Employee Engagement

BERLIN – November 13, 2026 -- Employee criticism of a company Christmas gift can point to wider dissatisfaction at work, according to occupational psychologist Tosca Gort, founder of GORTcoaching. She made the comment in interviews conducted by Loopper, a gifting provider whose customers are employers.

Gort says strong frustration over a gift probably means something else is wrong, such as pay, job tasks, colleagues or commuting time. Nicol Tadema, a speaker and author on employee satisfaction, makes a similar point. She says a cheaper, personal gift can leave a stronger impression than a large or luxurious one. A big December gift after a year of little recognition "will not go down well", she says.

Omaha – November 06, 2026 -- Omaha Steaks expects to surpass 5 million corporate gifts sent since 2000 by the end of 2026, as it expands its business gifting program with no minimum order and redesigned gift certificates that recipients redeem online.

Omaha Steaks has delivered more than 1.1 million corporate gifts since 2020

Recipients chose nearly half of those gifts (46%) using an Omaha Steaks gift certificate. They have redeemed more than 530,000 certificates over that period. More than 5,000 businesses have used the company for corporate gifting.

Updated certificates let recipients enter delivery addresses at redemption

Businesses can order printed or digital certificates from gift collections at different price points. Employers can email or hand out certificates without collecting home addresses, because recipients enter their delivery details when they redeem online.

PHOENIX – October 21, 2026 -- EcoShield Pest Solutions held its first Customer Service Appreciation Week, a program shaped by a cross-functional committee and extended to in-office, remote and overseas agents.

Training manager Kristen Elmore recruits committee to design the week

Kristen Elmore, Training Manager of Customer Experience, started the planning and brought together a committee representing different areas of customer experience. Team members contributed ideas to shape the program. "It needs to have a voice from everyone," Elmore said.

Program spans music, quizzes and gifts across locations

The week included shared music, interactive chats, quizzes, themed activities, recognition messages and appreciation gifts. Activities were designed to include both in-office and remote agents, including overseas colleagues.

National Harbor, Maryland – October 18, 2026 -- Five Guys will award $100,000 to the winner of its Five Guys Games final on May 13 at The Theater at MGM National Harbor in Maryland, closing a six-month internal contest open to the chain's 50,000 employees.

Three timed events decide the $100,000 grand prize

Finalists compete in a potato race, a cheese stack race and a QC wrapping race. The Five Guys Training Team judges the events, watching and timing each competitor for speed and accuracy.

The Olympic-style contest began as an idea from the Murrell family to reward store crew members. Crew members, managers and general managers have competed through store, regional and semifinal rounds.

Arlington – October 18, 2026 -- Five Guys has earned its ninth successive Great Place To Work® certification, with 82% of Five Guys Enterprises LLC corporate and store employees calling it a great place to work. That compares with 57% of employees at a typical U.S.-based company, a gap of 25 percentage points.

Survey shows 91% of employees have the resources to do their jobs

The survey results cover corporate staff and company-owned store teams. Employee responses included:

• 91% say they have the equipment and resources to do their job.
• 91% believe Five Guys customers would rate the service as excellent.
• 87% say they are treated as a full member of the team regardless of position.
• 87% say new hires are made to feel welcome.

Employees describe the company as people, team, fun, family and food

Asked to describe Five Guys in their own words, employees gave those five terms as the top responses.

United States – October 18, 2026 -- Newsweek and Plant-A Insights Group built the America's Greatest Workplaces 2026 ranking on more than 2.7 million company reviews from more than 179,000 employees, making it one of the largest independent employee studies in the country.

Survey covers companies with more than 1,000 employees across 10 dimensions

The study evaluates employers with more than 1,000 staff on 10 key dimensions of worker satisfaction. It combines a national survey, desk research and third-party data. The survey ran from April 2025 to October 2025.

Results from three earlier studies, conducted between 2022 and 2024, are included at reduced weight. Those studies encompassed more than 4.9 million company reviews and more than 400,000 interviews.

Global – October 17, 2026 -- Eighty-five percent of HCM Excellence Award-winning recognition programs have deployed dedicated recognition platforms with dashboards and reporting, yet far fewer have built the layer that tells managers what to do with that data, according to Brandon Hall Group analysis.

The research describes a gap between information and instruction. Managers can see participation counts, survey scores and recognition volumes, usually refreshed monthly or quarterly. They cannot always see which employee is at risk, why, or what should happen this week.

Shared recognition authority raises the stakes for manager focus

Peer nomination systems now match manager-driven recognition in prevalence, each appearing in two-thirds of the award-winning programs studied. With recognition spread across more people, managers need guidance on where their own attention will have the most effect.

Berkeley – October 16, 2026 -- Employee recognition platform Recognize ran 72 billboard plays in 24 hours on Oct. 15, 2026, across Times Square in New York and downtown Los Angeles, in its first coast-to-coast out-of-home campaign.

Campaign asks commuters "What's the point?" and answers with a rewards pitch

The 15-second spot opened with the text "Going to work? What's the point?" and closed with "Let's give you a point," plus a QR code linking to the campaign landing page. The Times Square spot ran once an hour. In downtown Los Angeles it played twice back to back across 24 thirty-second slots.

The pun refers to Recognize's product mechanics. Employees earn points when colleagues or managers recognize their work, then redeem them for gift cards, company swag and live-event tickets.

St. Louis – October 15, 2026 -- Graybar, the electrical, industrial, automation and connectivity products distributor, has won four Top Workplaces Culture Excellence awards, three Featured awards and the Distribution Industry award from workplace-survey firm Energage for 2026.

This is the sixth consecutive year Graybar has received Culture Excellence awards. It is also the fifth consecutive year the company has won the Distribution Industry award. Graybar was one of just three distributors with more than 2,500 employees to receive the industry honor.

Graybar collects four Culture Excellence and three Featured awards

The Culture Excellence awards cover Work-Life Flexibility, Purpose & Values, Employee Well-Being and Professional Development.

Houston – October 14, 2026 -- Hilltop Residential, a Houston-based multifamily investor and operator, ranked No. 8 among 100 companies on the 2026 Fortune Best Workplaces in Real Estate list in the Small and Medium category.

Ranking draws on more than 28,000 employee survey responses

Great Place To Work evaluated more than 28,000 Trust Index Survey responses from employees at eligible companies. To qualify, a company must be Great Place To Work Certified, employ at least 10 people in the U.S. and operate in the real estate industry.

Rankings reflect confidential employee feedback on trust in management, connection with colleagues, pride in work, fairness, and opportunities to contribute and grow.