Challenges
Kennametal sought to improve its rewards and recognition program to acknowledge and encourage work that benefits its customers and the financial performance of the organization. One of the goals was to improve employee engagement and show appreciation for their workers. However, Kennametal faced several challenges:
- Localization: As a global organization with approximately 8,600 employees spread across many countries spanning five continents, offering meaningful and localized rewards was a challenge. Different rewards have different relevance to employees in different regions.
- Integration: Built-in integration with existing systems, such as SAP SuccessFactors, was a major factor for Kennametal. They required features like single sign-on functionality and seamless integration to avoid extra effort in fixing errors.
- Redemption Process: Kennametal recognized that a rewards program would only be useful if the redemption process was easy, user-friendly, and engaging for employees. A complicated redemption process could lead to frustration and defeat the purpose of improving employee engagement.
- Customization: Kennametal wanted a rewards and recognition platform that could be customized to align with the company's culture, core beliefs, and specific needs, such as translations for certain countries, adjustments for local currencies, and locally relevant rewards.
Solution
Kennametal implemented Xoxoday's Rewards and Incentives platform to address the challenges and accomplish its goals of localization and seamless integration with SAP SuccessFactors without extra interfaces or file feeds. The key benefits included:
- Global Reach with Local Relevance: A unified platform that they could apply globally, while also allowing employees to use their rewards at a regional level, catering to local preferences.
- Seamless Integration: Xoxoday seamlessly integrated with SAP SuccessFactors, enabling features like single sign-on functionality and avoiding the need for additional interfaces or file feeds.
- Customization: Kennametal worked closely with Xoxoday to ensure the platform met their specific needs, including aligning rewards and recognition with Kennametal's core beliefs, providing translations for certain countries, adjusting for local currencies, and offering locally relevant rewards.
- Collaborative Approach: Xoxoday and Kennametal worked together to enhance the rewards and recognition program globally, with Xoxoday implementing solutions tailored to Kennametal's requirements, which they can now bring to other clients
Results
The implementation of Xoxoday's platform has yielded positive results for Kennametal, with a total of 13,000 rewards transactions from May 2021 to January 2022, and about 3,000 transactions per month. The ability to redeem vouchers for everyday life things has been a significant positive note for employees, giving them more choice and flexibility.
Kennametal is looking to continue innovating its rewards and recognition program now that it has the platform in place.
- Going forward, the company hopes to add recognition around anniversaries and internal contests for innovation, while also tying incentives to goals and objectives.
- The most significant thing on the roadmap is milestone awards, says Bauerlein, as the company moves to bring all rewards and recognition possibilities into a one-stop-shop for redemption possibilities that matter to employees.