Attending Analyst Day at Workhuman Live reinforced something we are seeing more clearly in our research at Brandon Hall Group™: Organizations are moving beyond engagement as a goal and toward understanding people through data, behavior and real-time signals from the workforce. I was joined at Analyst Day by colleagues from my team, Heidi Grecsek, Managing Director of Human Capital Management; and Shea Salvato, Manager of Client Service and Analyst, and our collective takeaways only deepened that conviction.
Recognition is Becoming a Strategic Signal
Recognition is emerging as one of the most powerful and underutilized sources of that insight.
What stood out most is how Workhuman is redefining recognition. It’s no longer just a moment of appreciation. It’s structured, contextual data about how work gets done and what behaviors matter.
When recognition includes the “why,” it becomes a signal: of culture in action, of leadership behavior, of what an organization truly values. Without that context, recognition is noise. With it, it becomes intelligence.
Workhuman is deliberate about this. The platform actively prompts recognition givers in real-time if a message lacks sufficient context, because a simple “thank you” without explanation doesn’t drive behavior or business outcomes. That nudge is a small design decision with significant downstream consequences.
This directly aligns with what we see in Brandon Hall Group™ research. While organizations widely invest in recognition, fewer than half effectively connect it to business outcomes, talent strategies or measurable impact. That gap is where the next wave of value is being created.
From Engagement to Insight and Action
A key shift is moving from recognition as a participation metric to recognition as a driver of insight and action. What makes Workhuman’s approach distinctive is how they’re using the data layer beneath recognition to surface patterns that traditional HR systems simply can’t see.
Consider burnout. The platform can identify when employees are being recognized for behaviors that signal strain, such as working late, setting impossible standards, sacrificing personal time or taking on responsibilities beyond their role. These are five documented signals of burnout and here’s the provocative truth: High performers are often the ones being recognized for these behaviors. The platform flags those patterns before they show up as declining performance or attrition. That’s recognition data doing something no engagement survey can do in real time.
Similarly, the platform tracks recognition giving patterns, identifying managers who over-recognize certain groups, under-recognize others or whose recognition language reflects embedded bias. The system surfaces those patterns and provides recommendations. That’s not just interesting data. That’s organizational equity work happening at the behavioral level.
At Brandon Hall Group™, we describe this evolution as Progression: moving from activity to insight to action to measurable impact. Recognition, when designed intentionally, sits at the center of that model. Workhuman is one of the clearest examples we’ve seen of a vendor actually building toward all four stages.
Predicting Future Leaders Three to Five Years Out
One of the most forward-looking capabilities shared was Workhuman’s Future Leader product. For organizations with three or more years of recognition data, the platform can predict with high accuracy which employees will be promoted to VP-level or higher, three to five years before it happens.
This is the kind of claim that deserves scrutiny and it’s worth watching closely as more clients accumulate the longitudinal data needed to validate it. But the underlying logic is sound: If recognition data captures who is contributing, how they’re showing up and what behaviors leaders are demonstrating, that signal should have predictive value. Most succession planning tools rely on manager nominations and performance ratings, both of which are well-documented as biased. Recognition data, especially peer-driven recognition at scale, offers a different and potentially more honest signal.
Driving Impact at Moody’s | Lisa Monaco, SVP, Head of Employee Experience
Among the customer perspectives shared, Lisa Monaco, SVP and Head of Employee Experience at Moody’s, stood out. Her enthusiasm for what Workhuman is making possible wasn’t the polished language of a reference customer. It was the energy of someone genuinely in the middle of driving change and seeing it work.
Lisa described the Workhuman relationship in terms that go beyond vendor and client: responsive, innovative, willing to be in the trenches, leading with yes. What came through clearly was her belief that this work isn’t just about recognition. It’s about reshaping how Moody’s employees experience the organization and how the organization understands them in return.
She raised a challenge that resonates with what we hear from many talent leaders: the need to move past the question of what Workhuman is and articulate what it makes possible. Adoption matters, but the more important question is the “so what.” Not just whether employees are engaging with the platform, but how that engagement is translating into cultural change, visibility and meaningful insight.
Moody’s is now 19 months into their implementation and the skills data derived from recognition is something Lisa finds genuinely compelling, though she’s appropriately measured about it. The data is still maturing and Moody’s isn’t yet ready to rely on it as a standalone signal for skills or talent decisions. But the trajectory is clear. With more time and data, she sees real potential for recognition to inform Moody’s understanding of capability, contribution and growth across the organization.
What made Lisa’s perspective particularly valuable was the combination of honest assessment and forward momentum. She’s building the internal case, asking the harder questions and positioning Moody’s to be ready when the data matures. That kind of leadership partnership is exactly what drives the outcomes Workhuman’s model is designed to deliver. You also have a sense that there is more than a business relationship here, but a true partnership and friendship that has a truly significant impact on long-term strategic engagements.
Expanding the Role of Recognition Data
The data story extends further. Workhuman holds employee skills data derived from recognition patterns. What someone is being recognized for is, in effect, a real-world record of demonstrated competency. The honest position, which Workhuman themselves articulate, is that recognition data should not stand alone as a skills or talent source. But it adds something most systems lack: behavioral evidence generated in the natural flow of work, by peers who see performance directly. That’s a layer of signal that no annual review or self-reported skills profile can replicate.
We’re also seeing early movement toward using recognition data to understand organizational networks, mapping who connects to whom, who the informal culture carriers are and where collaboration is thriving or breaking down. This is what Workhuman is beginning to describe as Human Intelligence: a category that integrates recognition, skills, network and behavioral data into a coherent picture of how an organization actually functions.
Embedding Recognition into the Flow of Work
Another important factor is accessibility. By integrating into platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack and Workday, and recently winning Microsoft as a client, recognition becomes part of how work naturally happens, not something separate that requires a system login.
This matters because adoption drives value. A healthy program, according to Workhuman’s benchmarks, generates four to eight recognition moments per employee per year. That cadence only happens when giving recognition is genuinely easy and embedded in existing workflows. Sixty percent of Workhuman’s platform users are outside the United States and the global rewards marketplace, with over one billion products available by country, is designed to make the experience meaningful for every employee, including the deskless workers who make up a large percentage of the workforce but are historically the least recognized.
That last point is worth sitting with. The employees least connected to traditional systems of recognition are often the ones for whom a meaningful acknowledgment carries the most weight in terms of alignment with organizational values and sense of belonging.
The Redemption Experience Is Part of the Strategy
One dimension that often gets overlooked in recognition conversations is what happens after the award is given. Workhuman’s approach to redemption is genuinely differentiated.
When an employee redeems their points, the platform resurfaces the original recognition story, reminding them of the specific contribution that earned the reward. That psychological reinforcement is intentional. The experience is designed to be memorable: curated product selections, personalized communications and the ability for employees to share their redemption stories and publicly thank those who recognized them. This closes the loop between the moment of recognition and its lasting cultural impact.
Most competitors outsource fulfillment entirely, which means the experience and any issues ultimately land back on HR. Workhuman has kept this in-house by design. Ninety-five percent of issued points are redeemed and 90% of employees rate the experience positively. Those aren’t vanity metrics. They’re signals that the program is completing its job throughout.
A Business Model Built Around Shared Success
What also deserves attention is Workhuman’s commercial model, which is structured around shared outcomes rather than just seat licenses. The pricing is usage-based and includes an ROI guarantee: if an organization isn’t seeing a measurable return, Workhuman will refund the fee.
That’s a significant commitment. It reflects confidence in the platform’s ability to drive engagement and retention outcomes, but it also creates a different kind of partnership dynamic. The company’s 97-100% client retention rate quarter over quarter, across a base that is 80% enterprise, suggests the model is working. The recent expansion into the mid-market, serving companies of 500 to 2,000 employees, is notable precisely because Workhuman is choosing to bring the same service model to that segment rather than offering a stripped-down alternative. The reasoning is strategic: the brand is built on trust and outcomes and diluting that in a lower-touch market segment would undermine it.
Final Thought
What Workhuman demonstrated is not just product innovation. It’s a shift in mindset.
Recognition is no longer just about appreciation. It’s about visibility, insight and impact. And increasingly, it’s about prediction: of burnout, of leadership potential, of cultural health, before traditional systems would ever surface those signals.
The organizations that will lead are the ones that ask: Are we simply recognizing people, or are we learning from recognition to better understand, support and grow them?
Because when recognition becomes intelligence, it doesn’t just improve culture. It drives better business outcomes.
