Admin Guide

Recognition & Rewards

Peer kudos with a points economy behind it: a monthly budget to give, a balance you earn, and a reward catalog to spend it on.

The points economy

Every employee carries two numbers, and keeping them straight answers most support questions:

Balance	What it is	Behavior
Available Points	The monthly giving budget	Set per role by your monthly allowances. Resets at month end to the configured amount — unspent budget does not carry over.
Points Received	The earned balance	Accumulates from recognitions received; never expires; spent by claiming rewards.

Giving is capped per kudos by the role's Transfer Limit. Who can give points at all is configurable: admins and managers always can; everyone else only when the Allow Employees To Give Points? setting is on.

The recognition flow

A kudos names a recipient, optionally tags company values as hashtags, attaches points, and carries a message (140 characters). With approvals off, it posts to the company-wide feed instantly and the points move. With Enable Recognition Approvals? on, it sits Pending until a configured approver (or any HR admin) acts on the Approvals tab — Approve moves the points and publishes; Reject moves nothing. Approvers get a weekly Monday reminder of anything pending, and Approve All / Reject All exist for the pile.

Rewards and claims

Employees spend Points Received on the reward catalog. A claim is immediate and final: points are deducted, stock (if the reward has a quantity) decrements, and there's no fulfillment or refund step in the system — the admin Claimed Rewards view is your fulfillment to-do list. You and the employee's manager are notified on every claim; actually handing over the gift card is on you.

Visibility — know before you launch

The feed and the leaderboard are company-wide Every approved kudos is visible to the whole company, and the Employee Points view shows everyone's received and available points to all employees — there's also a monthly top-earners widget and an automatic monthly recap email to all staff. That transparency is the feature, but make sure leadership knows it before launch rather than after.

Fully separate from payroll

Points and rewards never touch pay — no payslip lines, no taxable-benefit handling. If you give rewards with real cash value, check the tax treatment with your accountant and handle anything reportable through payroll allowances separately.

The Recognitions feed — give-kudos panel, company values, top earners, and a recent kudos post.

Setting It Up →