For Workhuman and Heap, the shared passion for employee empowerment fuels our success

The not-so-secret key to employee satisfaction

Almost every company is looking for an answer to the same question: “How do we make more while spending less?” The answer? Empower your employees with the tools they need to meet their business goals. This belief is at the core of both Workhuman and Heap’s mission and it’s why we’re such natural partners.

Workhuman knows that human connection makes work meaningful. It’s why they create tools that encourage employees to recognize and connect with one another. Their cornerstone offering, Social Recognition®, provides an award-based system where employees can thank anyone in the organization for who they are and what they do, and award moments are shared in the company’s feed so everyone can give congratulations. This creates a culture where everyone feels seen, heard, and appreciated, and employees can see how their efforts contribute to larger company objectives.

In the same vein, the Heap product is designed to empower teams by allowing them to effortlessly visualize and analyze how their work impacts the larger business. That’s why when Jack Canning, Senior Director of Digital Analytics & Optimization at Workhuman, was tasked to optimize their nomination flow, he realized the power that the two companies’ shared mission had in helping him realize his goal.

Empowering the empowerer

Workhuman is on to something with their human-centered ideology. It’s why they’ve been having such an impact on business outcomes for customers, as Workhuman iQ data shows that employees recognized up to six times per year show a 32% increase in performance, and employees who receive four or more awards per year are two times less likely to leave.

“At Workhuman, our business is about helping our users make connections, and that user focus is at the backbone of our analytics strategy, where we seek to understand each person’s engagement path as a starting point for optimizing our product for all users,” says Jack.“We have millions of unique users who use Social Recognition each year,” says Jack.

“Even minor UX improvements can have a huge impact on use of the platform, and it’s critical that users have a positive experience the first time they nominate, so they’ll continue to return to the flow.”

Illuminating the hidden friction

Workhuman already knew the conversion rates of users progressing through the Social Recognition nomination flow, but wanted to more accurately pinpoint exactly where in the funnel users were encountering friction.

“In our nomination flow there are several steps: First select a recipient, then pick an award reason and a dollar value, and then write a nice message of appreciation, and maybe attach a photo or video and send their award,” explains Jack.

Luckily for Workhuman, questions just like theirs inspired Heap to develop Heap Illuminate to proactively surface hidden opportunities. “Heap helped us look at our award nomination funnel much more granularly by surfacing the time and effort that users spent on each step of the flow, which helped us prioritize where to focus."

From data to insights to action

“We were able to adapt our onboarding guides to specifically target this pain point, and saw double-digit increases in flow starts and submissions, which equated to more redemptions,” said Jack. “We love Heap because Autocapture combined with Heap Illuminate gives us every insight we need for agile experimentation.”