“Instead of relying on memory, we can point to documented, values-based contributions throughout the year. That is what makes WorkProud infrastructure rather than a tool.”
— Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
WalkMe, an SAP company, is the critical layer that makes enterprise AI work. Built on over a decade of experience in enterprise deployments, WalkMe gives AI the real-time context, cross-application reach, and workflow execution it needs to deliver results. With a workforce of over 1,000 spanning North America, EMEA, and APJ, WalkMe helps organizations adapt faster, make better decisions, and build a workforce that learns continuously. Trusted by global leaders including IBM, Nestlé, ThermoFisher Scientific, and the U.S. federal government, WalkMe turns AI investments into business outcomes. Visit www.walkme.com for more information and access their latest State of Digital Adoption Report, measuring what actually happens when enterprises work with AI.
In 2022, WalkMe began an intensive global listening tour, with the support of an annual organizational health survey and dozens of focus groups, to define its core values.
These values became the foundation for everything from performance management to executive communications to learning and development.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
Yet recognition and rewards were still fragmented. Colleagues posted shout-outs in a Slack channel. There was no reliable record of who was acknowledged, and awards were processed manually.
The company needed a scalable system that could align recognition to its values, empower every employee to reward one another, and provide data for leadership.
In April 2024, WalkMe partnered with WorkProud and launched “WalkProud”, a branded recognition and rewards platform. Employees took part in a naming contest to co-create the internal identity and build global buy-in. From launch, each individual contributor receives 10 points and each manager receives 25 points monthly to recognize employees whose actions reflect the WalkMe Way.
“We launched WalkProud in the hopes of continuing to elevate our values, recognize and reward behavior in line with those values, and enhance our total rewards across the organization by putting the power into each individual’s hands,” Madeline says.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
“The numbers speak for themselves,” Madeline notes. “WorkProud has truly integrated our values systemically into day-to-day life.”
What makes this story more compelling is that Madeline is not simply a program owner. She is a subject matter expert in recognition and total rewards strategy.
“I could write a book on recognition,” she says with a laugh. But she is only half joking.
Over the course of her career, Madeline has developed and executed global Internal Communications and engagement initiatives (through multiple IPOs, mergers, and crises – from supporting employees living in war zones to navigating a global pandemic), and built holistic HR communications strategies, driven leadership alignment, and supported dynamic employer branding. She understands how recognition connects to mission, reinforces vision, and translates into measurable return on investment.
“Recognition is not about perks. It’s about behavior reinforcement. It’s about aligning what the organization says it values with what it actually rewards.”
She is equally fluent in board-level language.
“When you walk into an executive meeting, you can’t just say ‘people feel good,’” she says. “You have to show the impact. You have to connect recognition to engagement, to retention, to performance, and to business continuity.”
That is precisely what the data demonstrates.
“This is what happens when recognition is embedded,” Madeline says. “It moves from being a line item to being strategic infrastructure.”
For someone who deeply understands the science and psychology of recognition, WorkProud was not just a vendor selection; it was a partnership. It was the right execution engine.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
When Madeline joined in 2022, recognition lacked structure. Managers could not see whether their teams were being acknowledged, and employees had limited visibility into cross-functional wins.
“Our recognition experience was somewhat effective, but not coordinated,” Madeline recalls. “We were using a ‘Kudos’ Slack channel where people would offer shoutouts, but there was no long-term tracking or monitoring and no incentivization. It wasn’t truly scalable because there wasn’t a record for people to go back to or review, and there was no reward tied to the recognition.”
Following the company’s values discovery process, WalkMe introduced quarterly WalkMe Way Awards via a Google form. While meaningful, the awards required manual tracking on top of asking for additional effort from employees each quarter to submit their nominations.
“Recognition mattered to our people,” Madeline says. “But it wasn’t embedded. It wasn’t measurable. And it wasn’t scalable across 1,000 employees globally.”
WalkMe needed a unified system that could:
After researching several recognition vendors, Madeline selected WorkProud for both engagement design and reporting depth.
“From the social-feed experience to the tracking and reporting features, it has everything you need to do recognition and rewards right within a global organization,” she explains.
The program launched in April 2024 with the following structure:
Feature | WalkProud design |
Monthly points allocation | Each individual contributor receives 10 “awardable” points per month, and each manager receives 25 points to award others for living the WalkMe Way. Points expire at month-end, creating cyclical motivation and encouraging active participation. |
Integration of awards and incentives | Quarterly WalkMe Way Awards, sales SPIFFs, team awards, and functional incentives were consolidated into WalkProud. Scratch-off games, emoji reactions, and automated reminders were added to drive engagement and celebration (big events, Employee Appreciation Day, etc.). |
Values alignment | Each recognition requires tagging one or more values, ensuring praise is explicitly tied to desired behaviors. In 2025, recognitions averaged 1.79 values per post. |
Choice in redemption | Recipients can redeem points for merchandise, experiences, gift cards, or charitable donations. Service anniversaries and milestone awards are delivered through points rather than static gifts, creating flexibility for individuals. |
“The democratization of rewards has been a key win,” Madeline says. “Not just with every employee having the ability to reward others each month, but also with how leaders are able to support their teams without administrative friction.”
Previously, leaders had to submit purchase orders and wait for approvals before they could even make a purchase to reward their teams. Now, points can be issued instantly.
“That shift alone has made a huge impact across the organization.”
One of Madeline’s most revealing insights is operational.
Despite overseeing a global recognition ecosystem with 96.2% adoption, 12,100 recognition posts, and 66,707 total logins, she spends only about 15% of her time inside WalkProud.
“That’s the magic of it,” she explains. “I probably spend 15% of my time in the system, and it enables me to do everything else that I want to do.”
That statement matters.
WalkProud functions as a centralized hub:
The system runs.
She does not have to chase manual spreadsheets. She does not process gift cards. She does not manage fragmented budgets.
Instead, she can focus on what she calls “the cool human things”.
That includes:
“When recognition runs smoothly,” she says, “it frees you up to focus on culture building instead of administration.”
For a leader overseeing global Internal Communications and Employee Engagement with a focus on supporting retention and total rewards at a fast-moving technology company, that efficiency is not minor. It is strategic leverage.
WorkProud reduces friction. It centralizes complexity. It removes manual overhead.
And because the platform performs reliably, she can spend the other 85% of her time driving higher-order cultural strategy.
Launching WalkProud was about changing behavior.
By giving employees monthly points that expire, WalkMe created a positive accountability loop.
“Points expiring creates cyclical motivation,” Madeline explains. “People actively look for positive behaviors to reward before their points reset. It trains employees to notice what good looks like.”
Recognition moved from private Slack exchanges to a public feed visible across departments and geographies.
“Employees are mentally being trained to recognize values-driven behaviors,” she says. “And now they are empowered to reward those behaviors in the moment.”
In times of change, this mattered deeply.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
One of the most transformative aspects of WorkProud is its reporting capability. No other enterprise grade application can do this.
WorkProud captures structured behavioral data.
Every recognition includes:
In 2025 alone, recognition at WalkMe averaged 1.79 per post, indicating employees are not simply saying thank you. They are reinforcing specific behaviors tied to the WalkMe values: Act with Empathy, Take Ownership, Embrace a Growth Mindset, Own the Outcome, and Work as One WalkMe.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
Recognition becomes behavioral evidence.
Instead of a manager or employee entering a performance review relying on recent memory, they can pull documented evidence, and even quotes, from throughout the year.
“It combats recency bias,” she explains. “We can say, ‘In March, you demonstrated ownership on this project. In July, you showed empathy during a difficult transition.’ It’s all there.”
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
This shifts recognition from anecdotal to analytical.
And the correlation becomes visible.
Data from WalkMe’s report from 2022 to 2025 shows:
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
For executives and board members, this matters.
Recognition is no longer a soft sentiment. It becomes measurable behavioral reinforcement tied to engagement, retention, and performance stability, even through acquisition.
– Madeline Des Jardins, Global Sr. Director of Internal Communications and Employee Engagement
In 2024, WalkMe entered a period of significant organizational change following its acquisition by SAP. For most companies, acquisitions trigger elevated voluntary attrition, particularly among high performers.
At WalkMe, voluntary attrition declined by a double-digit percentage year-over-year during the integration period. Overall retention remained in the mid-to-high 90 percent range across critical functions.
Engagement did not dip during uncertainty. It accelerated:
This stability was not incidental.
Recognition was visible, consistent and tied to core values throughout the transition. Leaders continued reinforcing behaviors publicly, which maintained cultural clarity during structural change.
“Our recognition and rewards strategy became a stabilizer,” Madeline explains. “During times of uncertainty, recognition reinforces belonging. It reminds people who we are and what we value.”
From a financial perspective, retention stability during acquisition is material.
Conservatively, replacing a single employee costs 50-200% of their annual salary when factoring in recruiting, onboarding, lost productivity, and institutional knowledge. Even a modest 5% reduction in voluntary attrition across a 1,000-employee workforce can represent millions of dollars in avoided replacement costs.
“We have seen diminishing attrition and high retention rates despite major change,” Madeline says. “That stability is directly tied to our investment in recognition and rewards.”
New hires are onboarded into WalkProud from day one.
Recognition becomes embedded immediately.
Recognition was not a morale initiative. It functioned as risk mitigation.
Madeline summarizes: “When change accelerates, culture either fractures or strengthens. Ours strengthened – and recognition was a big part of that.”
For executive leadership, the implication is clear: Recognition, when embedded systemically and measured consistently, supports business continuity during moments of organizational volatility.
WalkMe’s experience offers clear, practical guidance for organizations seeking to modernize recognition and tie it directly to business outcomes:
Recognition programs must evolve.
“They’re alive,” Madeline says. “You have to keep listening and adjusting based on what your people need.”
People who are truly passionate about their teams get something most HR leaders miss. It’s not about the recognition program. Not the shopping portal. Not the points system.
Madeline gets it. What she’s building is a culture that actually holds together, across geographies, business units, and departments, regardless of external impact or change. And that’s a lot harder than it sounds, especially when your company is growing fast or going global.
The real risks? Culture fragmentation. A leadership visibility gap that costs real money. Disengagement, attrition, and missed opportunities, most of which trace back to the same problem: leaders can’t see what’s happening with employees who are remote or scattered across international offices. Instead of telling one company story and aligning around a clear mission, silos break your narrative down into subcultures that don’t collaborate successfully or speak the same shared language.
Technology helps. But it’s not the answer on its own. It’s the infrastructure. What makes the real impact is the commitment underneath it: smart program design, real support for employees and managers, and clean integration with the HR and communication tools people already use. That’s the stuff that drives real, lasting change.
Madeline started where most programs don’t. Before she even looked at platforms, she ran over twenty focus groups and launched an Organizational Health Survey that hit 87% participation in year one and kept climbing. What she found shaped everything. Values are now strategically wired into performance management, recruitment, learning and development, and communications. Every employee is empowered to reward their peers, with real monetary value attached. Behavioral data and easily accessible feedback from others on values-driven behaviors are replacing gut instinct and recency bias in performance conversations.
At WalkMe, the results showed up where leadership actually looks. Engagement, retention, and communication scores started moving in the right direction and held through a huge global acquisition. Which, if you’ve ever been through one, you know how rare that is.
And here’s the part that matters most operationally: Madeline spends about 15% of her time inside WorkProud. “It enables everything else,” she says. “Our strategic recognition and rewards strategy through WalkProud has absolutely been a key driver of our stability and business continuity during this unprecedented time.”
WorkProud handles distribution, reporting, integration, incentives, compliance, and global access. That frees her up for the work no platform replaces: culture storytelling, leadership alignment, and the unique human layer underneath all of it.
Recognition is running. Culture is moving. Leaders are equipped with data to support their decisions.
All employees are empowered with the ability to invest company dollars in what they see as most important and valuable to them personally, as well as the business.
That is not a perk system – that is operating system design.
Madeline did not write a literal book.
She built one.
A living, measurable, scalable case study in how recognition, when executed with expertise and supported by the right platform, becomes a strategic advantage.
“When you embed recognition into performance management, learning and development, recruitment, communications, and leadership, it stops being a program. It becomes culture.”
At WalkMe, that’s exactly what it became.
An icon of style from Hollywood to hip-hop, the Wayfarer never stands still. Forever embraced by the next generation of culture makers, now its journey continues with AI-enhanced wearable tech. Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer enables you to live in the moment and share how you see the world. Listen, call, capture and livestream features are seamlessly integrated within the classic frame. Eye size: 50; Frame: Matte Black; Lens: Clear/Graphite Green Transitions; Lens Material: Standard Plastic
Color: Matte Black/Clear-Graphite Green Transitions
A
Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua & Deps
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
B
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina
Burundi
C
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada
Cape Verde
Central African Rep
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Congo {Democratic Rep}
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
D
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
E
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
F
Fiji
Finland
France
G
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
H
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
I
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland {Republic}
Israel
Italy
Ivory Coast
J
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
K
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea North
Korea South
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
L
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
M
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
M
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Norway
O
Oman
P
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Q
Qatar
R
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
S
St Kitts & Nevis
St Lucia
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome & Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
South Sudan
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
T
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
U
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
V
Vanuatu
Vatican City
Venezuela
Vietnam
Y
Yemen
Z
Zambia
Zimbabwe
Here you will find insights curated for leadership seeking in-depth industry knowledge. Explore comprehensive studies, helpful guides, and expert white papers.
*By selecting “VIEW RESOURCES,” you agree to WorkProud’s Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from our emails at any time. Please note when unsubscribing: it may take up to 10 business days for your request to take effect.
