The Challenge

Fortis Solutions is a printing and manufacturing company with 1,200 employees spread across 21 sites in North America. The organization is matrixed, meaning employees report to multiple managers, a structure that can be quite complex.

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The company did have a recognition vendor prior to Guusto, but it didn’t offer the same range of features to excite and entice employees. 

When you have people engage with a tool, you need to engage them in that 30 seconds to a minute that they’re there. It’s something they’re going to want to come back to.

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Physical recognition for frontline staff was also a challenge, with Fortis attempting to use notice boards at their plants to bridge the gap. 

In our plants we had shoutout boards, but it wasn’t super-effective, and it certainly wasn’t visible throughout the entire facility.

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Organizational growth also meant that staff from different locations had to collaborate as new facilities were opened, which had not been necessary during the earlier years of the company. 

Cara and her colleagues wanted a more robust solution that would also make recognition visible across the company.

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The Solution

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Fortis implemented a 4-level program with Guusto, covering employee milestones, spot recognition for managers, and Shoutouts for non-monetary peer-to-peer recognition for all staff, as well as additional budget for centralized awards controlled by the HR team. 

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Cara and her team encouraged employees to tie recognition to contributions that helped drive the company towards success in its mission and goals.

In our plants we had shoutout boards, but it wasn’t super-effective, and it certainly wasn’t visible throughout the entire facility.

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Empowering everyone at the company to recognize one another was also hugely important to the Fortis program.

One thing I’ve loved to see is the multi-directional appreciation. For the first time ever, I’m seeing direct reports of supervisors giving Shoutouts to their leaders, about how their leaders are supporting them day in and day out. That’s huge for a culture.

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The Results

Cara and her team began their program with a goal of getting 40% manager adoption within the first 90 days. At the end of the period, they had an incredible 85% manager adoption, more than double their original target.

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Guusto has been an improvement on Fortis Solutions’ previous vendor in a number of other ways too. One of the highlights they’ve seen in terms of results has been the redemption rate of gifts, which stands at 75% with Guusto compared to approximately 40% with their previous vendor.

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Fortis’s program has benefited from Cara’s team being able to easily access key KPIs like this to track their goals.

I always have visibility into how we are doing. I have metrics that I want to meet, I have goals that I’ve set for this program. With Guusto, it’s there, it’s at my fingertips, it’s not clunky. I can pull reports, I can see data, you’ve got visual dashboards.

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Our dedication to providing industry-leading customer service has also not gone unnoticed.

One of the things I so appreciate with the partnership with Guusto is your customer service. I could put something out with a previous vendor and it could be days before I got a response. With you, it’s minutes, and your team is super helpful and has tons of resources.

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Cara also appreciated the multilingual options on the platform. Since Fortis has a lot of Spanish and French Canadian employees, being able to send recognition in English and have it translated into their  native language (and vice versa) made the program more inclusive.

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What’s more, the system was far easier to use than their previous solution.

With our previous vendor, having to go in and redeem points was very clunky. With Guusto, it’s very easy.

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Overall, the program’s success has made Cara a strong advocate not just of Guusto, but of the power of recognition as a whole in helping to shape culture.

For managers or leaders who are thinking recognition is optional, what I would tell you is it fast-tracks your culture-building, it fast-tracks letting your people know, as an organization, what you value.

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