The Challenge
Heineken Ireland markets and distributes numerous world-famous beer brands in Ireland including Heineken, Coors Light, Tiger, Murphy’s, Beamish, Birra Moretti, and Paulaner.
With a brewing heritage that started in Cork over 160 years ago, Heineken Ireland employs over 400 staff across all functions from marketing to distribution, with many employees spending their entire work career with the company.
Heineken Ireland wanted to completely revamp their employee Service Awards and move away from their previous provider’s reward catalogue that was perceived to be old fashioned.
Heineken Ireland were looking for a new online system with attractive tiered awards that would appeal to a wide employee demographic, and which would be easy for employees to select their reward of choice. They also wanted to expand their Serviced Award milestones to include all five year increments from 5 to 40 years’ service.
The Programme
Using the Service Awards module of Recognition Hub, Amplify launched Heineken Stars, a fully branded Long Service programme, where employees are automatically sent Service Awards when they reach 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 years service.
On the morning an employee hits a service milestone, they are automatically emailed a Service Award with a personal message of congratulations from the company. In addition, their line manager is notified by email and reminded to personally acknowledge their achievement, thereby reinforcing company appreciation for staff loyalty.
The award also appears as a Shout-out on the programme website, allowing other staff members to add their own congratulations.
The milestone employee receives Stars with their award (Stars being the reward currency of the programme). Stars are automatically added to the employee’s online account, ranging in value from €100 – €800 worth depending on the milestones achieved.
Staff can then spend their Stars online in the online Reward Store on their choice of over 1,000 products, gifts cards and experiences from Amplify’s extensive reward catalogue of over 1,000 of the best shops, hotels, restaurants, spas, leisure, travel & activity companies in Ireland.
Amplify handles all customer service and queries, and ensures fulfilment of all rewards ordered by employees within 5 working days.
The Results
Recognition Hub fully automated Heineken’s long service programme, reducing HR admin and ensuring timely delivery of Service Awards, as well as the elimination of errors. Line Manager notification is also a really valued feature of the programme, enabling real time manager acknowledgement of loyal team members. Social Recognition is also a key element in openly celebrating everyday examples of employee milestone achievements.
The Heineken Stars programme has become a key part of Heineken Ireland’s employee reward & recognition strategy, and has been successfully in operation for over 10 years.
