How AGL Used Recognition to Foster a More Connected and Engaged Workplace

AGL, a leading electricity provider in Australia with more than 4,000+ employees. The company partnered with O.C. Tanner to launch a company-wide employee recognition program. The initiative aimed to boost engagement, strengthen employee connections, align with AGL’s values, and create a unified workplace culture.

AGL is one of Australia’s leading electricity providers with more than 4,000+ employees nationwide. The company is building on its history as a leading private investor in the construction of renewable energy projects and owner of the largest privately owned fleet of hydro assets in Australia, to now be a leader in the transition to a lower-emissions, affordable and smart energy future. Key leaders involved in its recognition transformation included Amanda Lee, Chief People Officer, and Graeme Sennett, Senior Manager, P&C Policy and Superannuation.

Situation: Keeping Employees Engaged in a Progressive Environment

As the energy transition accelerates, AGL launched a progressive recognition program across the business to drive a connected and engaged culture, aligned with its values. A significant aspect of this new direction involved a focus on performance through multi-skilling, cross-skilling and upskilling, as well as establishing a uniform recognition approach across their energy sites, with the goal of integrating their core behaviors and fostering a more inclusive and cohesive culture throughout the organization.

AGL sought a recognition program that could be implemented swiftly, align with their values and behaviors, and inspire and encourage their employees to perform to their full potential.

When assessing the market, Amanda and her team looked for a recognition partner who would work to understand its culture, offering strategic guidance, thought leadership, and flexible solutions with demonstrable impact that helped them create meaningful recognition experiences for all employees.

“Our strategic priority at the time in designing the program was around building strong alignment to AGL’s values as we transform our business and navigate the challenges and opportunities of the energy transition. So, it was important for us to create a program that drives towards those imperatives.”
—Amanda Lee, Chief People Officer

Solution: A Unified Employee Recognition Program

O.C. Tanner’s Culture Consulting team conducted multiple focus group sessions and interviews with AGL leaders about their vision for the program. The insights gleaned from these sessions helped inform the program structure and laid the foundation for AGL’s engagement with O.C. Tanner’s creative team, which resulted in the creation of AGL’s recognition brand: Energise, powered by Culture Cloud®.

The program was to be underpinned by AGL’s core values and would tie into AGL’s strategic initiatives around streamlining and improving processes and fostering an environment of respect and inclusion.

AGL implemented their Energise peer recognition program on a national scale. Energise is delivered on O.C. Tanner’s Culture Cloud platform and includes a range of recognition options, from High Fives (Non-monetary eCards) for informal recognition, through to more formal recognition in the form of Shoutouts and Ovations (Monetary awards), allowing for the recognition of both individuals and teams.

Recognition is shared and communicated across the company through the platform’s online Recognition Wall, posters (at operational sites), emails, AGL’s intranet, and digital noticeboards. Energise was launched with strong leadership support, with leaders receiving ongoing reminders, hints and tips to enable them to effectively embed recognition into their weekly rituals and routines. AGL’s Communications team often showcases employees’ stories on social media, aligned to our values.

By integrating their Energise employee recognition solution, AGL has been successful in aligning its program to its core values, embedding essential behaviors, and fostering an inclusive and unified work environment.

AGL is continuously working to make employee recognition more accessible and seamlessly integrated into daily operations. By leveraging O.C. Tanner’s status as a Workday Access Partner, AGL has integrated the Energise platform with Workday. This integration enables people leaders to more effectively incorporate recognition into performance discussions, improve the quality of recognition, and increase its visibility to both managers and peers.

Another feature that has enhanced the user experience of Energise and increased the quality of recognition is the Recognition Coach, a gen-AI tool that delivers in-the-moment micro-coaching to assist employees in crafting meaningful recognition messages that align with AGL’s values and behaviors. Graeme Sennett says, “The new AI Recognition Coach has helped make giving meaningful recognition easier for our people, particularly where employees might feel they aren’t good at expressing their thoughts in words. It’s helped them feel more confident, making them more likely to give recognition again in the future.”

Additionally, reporting capabilities in Energise allow AGL to analyze data by locations and various demographics and pinpoint opportunities for recognition at key moments throughout the employment lifecycle. Reporting transparency around executive-level managers fosters competition with the recognition program, encouraging higher levels of engagement.

“Our recognition program was designed to be used every day. We made sure that it was easy to use on the phone or through their computers.”
Amanda Lee, Chief People Officer, AGL

Results: A More Inclusive and Connected Culture

Since the launch of its integrated recognition program, AGL has received a lot of positive feedback and engagement has remained consistently high from employees and managers alike - over a recent 12-month period, AGL saw the following results:

• 30% increase in unique monthly givers
• 24% increase in average daily recognition events
• 61% of employees recognized a colleague
• 89% of colleagues were recognized
• 68% of employees gave recognition (16% year-on-year improvement)
• Employees: 54% submitted recognition, and 90% received recognition
• Managers: 88% submitted recognition, and 91% received recognition

Additional Impact:

• Usage has continued to grow, helping to embed AGL’s values more strongly in the company
• Contributed to fostering a more inclusive and connected workforce
• Assisted in pinpointing gaps and opportunities to engage employees - via targeted campaigns and/or manager conversations - who have not participated or interacted sufficiently
• 41% increase in points redemption in the past year, indicating higher engagement in their program and more AGL employees feeling rewarded and appreciated
• Recognition continues to be a crucial aspect among others that has enhanced their overall employee value proposition (EVP)
• Increased visibility of achievements throughout the performance year for employees to their managers and peers

Looking forward:

AGL aims to continue focusing on upskilling and cross-skilling their employees to prepare their workforce for the future. They are currently exploring ways of leveraging recognition to embed core behaviors within its new leadership capabilities framework, and, in partnership with O.C. Tanner, they are continually evaluating the role recognition can play in embedding other key initiatives across the business.

“From the beginning, OC Tanner has really impressed us with their willingness to really partner and listen to what our needs were. It was a very easy process to come up with a design and implement in a short amount of time.”
—Amanda Lee, Chief People Officer

What Employees Say:

“The fact that we have a program in place to be able to recognize other employees is a really great thing. It makes working at AGL wonderful.”
‍—Celeste Calenda, Remuneration and Benefits Advisor

“You feel good about yourself, you feel good that you’ve done something for the customer, or the company.”
‍—John Galanis, Team Leader, Customer Solutions

Outcomes are everything
We’d love to share what we’ve helped AGL, and thousands of other clients achieve. Reach out to us to start your employee recognition journey.