PepsiCo: How PepsiCo Ties Behaviors to Business Impact
Before PepsiCo partnered with Workhuman, the food and beverage leader’s employee feedback scores for recognition and rewards were lagging. The team realized their former recognition vendor wasn’t driving results, and they needed to make a change.
Social Recognition
Service Milestones
Table of contents
- How has PepsiCo created a culture of recognition?
- What drew PepsiCo to Workhuman?
- What has the Workhuman and PepsiCo partnership been like?
- How has recognition increased employee engagement and improved productivity across the organization?
- How have Workhuman integrations fostered a culture of connection at PepsiCo?
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Hear from Ken Wagner, senior director of global HR platforms, about what drew PepsiCo to Workhuman, why we’ve become a true partner, and how ongoing product innovation has driven integrations between the Smiles recognition program and PepsiCo’s HRIS, employee portal, communication platforms, and Microsoft Teams.
This interview was recorded at Workhuman® Live 2023 in San Diego.
How has PepsiCo created a culture of recognition?
"Before we implemented Workhuman, we did not have a strong recognition culture. In fact, part of our journey was our all-employee org health survey. In 2019, 'I feel recognized for the work I do at PepsiCo' was our worst-rated question across the board, from executives down to our frontline across the globe. That’s when we dusted off our RFP, and we chose Workhuman. From there, in our very next employee survey, we moved the needle on our score on the recognition so it became a highly rated question."
What drew PepsiCo to Workhuman?
"We kicked our project off in February 2020. We had an in-person meeting. Pandemic happened. We finished the rest of the implementation by August – 300,000 employees went live, one big bang, across the globe, in 80 countries.
It was one of the best projects I’ve ever ran, quite honestly.
It was really smooth. The launch was great. We had good support from our internal communications team and the Workhuman communications team. And to this day, we continue to partner – it wasn’t a 'set it and forget it' kind of project; we continue to nurture the Smiles program and keep it fresh.
As far as why we wound up with Workhuman – we had an RFP, we had some vendors that that we used, but we didn’t have a partner. And when we chose Workhuman, we got a partner."
What has the Workhuman and PepsiCo partnership been like?
"In the first 3 years, we have over 3 million recognition moments that have been captured within the Workhuman platform. So, it’s been a really, really good run for us. We had other vendors in the space. We had a recognition vendor; we had a gift card vendor. And they were vendors. That’s all they were. We didn’t have relationships with those vendors.
Workhuman came in. They got us. They understood our culture. They understood that over half of our employees are frontline employees that don’t sit at a desk, that don’t have email. When the Workhuman sales team came in and showed the catalog, they didn’t focus on exotic handbags or expensive golf clubs. They showed things that would resonate with the front-line population, showing that they understood our culture."
How has recognition increased employee engagement and improved productivity
across the organization?
"Quite honestly, I thought that launching a program during COVID-19 was going to be a disaster, but we went live in less than six months, and it was exactly what the organization needed, at the right time. Because everyone was doing heroic things – our front line was working around the clock fighting a pandemic, and everyone in offices was working
remotely and trying to adjust the new norm. I think the Smiles program came at the right time."
How have Workhuman integrations fostered a culture of connection at PepsiCo?
"We love the ability that Workhuman has to integrate with our other platforms. Certainly, we have a very seamless integration with our SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central platform. Our data files – we never have any issues with that. So that’s really seamless.
Leveraging APIs, we’ve since integrated with our MyPepsiCo employee portal. It’s paramount for us because it gives our frontline workers – who don’t have email, who may not have downloaded the app – it allows them to be notified when they receive an award. It’s another way that we try to support the frontline population.
We’ve also integrated with Yammer and Teams. Even that’s been great because people, when they’re sending a Smile, they can say, 'Do I want to post this on Yammer?' It gives a larger purview to the awards and what people are doing to be recognized at PepsiCo.
We tie our Smiles awards back to seven PepsiCo Way behaviors. It’s great to see how people are really engaging with that and see how they’re leveraging the PepsiCo Way."
“In the first three years, we have over 3 million recognition moments that have been captured within the Workhuman platform…It was exactly what the organization needed, at the right time.”
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