UChicago Recognition Hub launches to foster a culture of staff recognition

The University of Chicago has launched the UChicago Recognition Hub, a new employee recognition platform that allows UChicago benefits-eligible staff to send recognition notes to their colleagues, celebrate service anniversaries and birthdays, and earn awards for their milestone service anniversaries. In just the first week, 1,678 people logged in to the platform, and 700 peer-to-peer recognitions were submitted to honor 545 staff members across 32 units.

"The UChicago Recognition Hub is one way we can foster a culture of more frequent recognition and celebrate staff members’ important contributions," said Hayley P. Harris, associate vice president and chief human resources officer. "It is vital that we let employees know how much they are valued and appreciated—and we were thrilled to see such a positive response from our community in our first week of launch."

The UChicago Recognition Hub utilizes the Awardco platform, which helps organizations enhance employee engagement through customizable rewards and recognition programs. The platform automates the recognition process, fosters a more interactive experience, and ensures consistency across units, departments, and divisions. Every morning, the platform automatically sends recognition messages by email to staff celebrating birthdays and service anniversaries that day. If an employee is celebrating a milestone service anniversary—starting at their fifth year and every five years after that (10, 15, 20, etc.)—they will receive award points in their account that they can redeem through the platform for UChicago-branded merchandise or items from a curated Amazon store.

Previously, when staff reached a milestone service anniversary, they were eligible to receive service pins or other selected awards from Central HR. These items were typically distributed at the end of each fiscal year, meaning that some employees were recognized several months after their actual service anniversary. Now, through the UChicago Recognition Hub, the recognition of service anniversaries is acknowledged and celebrated in real-time on the date of the anniversary, and employees can choose their own awards by redeeming points through the platform. All staff can see who has recently celebrated service anniversaries on the feed and add comments or reactions to those posts, thus building a more interactive, community-building experience. Additionally, managers are notified by email a week in advance when someone on their team reaches a service anniversary, which gives the manager a chance to prepare for and acknowledge the employee’s service milestone. Units can opt to continue the tradition of distributing service pins to their staff members. In addition, the University will continue to host the annual Alice W. Chandler Staff Service Recognition Ceremony, which will take place this year on September 9, 2025.

“For milestone service anniversaries, we wanted recognition to happen in real-time and give staff members more choice in selecting awards that were personally meaningful to them,” said Susan Popa, assistant vice president for leadership development and strategy, who led the implementation of the project to customize and launch the Awardco platform at UChicago. “This platform provided us with an easy way to do that and also offered flexibility for an organization as large and complex as the University of Chicago.”

The idea of bringing a staff recognition platform to UChicago was one of the original goals of Hayley Harris when she joined the University in October 2022. Shortly after joining, Harris saw many opportunities to improve HR operations and the employee experience. At that time, Harris teamed up with Susan Popa to form three working groups in April 2023. Each working group was tasked with taking a closer look at the various dimensions of the University staff experience—staff engagement, staff recognition, and HR process improvement. One of the recommendations of the staff recognition working group was to bring a staff recognition platform to UChicago that would allow for more frequent recognition and create a culture of appreciation. UChicago issued an RFP and looked at several vendors before selecting Awardco.

“It was great to see our initial recommendation come to life,” said Cicely Anderson, employee engagement program manager who served on both the April 2023 staff recognition working group and on the UChicago Recognition Hub implementation team. “Now we have a platform where we can recognize the hard work and everyday contributions of our staff employees.”

Each day, employees can use the platform to send a brief note of appreciation to recognize team members and other colleagues across the University for their contributions, support, and achievements. These messages can be sent privately or posted to the platform's feed for everyone to see, react to, or comment on—like a social media feed. Managers can opt-in to receive notifications when a member of their team is recognized, providing them with immediate, real-time insights into their team's contributions and achievements.

To get started with the UChicago Recognition Hub, staff members can visit the UChicago Recognition Hub page on Inside UChicago and log in. Tips for how to use the platform can be found on the FAQs. There is also an overview video to learn how to adjust notification and privacy settings, add colleagues to the “My Circle” list of contacts, engage with existing posts on the feed, and more.

The launch of the UChicago Recognition Hub marks a significant step toward enhancing our employees’ overall experience through increased employee appreciation and engagement, aligning with the University's commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive workplace culture for all its members.

For more information, visit intranet.uchicago.edu/recognition or email your questions to staffrecognition@uchicago.edu.