Hershey is being awarded for its continuous innovation.

Hershey has been named the winner of Globeforce’s Innovator Award, after The Hershey Co. and Globoforce, in 2014, partnered to create a global employee recognition program, Hershey SMILES. 

The award was given during Globoforce’s 2015 WorkHuman conference, and it recognizes the program’s effective implementation and continual incorporation of new and effective ideas.

Hershey SMILES was born out of Hershey’s desire to drive more employee engagement, support the company’s work culture and create one consistent recognition approach for its 22,000 employees in 17 countries. Hershey wanted to offer peer-to-peer recognition, provide mobile access and offer a standardized experience for all employees that allowed for worldwide recognition. Globoforce’s platform, used widely by Fortune 500 companies, offered a simple user interface and was supported by a team of experienced consultants who advised on best practices and helped with the implementation.

“The SMILES program embodies everything that Hershey stands for,” said Kevin Walling, chief human resource officer at The Hershey Co. “The smile is a universally known symbol that is meaningful across all cultures and is closely connected to Hershey’s goals and vision. When our employees smile, we smile. And thanks to Globoforce we now have a way for recognition to reach all of our employees all over the world.”

After one year, the SMILES program has exceeded benchmarks and served as a model for other companies looking for similar solutions. Highlights include:

• Influencing a Culture of Recognition: In the first week of the SMILES program, almost 9% of the company’s employees were recognized. Within the first 90 days, more than 40% of Hershey employees had participated.
• Improving Employee Satisfaction: Within the first seven months, employee satisfaction with rewards and recognition increased by 11%.
• Reach a Global Workforce: Globoforce’s social recognition program enables easy program accessibility for Hershey’s diverse global workforce. To date, more than 65,000 SMILES have been awarded to employees, with 100% of the languages in the tool utilized and 81% country-to-country recognition.
• Improve the Rewards Experience for Employees: Globoforce’s SaaS software enables Hershey employees to earn millions of rewards from both domestic and international brand companies, and also allows employees to buy company-branded apparel.

“The Hershey Company is one of the world’s most iconic and admired companies,” said Eric Mosley, CEO of Globoforce. “Working with Hershey to build a successful recognition brand and a culture that promotes its values and positivity across their entire organization has once again proven the power programs like this have to positively impact culture and business metrics. It was an easy decision to celebrate the success of the SMILES program with this award.”