Navy Federal Credit Union: Transforming Mission to Passion

Named a top workplace by Forbes, Fortune, and Washington Post, Navy Federal Credit Union’s 24,000 employees in more than 360 locations worldwide support the financial wellbeing of U.S. service members and their families. Their mission is to serve their members, and they strive to make this mission their employees’ passion with employee recognition.

Situation

Navy Federal Credit Union has always had a recognition culture but wanted a more centralized, visible, and accessible recognition platform to enable and empower all employees to celebrate success consistently. The company was looking to elevate their culture of appreciation and help employees feel valued for the vital work they do every day.

They turned to O.C. Tanner to help them create a platform that shines a light on employee contributions and accomplishments.

“O.C. Tanner really provided a vision for us, and we recreated that into our recognition mission. They are amazing thought partners, and we always go to them with creative ideas,” says Lovely Lawson, Employee Recognition Supervisor.

Together, they created Celebrate You.

Solution

Recognition at Navy Federal celebrates employees during their careers from start to finish:

• An onboarding kit with a custom card helps new hires feel part of the Navy Federal culture immediately. New hires are also given points to recognize others on their first day.

• The Celebrate You platform enables employees to appreciate one another for daily great work in the form of eCards and points.
• Employee anniversaries are recognized with a Careerscape^TM and icons representing their years of service, a Yearbook^TM that includes a gift selection, and an acrylic plaque. There are regular on-campus celebrations with games, food, and fun to extend the celebration.

• The Initiatives tool helps recognize employees when they complete strategic projects and meet enterprise-focused goals. Employees who complete these projects and goals receive Celebrate You points, custom eCards, and custom icons representing their work.

• Custom awards are given for more formal Annual Awards, including icons and crystals to team members.
• Employees receive a retirement crystal of congratulations when they retire from the company.
• Navy Federal pins, or saves, eCards to the top of Celebrate You to be used during specific holidays like Veterans Day, World Gratitude Day, etc. so employees can easily find and send them.

“At Navy Federal, we build trusting environments that garner connection to our mission, community, and team members. We have programs that help to promote that, and we’ve woven recognition into every aspect of that programming,” explains Lawson.

The company has a champions group to help promote, educate, and inspire people to use Celebrate You. An employee from every business unit is included in the champions group.

Navy Federal also integrates recognition into several company initiatives.

1) For wellbeing, they created custom eCards for peers who encourage different aspects of wellness. Winners of the President's Wellness Challenge, an annual challenge motivating employees to meet wellness goals for better health and wellbeing, receive Celebrate You points along with a custom icon for their Careerscape.

Their Contact Center Operations (CCO) also uses recognition to celebrate small wins to improve engagement. “Recognition partners with CCO all year long, to help focus on recognizing the whole employee. We had a goal to send 80% of recognition without points, and they have met the benchmark every quarter this year,” says Stefanie Hunt-Sortz, Program Manager.

“They’ve seen correlations to team engagement. They see it does make a difference,” adds Lawson.

2) Custom eCards in Celebrate You and Careerscape icons encourage and show appreciation for volunteerism. Individual Initiatives in Celebrate You allow employees who lead different service initiatives to actively recognize their team members for volunteerism with eCards and points.

“We empower the initiative owner to build all the content within each Initiative. They built the cards, awards, and determined when they wanted to give them and how they wanted to give them. They also wanted to do icons to recognize their amazing volunteers,” explains Hunt-Sortz.

The company also recognizes employees who assist with company events and uses Celebrate You to administer special paid time off for these volunteers.

3) An important part of Navy Federal’s mission is to support their service members. “We have a very strong appreciation of our military team members, and we really value what they and their families have to go through,” says Lawson.

It can also be difficult for military members to translate what they were doing in the field to skill sets that are applicable in civilian life. The company partners with programs to offer work opportunities for military members, transitioning service members, and their spouses. Navy Federal supports these major career changes by awarding graduates of the programs an icon to place on their Careerscape.

“Icons are one of my favorite parts of my job—I’ve loved being involved with the military affairs icon because I think this program is so amazing, and I want to be able to recognize them,” says Hunt-Sortz.

4) Navy Federal promotes diversity, inclusion, and belonging by featuring custom eCards in blog posts related to DI&B and Corporate Social Responsibility efforts through Navy Federal Serves. “We wanted to empower teams to recognize their people the way they see fit,” explains Hunt-Sortz. 

Results

• 91% of employees feel “we have special and unique benefits here” in the 2024 Fortune survey
• Over 526,000 recognition moments, which is 60,000 more than the prior year

“The commitment to our team members through our unique benefits, career transitions support, and acknowledgment of their accomplishments throughout their career ultimately helps to transform our mission to their passion. It also keeps us highly ranked in various Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, for Women, Millennials, etc., and Forbes Best Employers for New Grads,” says Hunt-Sortz.

“Our success is because of our constant, continuous communication, education, and integration that we do. We have more than ordinary benefits, we are there for the whole employee in their journey from start to finish, and that’s what makes us an employer of choice.”
‍—Lovely Lawson, Employee Recognition Supervisor