See Your Organization Come Into Focus
Every People Leader knows there’s a gap between the organization on paper and the one that actually shows up to work every day. This guide will help you bridge that gap, setting the stage for a culture where you can see how teams collaborate, where energy builds, and where it quietly drains.
We’ve broken down the essentials to help you launch Recognition, 1:1s, Pulse, Recaps, Goals, Nominations, Announcements, Advice, Incentives, Awards, and Celebrations with confidence.
We’ll cover:
Pro Tip: This guide is designed for Culture Leaders ready to launch their programs. If you still need to set up your account, sync your HRIS, or invite your team, please complete our Getting Started with Bonusly guide first!
Step 1: Reveal the real organization with Recognition
The Recognition Feed is more than a highlight reel; it’s where your culture actually lives. It illuminates the day-to-day moments of collaboration and support, generating the signals that show you how your organization really runs.
Fuel the signals
Manage expectations and encourage the connections that shape your org by setting up your points economy.
Set monthly allowances: Give your team a budget of points to give away each month. (We recommend enough for 1–2 shoutouts per week!)
Make it visible: Ensure the public feed is accessible to everyone. This visibility builds trust and shows you the patterns of how work flows across teams.
Navigate to Recognition > Peer-to-peer in your admin settings to update your recognition preference.
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Step 2: Drive alignment and connection
The real organization is built on human connection and shared purpose, not just reporting lines. Use 1:1s and Company Initiatives to ensure meaningful conversations happen consistently—helping teams move beyond just working hard to working together toward the same outcomes.
Align work to strategy
As an Admin, you can bridge the gap between high-level strategy and daily execution.
Launch Company Initiatives: Define your organization's top priorities (e.g., "Q4 Revenue Push" or "Improve Customer Retention") in Bonusly. Employees can then link their individual goals to these Initiatives, creating a clear line of sight from their daily tasks to the company mission.
Enable 1:1s: 1:1s provide the space to track these connected goals. When you enable 1:1s, you give employees a private channel to discuss progress on goals that are explicitly tied to your Company Initiatives—ensuring every meeting drives strategy forward. Review engagement and adoption in the growth settings in the admin tools.
This visibility allows you to see which teams are aligned with company priorities and helps managers frame performance conversations around impact, not just activity.
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Step 3: Get continuous insight, not just snapshots
Pulse Checks and Recaps move listening out of annual cycles and into the flow of work, allowing you to track sentiment trends over time.
Turn on Pulse Checks
Provide continuous, low-friction insight into employee sentiment so you can see how real organizational changes are landing.
Configure the settings: Head to Growth > Pulse Check settings. Here you can toggle Pulse Checks on, decide if they are required (mandatory) for the company, and set an effective date for when they begin.
Announce the rollout: Don't just turn it on—explain the "why." Use the Save & Announce button to send a customizable message to the company, inviting them to share their feedback.
Monitor the signal: Use the admin Reports > Pulse Results page to view company-level monthly averages and group summaries. This allows you to validate trends over time and identify specific teams that may need extra support.
Utilize Recaps
Recaps bring recognition, feedback, and goals together into a long-term view of contribution, removing recency bias from reviews.
Align with your performance cycle: Head to Growth > Recaps to set your review cadence (Quarterly, Semiannual, or Annual) and pick your next review date.
What this does: Bonusly automatically sets the default time period for data and sends helpful nudges to active users as the date approaches (30, 15, and 1 day before).
Customize the template: (Optional) On the same page, you can edit the sections and guidance to match your company's specific review questions or values.
Review Recaps: Once set up, encourage managers to check the "Performance Recap" tab. It grounds conversations in evidence—wins, challenges, and peer feedback—making performance discussions fair and consistent.
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Step 4: Sustain the habits that build culture
Culture is built in moments, but sustained through systems. Use Awards, Celebrations, Nominations, and Incentives to reinforce what’s working and scale recognition consistently. Navigate to the Recognition section of your admins settings to get started.
Never miss a milestone
Turn on automated Celebrations to ensure every employee feels seen, without you having to orchestrate every moment.
Birthdays & Work Anniversaries: Bonusly will automatically award points and post a celebration message to the feed.
Welcome New Hires: Roll out the red carpet automatically on an employee's first day.
Set up Awards and Incentives
Awards: Create company-funded bonuses for specific behaviors (like "Employee of the Month" or "Bug Basher") to reinforce the values you want to see.
Incentives: Create a menu of claimable rewards for completing tasks (e.g., "Filled out benefits survey" or "Completed Security Training").
Launch Nominations
Use Nominations to let peers propose colleagues for major awards. It surfaces hidden influencers and democratizes recognition while giving admins final approval.
Learn more
Article: How to set up Awards
Article: Managing Celebrations
Article: Setting up nomination periods
Article: Managing Nominations
Article: Incentives
Step 5: Reach your team where work happens
Cut through the noise. Use Announcements to broadcast critical info directly to the feed, ensuring your message lands with the organization that actually shows up every day.
Create Announcements
Pin it to win it: Pin important company news, updates, or event reminders to the top of the feed so no one misses a beat.
Schedule ahead: Write your announcements now and set them to go live exactly when you need them.
Ready to see the patterns?
Dig into the data: Check out your Analytics to turn everyday recognition signals into clear, trustworthy trends regarding retention and values.
Refine the experience: Use insights from Pulse Checks to move from intuition to evidence, ensuring your team feels consistently heard.
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