Supporting Happiness and Productivity with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU)

We published the SNHU story a couple of years ago, but given their recent success in reducing their voluntary turnover from 10.3% to 6.7% in two years, we were excited to learn more about what they are doing to support a workforce that is distributed across 33 states.

This month, we hosted a wide-ranging conversation with Michelle Kaplan from SNHU’s People Experience & Inclusion team, covering employee recognition and events, accessible and interactive meetings standards, as well as creating belonging using employee networks (ERGs). Importantly, we also had a very lively chat conversation, and we wanted to share some of the top themes for what our webinar participants shared!

1. Employee Appreciation Day events

SNHU example: SNHU holds an Employee Appreciation Week that starts off with each employee receiving an eCard from the president of the University directing them to a video message. Employees can then attend up to 30 events during the week. Everything from asynchronous picture sharing to learning events to DJed “feel good huddles” meant to bring fun to their day. The People Experience & Inclusion team collaborates with their 39 employee network groups to ensure diverse topics are covered during the week and 31% of SNHU’s 4,800 full-time employees attend at least one live event during the week!

Examples from the audience chat:

In-person events: Closing offices for a half day to engage in activities like Top Golf, bowling, arcade games, movie outings, spas, or sports complexes.

Equal access: Rotating recognition formats like on-site celebrations, remote events, and hybrid models to reach employees across all regions or job types.

Company-values themed events: Hosting fun activities like photo-sharing contests or scavenger hunts tied back to values like teamwork, collaboration, or creativity.

Manager-led branch takeovers: Allowing managers to step into daily employee roles while staff engage in team-building events.

Family-centric activities: Inviting employees’ families to events like crawfish boils, lake cruises, or in-office celebrations to create moments of shared connection.

Food and treats: Sending lunch, cookies or customized treats to remote or distributed offices as part of Employee Appreciation Day.

2. Employee service milestone celebrations

SNHU example: The team used their Reward Gateway | Edenred employee experience platform, Shine, to streamline their process and allow for anniversary celebrations starting at 1 year. They send out eCards on the day of and hold bi-annual celebration meetings with music and a scrolling feed that honorees and their managers are invited to. The most recent event had 500 people and the chat was lively and fun.

Examples from the audience chat:

Large group events: Hosting a quarterly or annual event to celebrate milestone anniversaries, with music, dancing, photo slideshows from previous years and thank-you cards signed by all leaders and HR staff.

Interactive meetings: Publicly acknowledging milestones and anniversaries during team or all-hands meetings (e.g., weekly or monthly), accompanied by applause, shoutouts, or simple rewards.

3. Formalizing employee recognition

SNHU Example: the Shine platform is the home of formal recognition at SNHU, including value-based and greeting eCards, seasonal events eCards (graduation, Candygrams, Winter Snowball Fight, etc), and student recognition of employees.

Examples from the audience chat:

Core Value prizes: Designing recognition programs where rewards are aligned with core values, such as highlighting cultural excellence during all-hands meetings.

Newsletter features: Including milestone celebrations, “Employee Spotlights,” and public shoutouts in internal newsletters distributed across the company.

Employee nominations: Allowing employees to nominate on peers who exemplify the company’s core values, and announcing winners through public shoutouts and performance bonuses.

4. Customization and choice in rewards

SNHU Example: The SNHU Shine platform allows employees to gather reward points that they can spend at the Reward Marketplace. This means that employees can spend their reward points where they would most like to – on day-to-day goods in stores like Target or Walmart, or on special treats at American Airlines or Sephora.

Examples from the audience chat:

Swag: Offering employee-branded shirts or apparel for annual recognition alongside broader event-based merchandise.

DIY celebrations: Providing food or snacks for smaller celebrations like team-specific recognitions, where employees can celebrate casually together.

Bonus topic: Supporting employee wellbeing

While we didn’t directly address wellbeing initiatives in the SNHU conversation, our webinar attendees had a lot to offer in this category!

Multi-dimensional wellbeing: Hosting events that align with the five elements of wellbeing – career, social, financial, community, and physical – such as financial planning workshops, fitness challenges and community service days.

Fitness challenges: Encouraging employees to participate in walk or activity-based challenges to promote physical wellbeing.

Community impact activities: Organizing "Serve the City" volunteering days or matching employees’ donations to their favorite charities.

The overarching themes that came out of the chat during our webinar reflect participants’ dedication to creating employee-centric cultures and showing appreciation. We so appreciate the smart and thoughtful ideas that were shared!

Do you want to get involved in a Reward Gateway | Edenred event as it happens? Head to our Events page and get registered!