Recognition is evolving. It’s no longer just an engagement or cultural practice – it’s becoming a business strategy. At BI WORLDWIDE, we place recognition at the intersection of engagement, culture and business results.  

Recognition fuels engagement by making people feel valued. However, engagement alone can ebb and flow over the lifecycle of an employee and an organisation, as they go through successes, changes and challenges. That’s where culture kicks in.   

A culture of recognition sustains performance by continuously reinforcing the key behaviours and outcomes that matter to your business. Our global New Rules of Engagement research backs this up – the more employees you recognise, the stronger your culture of recognition. When ALL employees are recognised, they feel connected to the culture, driving business results:  

Employees who feel included are 6X more likely to put in maximum effort, 
17X more likely to say that their work brings out the best ideas, unlocking results that matter. 

The message is clear: Recognition is not just central to employee engagement, but also to work culture and when executed strategically, to business outcomes.  

At SHRM India Annual Conference 2025 industry’s most niche gathering of experts in R&R space, BI WORLDWIDE hosted an exlusive panel discussion to reinforce this message and help HR leaders turn their recognition spend into bottomline. 

Rupak Ray, VP – Customer Success & Strategic Solutions (BI WORLDWIDE India) brilliantly led the session – Beyond Applause: The ROI of Recognition in Business Performance, featuring people-first CHROs and HR leaders from top organisations – Debasis Sarkar, EVP – Global C&B and Enterprise HR Head (HCLTech), Richa Sethi, Global Head – Performance & Talent Management (UST Global) and Subnesh Sharma, Sr. Director – HR Strategy (VVDN Technologies).

Next Wave of Recognition: Not just inspiration-driven, but impact-driven   

The session spotlighted how Rewards and Recognition (R&R) programs are transforming from an engagement or culture-building initiative to a strategic business growth enabler.  

Traditionally, engagement and culture have long been the goalpost for R&R programs. However, when it comes to measuring the impact of R&R programs, HR leaders often end up with transactional metrics like total number of recognitions, volume of redemptions, types of rewards redeemed, etc. No focus is laid on measuring the real business impact through metrics like productivity, talent retention, customer satisfaction and more. 

So, it’s time to elevate R&R programs from just a ‘feel-good’ initiative to a data-driven business enabler. 

Measuring the business impact of recognition  

The session opened up with a thoughtful question – How are leading organisations driving R&R programs and tracking their business results?  

Highlighting how new-age R&R programs are tied to business results, Debasis Sarkar remarked, “R&R programs can vary from being soft-touch (instant recognition) to hard-touch (coveted recognition) to cater to a mix of generations in the workforce and diverse business KPIs. While the first level outcome of R&R is soft-touch – engagement, it often drives hard-touch outcomes in the long run, leading to retention, productivity, succession planning for leadership, etc.” 

Debasis backed his insight with the instance of HCL’s niche R&R program – Superchargers League. The program selected top 50 leaders, after a rigorous nomination and review by business heads, senior panellists and the CEO. Finally, the 50 leaders would be felicitated at a grand awards night, in the presence of board members. This hard-touch, coveted positioning of the program was a strategic move towards a business outcome – building the next generation of leadership, ready to take up additional responsibilities. 

Similarly, Richa Sethi underlined the importance of data-driven R&R programs for driving business results, stating, “What gets measured often turns into a business imperative. Tracking data-driven insights from R&Rprograms like – change in retention, discretionary efforts by teams, client outcomes, etc. – can link recognition directly with strategic organisational priorities.”  

The panellists also shared other actionable strategies to elevate the business impact of R&R programs: 

• Make recognition humanised and personalised, not just tech-driven, inspiring employees to go the extra mile  

• Build recognition into your talent ecosystem. As a key consideration in career advancement and performance reviews, recognition can motivate employees to perform at their best.  

• R&R shouldn’t be a one-off. Sustain a culture of recognition to drive business outcomes in the long run. 

• R&R should change the paradigm from recognising a select few to being a strategic driver of how an organisation operates. 

• R&R shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Identifying what motivates different roles across hierarchy help drive the right behaviours.   

• Decoding the right frequency for recognition leads to improved business results 

Elevating business results with value-driven recognition  

The industry experts shared another fascinating insight – aligning R&R with key organisational values reinforces positive behaviours across the workforce, leading to desired business results.  

Richa Sethi put it brilliantly, “Every time you celebrate employees living your organisational values, it sets off a ripple effect – reinforcing the very behaviours that move your business forward.” 

She cited the example of UST’s R&R program called UST Handprint, that incentivised desired behaviours across the board, turning organisational values into everyday culture.  

The key takeaway? R&R cannot operate in silos; it must be tied to strategic organisation-wide initiatives to amplify business results. HR leaders need to design programs that are proactive, not reactive in nature,celebrating milestones every step of the way, to inspire behaviours that drive outcomes. 

Real-world business scenario: Amplifying financial excellence through recognition 

That’s exactly what BI WORLDWIDE India did for a global healthcare tech brand, that wanted to improve its free cash flow conversion by 80% over 2-3 years, so they could reinvest in their business and people. (Free cash flow is cash left after deducting expenses from total revenue). 

Business Challenge: Many of their 95,000 employees could not even define free cash flow. 

Solution: BI WORLDWIDE empowered the brand to tap into its strong culture of recognition, providing the momentum for achieving their goal. Recognise program – a unique initiative was designed, as a launchpad for the Free Cash Flow Challenge. The program converted the strategic goal into everyday values, culture and behaviours, motivating employees with exciting rewards, recognition and gamified experiences. Nomination awards, quizzes, idea schemes, rewards budget, gamified training and more were introduced, sparking enthusiasm in employees to step up to the challenge and make a difference. 

Result: The goal of 80% free cash flow conversion over 2-3 years, was achieved within only 1 year. 

The key takeaway: R&R done right = ROI you can measure 

The future of recognition is here: strategic, measurable and results-driven. Today’s HR leaders are more than culture champions; they need to become architects of business strategy. The future of work will belong to those who connect R&R directly with results that matter.