Retail Industry

Beyond transactional:
Meaningful recognition for retail workers

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Consistently providing a stellar customer experience requires stamina. Markets, products, and expectations shift quickly, and retail workers must adapt on the fly. One consequence? Burnout. According to recent research by the O.C. Tanner Institute, 75% of retail workers report high levels of burnout—and this leads to challenges with retention, safety, and customer satisfaction.

The recognition solution

Only 55% of retail employees say recognition is part of their everyday work culture. But an integrated solution with recognition that's meaningful, specific, and frequent can help people leaders change this—and see real results.

When retail employees experience integrated recognition, the odds of several positive outcomes increase dramatically.

Interest in staying 2+ years: 7x

Sense of belonging: 16x

Fulfillment at work: 14x

High engagement: 12x

Thriving at work: 9x

The Culture Cloud employee recognition platform includes everything you need to support retail workers, including:

Offline tools

Access a full suite of offline recognition tools designed to make it easy for every team member to give and receive heartfelt recognition.

O.C. Tanner's Culture Cloud offline recognition solutions including integrations with common tools, a physical Yearbook with personalised notes, physical reward cards, and gifts.
O.C. Tanner's Culture Cloud dashboards for tracking major career milestones like job transitions and work anniversaries

Skill building

Track and reward job transitions, career milestones, and learning initiatives. Retail employees are 4x more likely to be satisfied with their experience when they’re recognised during and after training.

Symbolism

Connect your retail employees to your products, brand, and purpose with modern, custom awards.

O.C. Tanner's custom designed, collectible employee awards
O.C. Tanner's Culture Cloud peer to peer recognition experiences including eCards, awards, and recognition reminders

Peer-to-peer recognition

Great customer experiences begin with workplaces culture where people encourage and elevate one another. Culture Cloud promotes fun, easy, and frequent recognition between peers.

Personalisation

45% of retail workers say recognition at their organisation feels inauthentic. Create tailored recognition moments for each employee and deliver them in personal and meaningful ways.

O.C. Tanner's personalised recognition experiences, including a Yearbook with comments from peers, gifts for celebrating life events, and hand-written cards

What our retail clients say

“Being able to customise to our brand makes employees huge fans.”

Head of Global Total Rewards and People Operations

Pokémon

“Employees look forward to their milestones and join in on the celebration, fostering wellbeing.”

Senior Manager, Compensation & Recognitions

Walmart

GE Appliances saw a return on their Culture Cloud investment in under 1 year.

More retail recognition resources

White Paper

5 Recognition Best Practices for Retail Organisations in 2025

See 5 employee recognition best practices for retail organisations in 2025.

5 Recognition Best Practices for Retail Organisations in 2025

White Paper

Employee Recognition

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eBook

6 Meaningful Ways to recognise Offline Workers (eBook)

Offline workers can feel unseen in your company for many reasons. Here are the best ways to recognise your offline employees in a meaningful way. 

6 Meaningful Ways to recognise Offline Workers

eBook

Employee Recognition

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Article

Is Your Recognition Program Engaging Offline Employees?

Offline and deskless employees make up the majority of the global workforce, yet they often feel overlooked and invisible. Here’s how to help.

Is Your Recognition Program Engaging Offline Employees?

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