HGS UK: Unifying, recognising and rewarding a remote and hybrid workforce

Behind HGS UK are 750 colleagues who majorly operate in a remote and hybrid call centre model. Without the organic interactions of a traditional office environment, HGS were looking to improve employee engagement, champion visible appreciation and restore connection in their UK People strategy.

A culture of appreciation has long been established at HGS UK, with an existing recognition and reward programme hosted by a platform provider. However, this was under-delivering in its impact and cost-efficiency, leading HGS to re-assess their approach. The platform offered little licence fee flexibility, alongside slow and manual reward processes, 6-month voucher expiry windows, and restricted options for unclaimed rewards.

A long-standing priority within HGS’ culture is consistent and deep-dive colleague feedback loops. Collating insights from their 2024 People Survey and hosting a qualitative, multi-level Listening Tour identified Appreciation & Recognition, Health & Wellbeing, and Cost of Living Support as three leading People Priorities for 2025. From this, HGS translated these insights into a brand new 5 Pillar Recognition Strategy to form the framework of their programme moving forward.

Selecting Rippl as their new partner, together we shaped a fresh engagement, reward and recognition approach to:

• Enhance access to discounts and benefits, with the ability to further enhance specific savings such as on supermarket shops to support the cost of living.
• Provide better opportunity to feel appreciated by peers, colleagues and leaders.
• Create a positive place to connect, build community and feel united across HGS UK.
• Enable more opportunity for reward activities, initiatives and competitions.
• Deliver a simple platform that boots programme adoption and improves ROI.

Developed from a partnership grounded in collaboration and innovation, with a dedicated HGS Pilot Team acting as crucial ambassadors during rollout and onboarding, Ignite was launched in August 2024 offering:

All-in-one employee engagement. Available on desktop, iOS and Android, Ignite’s fully branded app streamlines a dynamic blend of features all under one roof, unifying engagement, recognition and reward around the clock.

Social timeline. Restoring colleague connection in a social community, Ignite’s timeline centralises all platform activity including recognitions, HGS news, reward wallets, latest available benefits, competitions and more for peers to engage.

Recognition. Enabling business-wide visibility of colleagues’ great work, Ignite champions multi-level recognition for managers and peers to celebrate everyday wins, mark team birthdays, automate long service anniversaries, and champion HGS’ culture through branded values-led recognitions.

Reward. HGS oversee structured manager workflows with flexible budget set-ups and approval processes to instil recognition and reward into the everyday. Reward is instantly available in colleagues’ digital wallet for redemption and a fairer process is in place for unredeemed rewards, ensuring HGS get value from every penny of their reward budget.

Discounted vouchers. Utilising an extensive discounted voucher catalogue of hundreds of retail, hospitality, travel and leisure brands, HGS can tailor and elevate colleague savings further with enhanced supermarket savings to support with essential everyday expenses – quickly becoming Ignite’s most utilised financial perk.

Benefits. Streamlining HGS’ tailored employee benefits offer into a visible and centralised hub, Ignite enables mobile access to every perk including mortgage advice support, cinema and film savings, discounted days out and gym memberships, as well as a brand new eyecare voucher scheme.

News feed. Ignite centralises important news and resources, keeping HGS UK’s dispersed teams informed on latest business updates,

Annual Ignite Awards. Shining light on exceptional work and top performers, Ignite hosts personalised award nomination campaigns to elevate recognition amongst peers and reward from managers.

Reporting. Ignite’s real-time Analytics Centre provides live insights into platform adoption, engagement and success, evidencing tangible business impact.

Since its launch, Ignite has evidenced multi-dimensional success in unifying, engaging and rewarding the brilliant people behind HGS UK:

• 95% colleague registration rate (+38% from previous provider)
• 85% monthly active engagement rate (+43%)
• 56.1k platform views generating 80.83k interactions (+490%)
• 4,157 social timeline posts generating 30.1k reactions and comments
• 4,296 recognitions delivered (+228%), with 1 in 3 enhanced with a reward
• £118k delivered in reward points, with 80% colleague redemption rate (+394%)
• 853 anniversaries and service milestones celebrated
• 26% of recognitions aligned to HGS company values
• 373 nominations to the Annual Colleague Celebration Awards, recognising 17% of HGS UK’s headcount (41% above target)
• 94% of colleagues viewed Benefits Hub (+80%), generating 7,800
• £98.9k spent on discounted vouchers (+13%), with supermarkets accounting for 51% of purchases
• 835% increase in uptake of eyecare vouchers with Rippl’s new provider, EyeMed, and 135% increase in click-throughs to EAP
• 83k news articles reads
• 69k poll responses
• 822 completions of learning and competition decks
• 30% business saving on annual licence fee

Following impressive adoption and engagement with their UK workforce, Rippl and HGS are exploring future ambitions to expand Ignite to HGS’ global teams. Other exciting future developments include growing Ignite’s benefits catalogue further, integrating Ignite’s data into employee performance reviews to benchmark recognition across teams and exploring expansion of colleague incentives with a Pay-It-Forward fund to further support their financial wellbeing.