“Our company’s culture & morale changed overnight! In under 2 months, we’ve had over 2,000 kudos sent and 80%+ engagement across all employees. Matter has motivated people to participate like no other software we have ever used.”
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Company: McInnis & Holloway (M&H) has been one of Calgary and southern Alberta’s most respected funeral homes since 1903. Their focus has always been on providing sympathetic assistance to families at a time of grief. They do that through highly trained and professional staff, and by delivering quality programs and services.
Industry: Professional Services
Employees: 120
Headquarters: Calgary, Canada 🇨🇦
Key Use Cases: Feedback Friday, Kudos, Rewards, Celebrations
Interview: Jeff Hagel, President
M&H decided to use Matter because of the integration with Microsoft Teams and gamification with rewards. Jeff states, “Our entire internal communication is on Teams, we knew about other employee recognition platforms but we needed a system that kept everyone within Teams.”
With rewards, Jeff liked the collection of coins via kudos that motivated people to “participate like no other program we have ever used”.
Before using Matter, M&H tested out their own internal recognition program. Jeff said, “Employee recognition is something that we identified as something that we could do better at. We had a culture that needed improving and we committed to working on this and employee recognition was our main focus. We had created our own recognition program but it was seldom if ever used and only management was using it.”
As for the company-wide rollout, Jeff mentions, “From an HR standpoint it was easy to launch (without forgetting anyone) as all employees were seamlessly loaded into Matter when it was added to the channel.”
M&H now actively uses all major Matter features: Feedback Friday, kudos, custom kudos, rewards, and celebrations.
Jeff noticed results within the first week, “Our culture & morale changed within a week. In less than two months we have had over 2,000 kudos messages of positivity and over 80% engagement. Staff are having fun recognizing each other and have collectively made kudos a part of everyone's day.”
M&H amplified the recognition with rewards, as Jeff mentions, “Collecting coins and spending coins has been a fun approach to encourage management and peer-to-peer recognition. Seeing the stats and the sheer volume of kudos along with the fun Feedback Friday reminders has overnight resulted in people taking the time to stop and make someone's day.”
M&H has saved a ton of time with rewards. Jeff mentions, “No longer are we shopping for birthday gifts, anniversary gifts, buying gift cards for staying late or taking on extra work. We used to run out to buy gift cards to buy someone lunch on a long day. Now all of this is publicly acknowledged through kudos and Matter coins.”
As for advice for others, Jeff talks about the shift Matter has made for M&H, “Matter has made employee recognition more than something managers do. The peer-to-peer words of encouragement changed our culture overnight. Instead of having multiple approaches to recognizing people, we have moved everything into one platform.”
