're receiving. The unique thing about experiences that Mark and his team are good at broadcasting is people really talking about what they did on the weekend. And so it's really easy for someone to say, oh, I got to go skydiving that first guy who did it in Dublin and it created this buzz about the recognition program. And that's something that's really unique to Blueboard that I think you just don't see with other program types and whatnot.

Mark Daniels (09:25):

I would say almost we get the benefit of that recognition two times over because we've honored the employee by giving them this recognition and then they select their award and then they're so excited about their experience, they share the picture back. And so then we're basically able to post on cheers for peers, say, Hey, look what this employee did, they rafted down the Grand Canyon or other exciting experiences. So it's great.

Taylor Smith (09:48):

Yeah, it's cool. And different companies take different approaches to it. It's very randomly, my dad's company that he's an employee at uses Blueboard and he'll like send me, they have employee experience newsletters and they'll highlight people going on their adventures, but more importantly talk about what did they do at work to get recognized in the first place. And it's like because they drove a great product launch, they got to go on a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. Right. I think it's the last one that I saw, which is pretty cool. Let's talk about, I think one thing people always ask us is isn't it better to let my employees choose if they want a gift card or if they want cash or if they want experiences? I think it's something that we hear a lot and a question that you had early on was like, is there going to be something for all of our people? Yeah, we're in global offices where, yeah.

Mark Daniels (10:41):

So I think again, as we have gone through this journey at Guidewire, we found that, well I had to almost, I had to learn, just check some of my biases at the door because I love doing experiences. So then naturally I come into it and I'm like, everybody will love these experiences, but that's not the case. And so one of the things I've loved being in partnership with Blueboard is I can get that feedback both from our internal surveys and from the surveys that Blueboard does, but I also can take feedback from employees and start to reinvent what else we do. So yes, we've been talking a lot about skydiving and big experiences you do in the world, but then the pandemic hit and we were like, okay, it's going to be really hard for people to go out and do anything. And this is where Blueboard just, we love their energy to work together and they pivoted and there was a whole new series of at-home experiences.

(11:34)

And so what came out of the pandemic outta necessity to create new at-home experiences, which some of our employees favored our date night. I don't know what's in the date night box, but maybe I should get one the wine subscription, the flowers by the month or something. So all these things we were created because you had to, but what we found is that they appeal to that much wider of an Guidewire our audience pandemic or not. And so we have employees that always get the at-home experiences cuz they're not really looking to go out and do big adventures jump out of an airplane. So that's been really, I guess great outcome I'd say in terms of how we reinvent reaching more employees. So I think as the offerings have gotten wider, we're able to excite more employees with different types of experiences and I guess the definition of experiences expanded. So yeah, it could be wine at home, it could be a massage, it could be jumping on an airplane.

Taylor Smith (12:32):

Yeah, totally. And something that we found through looking at our own data that's really interesting is what people choose actually changes based on what generation you're in. Broadly millennials, gen Z tend to choose things that are very novelty based. So hey, I've never done this before. Hey this will look cool on Instagram, I want to go do that. Where we find that older generations actually are all about spending quality time. So it's not about the novelty, it's about, Hey, I got to bring my partner to this wine and cheese pairing class, or Hey, I haven't caught up with this friend in a long time. We got to go see a comedy show together. And are that something that we see pretty consistently across our data that was really interesting to us is that different people choose really different things. And that's our challenge in Charter as a company is to make sure that we do have things for everybody.

Mark Daniels (13:23):

As we grew globally as well at Guidewire, as well as offering a wider offering. We also were thrilled with how Blueboard was able to really be a present in the key markets where we're operating. So as we continue to give awards out in Dublin and Poland and Malaysia we're our big tech centers we were in partnership with my client manager and said, I need the short list of what can you do in Wasaw? What have you found to do in Malaysia? And that's been super helpful in promoting the program that we can have, not just something that looks US-centric. And if I were in the Bay Area, these options would be great, but if I'm in Kuala Lumpur, these options are pretty amazing too. So that's been a great transition.

Taylor Smith (14:05):

Yeah, totally. Totally. And weren't always global. It took us a while to get there. And actually I'm going to take a brief detour at just, we'd love to tell y'all why we started the company in the first place because I think it's interesting to understand the roots. I started my career in sort of big corporate in management consulting and I had a specific experience with recognition that I remember from early in my career that led me to want to build this company. It was back in 2011, it was a long time ago. I was stopped on a project in Dallas working in the at and t headquarters. And it was this really grueling project where I was traveling to Dallas from San Francisco every week for about three months. I was the young analyst. So I was the one who was there at 8:00 AM and often the last one leading at midnight or one cuz I'm deep in the Excel sheets.

(14:56)

And three months into this project I was in pretty miserable shape. I was tired I hadn't been sleeping super well, I hadn't been working out, I had been traveling every week. So I remember things with my girlfriend at the time were just a little rocky. And at the end of the project, my manager called me into his office and he said, Hey Taylor, the partners and I were really impressed with the work that you poured in and we wanted to recognize you. And he handed me and slid me an Amex gift card across the desk and he was like, thank you so much. And I remember in the moment I was just tired and I was like, oh thanks. And in the back of my mind, I'm a pretty analytical person. I'm like, oh, I've been working hundreds of hours of overtime. Am I only worth a dollar 25 an hour to Accenture?

(15:40)

Which totally isn't what was happening. And I think it was part of my exhaustion where I felt bitter about it. But in talking to my roommate at the time who became my co-founder, he had such a different point of view of what happened. Like he said, Hey, it's actually amazing to me how many things went and yet you're still sitting here complaining to me on a Friday night. And I said, what do you mean went right? And he's like, well, think about it. He's like your manager called you into his office to say thank you and he handed you a gift card, which means that he had to go to hr, he had to go buy that gift card, which means that there is training that Accenture is doing for its managers, which also means there's a huge budget for a program like this. The company was so well-intentioned, yet the end result just doesn't match all the work that went into it.

(16:26)

And that's what ultimately gave us the idea where we were like, oh my gosh, what would've been better? And I was like, well what if my manager had called me into the office and said, Hey, you've been working your tail off. Why don't you take your girlfriend on a couple's massage this weekend in hill spa? Both of you can relax and just get recharged and we would love to see you Bretton early recharge on Monday morning. I would've thought that was the coolest thing in the world. And that would've turned me from someone who was like, oh, a gift card to be like, oh wow, Accenture really gets me. They see me. And so that's what led us really to start the company, is we realized that HR leaders benefits leaders everywhere are so, and they go to great lengths to evaluate different platforms. They spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on these programs, but the end result for the employee just ends up being sort of a dud.

(17:18)

And that's really, really what we wanted to change. And so that's why I'm so thankful that you took a shot on us early on. Our assumption was that if Blueboard was hard to use, nobody would use the platform, they'd just go back to buying a gift card. And so what we've built is basically you can go onto the Blueboard platform, send a reward in under 15 seconds, and then the employee is able to go into our experience menus, choose whatever is most meaningful to them. So for some people that's the date night in a box at home. For some people that's the turn your kitchen into a lab where you get to blow up colorful concoctions with your kids in the kitchen and to spend some quality time there. And what's really cool is you get paired with a concierge. So someone is going to reach out to you, say, Hey, congratulations, it looks like you wanna get a couple's massage. You set this Saturday, I'm just going to confirm that that works for you. And we do all the bookings and logistics. So your employee feels like a rockstar. Someone's taking care of all the logistics and they can take their family to go to an outing that's paid for by the company. It's just one of those win-win win things that just really makes a lot of sense.

Mark Daniels (18:21):

And I think for Guidewire we're here talking about recognition, but again, I opened in my intro, it's part of this much larger philosophy around how do we drive employee engagement So the employees do their best work at Guidewire. So we talk about Blueboard as part of our employee recognition program, but it's really part of an overall philosophy that really flows together around wellness. It's around our community impact program, which we call Guidewire is back. And so all these together are trying to create, our ultimate goal is for employees to find a community outside of their work team. And so for employees to find a community outside of their work team, we need to have other ways that they can connect with individuals. And so sharing a Blueboard experience can be something that connects people participating in our wellness challenges every two months can be another connector across the globe. And so we're seeing wonderful results in terms of how these types of experience, awards and other focus on community service and wellness all come together to create that employee engagement glue. I like to think of building a community outside of your work team.

Taylor Smith (19:33):

Totally. And I would say connection is so important today. We've spent the last two years going through a whirlwind of challenges as leaders looking out for our people. And I would say if we hear one thing consistently from our clients is that people do think are thinking a lot about how do we keep people connected? How do we keep our culture strong in face of all that's been going on?

Mark Daniels (19:58):

Absolutely. In some ways, how do we create a virtual community if this is going to be the new norm and in other ways, how can we come together safely in smaller groups and teams to have really meaningful experiences?

Taylor Smith (20:10):

Yeah, totally. Let's switch to a fun topic. Tell us about some of the fun adventures, outings experiences that people on the Guidewire team have had.

Mark Daniels (20:19):

How much time do we have? So as a traveler, wander type person myself, I'm always drawn towards the international ones. And so we had an employee who used their award to go to what I think is the most remote hotel in Patagonia in South America. And so the picture he sent back that we broadcast on our employee recognition channel was basically the mountains of Patagonia, this beautiful log hotel right there. And he's given a thumbs up and wearing his Guidewire shirt. So I couldn't have staged that better, but he did a great job with the brand placement. Other ones, I think countless ones are lots of employees that use them to get tickets to Disney World and Disneyland. And it's not just about seeing Mickey Mouse, but it's about, I might have worked hard on this project and I'm being recognized for, I might have dedicated five years to the company and I'm being celebrated for that and now I get to go meet Mickey with my family.

(21:18)

And I think it's that family connection that's really powerful as well cuz you see it in the pictures and the experiences that you guys are booking for them. So those are a couple of favorites that pop up. I also, a recent one just celebrate their anniversary by rafting down the Grand Canyon. So that was a pretty dramatic picture. We've also started using them for employees that are retiring. So we weren't quite sure how to do the retirement celebration but again it's been Blueboard and interesting enough, several people in the same department were retiring close to each other and the first one took their award to go to New York City and see a Broadway show with his partner. So then that became the new norm like, oh you retire <laugh> and then you, you're Blueboard, you go back to New York. So that's been kind of a fun thing to see as well and how people are swapping stories and being celebrated as well.

Taylor Smith (22:09):

And I know you've gotten some Blueboard rewards.

Mark Daniels (22:11):

I've done some myself, yes. And so what did you do? I picked my favorite Mexican restaurant in Chicago where I live and the chef came over and did this group cooking dinner night. So that was super fun. The pitcher of our kitchen was on our Guidewire Blueboard webpage for a long time, which is kind of funny. And then there was that, and then my wife and I went to New York City, so I guess we copied the retirement but I didn't retire. So we did the Hamilton and New York City weekend, which was awesome.

Taylor Smith (22:43):

Cool. I haven't seen Hamilton, what I've really, yeah.

Mark Daniels (22:46):

True confessions from. Okay.

Taylor Smith (22:48):

I know I feel like it's right up my alley too in terms of music and everything, but, and I think I love those stories though because something unique when you reward people with experiences is that social nature of them that you can, hey, take your wife to New York to see a Broadway show, take the kids to Disneyland. I think there's so many things in our relationship with work as people where there's a lot of things you can't do cuz work gets in the way which affects you but also your loved. Yeah. You know what I mean? I remember growing up it's my dad would be like, Hey, sorry I can't come to your game this week because work is crazy right now. And it's like, that's fine, that's life. But how cool is it if you get recognized that you can actually reciprocate that and say, Hey, we're going to actually pay for you to spend time with your family outside of work.

Mark Daniels (23:40):

And maybe you could say, well hey Mark and Taylor, you just give a credit at Expedia and everyone could do this. And what I'm trying to stress is that it fits into Guidewire's over philosophy in terms of how we try to give this white glove experience to employees and taking care of them and very much that extends into Blueboard. So the fact that you're booking your trip to New York with the concierge and had a bottle of wine with a congratulations note in the hotel room when we get there. So it's these types of details that are exceptional that Blueboard does that, but it's also very much in line with what we're trying to do internally at Guidewire in terms of how we look out for our new hires and the welcome pack they get and how that makes you feel very much extends through this program.

Taylor Smith (24:24):

Yeah, totally. And just in terms of, I know we're talking about a lot of lavish trips and crazy vacations, that's not all that we do. We actually specialize in local experiences and we have a experienced curation team that our whole job is to find the coolest and the best experiences all over the world. I think we're up to over 15,000 small businesses that we've vetted that live on our platform. There's something for everyone When we work with companies, it's pretty simple. We work with companies and we say, well how much do you want to invest in your employees? So some companies might start with $20,000, some companies start with much higher than that, but we just charge a fee to manage the program on top of that. So it's super easy to work with us. We have companies working with us with anniversary rewards and spot rewards like Guidewire.

(25:13)

We do sales incentives, we do President's Club. There's a variety of ways that companies work with us. But the thing that these companies share is that at the end of the day when their people are celebrated for doing something amazing, they want them going out into the world and spending time outside of work in a way that's most meaningful to them. And that's a shared thread across our about, I think we're close to 500 customers at this point which has been fun. We have four minutes left so we're, we're going to wrap this up pretty quickly. One thing that I think is interesting is people hear about Blueboard and they're like, wow, this is cool. It makes sense and I think people get it, but I do still think there's a little bit of a leap of faith that people need to take in terms of convincing their executive team convincing other people. Do you have any words of wisdom about what it means to launch a program like this internally and some of the battle scars to be innovative if you will?

Mark Daniels (26:07):

I'd say advice I can give and advice I can take because we're still on this journey at Guidewire, is make sure you take the time to pause and think what you're trying to do with your recognition program before you just find the solution. So at this point, even though we've shared great examples of success and growth, it's really still being driven out of our people team. So managers are giving the awards, et cetera. But I think what I'd love to see for our journey and for all of your journeys would be that this becomes increasingly more organic across the organization so that I'm not having to prod hey managers, it's time to think about recognition. If you truly reach the nirvana of employee recognition culture, I think you're just trying to keep up with the managers who are giving out recognition across the organization. So I would be very encouraged to go that direction and for all of us to focus on how do we really drive this from the managers themselves and just have a tool that works for them as opposed to HR having to push the program forward.

Taylor Smith (27:09):

Yeah, totally. And I also like the point you said at the beginning where when thinking about recognition, start by thinking about the end result before making a choice on what you're going to do. Because I think the end result, if we put ourselves in the shoes of our employees a lot of times doesn't get that reaction that we're looking for. When someone becomes a proud supporter of your company, we think a lot about how do you make a group of employees proud to work at your company? And we see it in subtle ways. There's some companies where employees are proud to wear the swag and they would happily wear the backpack or the t-shirt and we think about okay, those people are proud to work there, how do we do that? One last thing that I meant to say earlier is not only does Blueboard increase communication and connection inside Guidewire, it's also helping you guys build your employer brand. You know, I mean you're people that are going on these trips, they're telling their friends like, Hey Guidewire's awesome, they sent me to go rafting down the Grand Canyon because it's my 10 year anniversary and money can't buy great PR like that. And I think that's something that our clients really see as a benefit as well. It's like people become insanely proud to work at Guidewire because you gotta support them living their lives outside of work.

Mark Daniels (28:26):

I'd say the other advice I would give is what we've gotten much better at is pilot small and see what happens, measure results. So we used to be in this mod where we'd plan a new program for two years and then we'd do this grand launch. Now it's like we're going to try to revamp recognition in 90 days and then pilot a small program. So that's really what we are doing with the referral program. It could be just let's try these 10 rewards, measure feedback from those employees and then see does this a potential in our organization? It doesn't need to be a global strategic layout. I've spent months planning this. It could just be a start small, try it out, see if this resonates and go from there.

Taylor Smith (29:05):

Talk about the results real quick. User shared the NPS score with me for the first time today.

Mark Daniels (29:09):

So at Guidewire, part of that pilot Small and Grow is we become obsessed with the net promoter score. And so our employee recognition Cheers program with Blueboard is at 85 and we're blown away. We're trying to get a over 50. So that was great results that were onto something, it's resonating now. Let's continue to drive it through the organization.

Taylor Smith (29:32):

Cool. Yeah, no thanks for sharing that. Yeah, that's amazing cuz as a founder you dream of finding customers that really do get value out of your product and that they are like where you become a true partner. Because I know a lot of your feedback has driven the changes we've made in our product, right? Absolutely. And we're always there to support, but it's amazing to see those results. So no, I appreciate you sharing that. So lastly, if you want to learn about Blueboard, the best place to do that is our website, just www.Blueboard.com. We work with mostly companies, 500 employees and up, but we're happy to talk to anyone who wants to do the right thing for their employees. We're over there and Booth three 11 if you want to talk to anyone on our team. Our team is amazing would love to share more with you. But I appreciate you all for stopping in today and March. Thanks for sharing.

Mark Daniels (30:21):

And I'll be here through the conference tomorrow and I'd love to talk about new programs and employee engagement, so we'd love to talk to any of you and learn more about your companies as well.

Taylor Smith (30:30):

Awesome. Thank you

Mark Daniels (30:31):

Everyone. All right, thank you.