Pioneering Excellence

Madison is a global leader in employee recognition and incentives, pioneering digital programs since 1995. As an employee-owned company, we deliver recognition, events, and incentive travel solutions that strengthen culture and drive results.

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employee traveling
What Actually Drives a Successful Incentive Travel Program After 20 Years in the Field
Incentive travel has never been about the destination. That may sound surprising in an industry that...
employees working together
Sustainability Without Operational Discipline Is Just Messaging
Sustainability is now standard language in meetings and incentive travel. RFPs reference ESG commitments....
Lake Tahoe
Planning a Corporate Retreat in the U.S.? Here’s Why South Lake Tahoe Belongs on Your List
South Lake Tahoe isn’t your typical meeting destination. Nestled where California and Nevada meet, this...

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Knowledge Center

Knowledge Center

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Blog

Culture Through the Eyes of Your Employees

I’ve read and heard many good definitions of culture, most of them coming from the world of academia. Few, however, are written from an employee’s perspective. If HR leaders could hear what employees think about the world they work in (i.e. your company’s culture) they would pay more attention to…

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Maestro and “Team Member Excellence”

One of the leading growth priorities for today’s CEO revolves around what some call “team member excellence.” That’s a level of talent performance that’s optimized across the entire enterprise. Something that’s made possible through outstanding people practices inducing programs that impact everything from recruitment to retention. Reward strategies are a…

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people smiling and working together
Blog

Start Recognizing Employee Efforts Now

December’s Jobs Report, released last Friday, made news for a variety of reasons. The 252,000 net new jobs created along with positive revisions made to previous postings were considered healthy signs by experts. But to me the real story was not in the monthly numbers, but in the aggregate figures…

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Blog

Context Made Simple with Maestro

Want your messages to connect? Behavioral economics tells us that people respond more to communications that put goals and objectives into a personalized context. And by “context” I mean a familiar framework that reflects their individual working circumstances. By designing and implementing employee communications and reward offerings with context in…

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Blog

Don’t Launch Without This

So you had the best intentions. You implemented a new employee recognition program. Good for you. Problem is no one’s using it! Now what? You are learning a hard lesson: all of the care and planning in the world means little if managers don’t embrace the system from day one…

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people celebrating new years at work
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How to Make Your New Year’s “Wish” More Certain

Happy New Year everybody! From all of us at Madison may all of you in the HR and sales operations space have a happy and of course, a prosperous 2015! Notice I didn’t “wish” you a New Year? I purposely left out that word because wishes are hopes and we…

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Make More Recognition Your New Year’s Resolution

A few years ago, when the economy was in a deep recession, I wrote a white paper that argued (with passion and purpose) that recognition still mattered. It presented the case for ramping up (and not reducing) employee recognition. My thesis was simple: companies who took the attitude that their…

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Blog

Is Your Recognition Program Driving a Positive Culture?

What are the top leading priorities for today’s CEO? According to the Wall Street Journal ‘s guest blog website; one of the biggest concerns is “team member excellence.” An aspiration made possible through outstanding recruitment and retention and all the other human resource practices that support it. CEOs expect to…

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Blog

Turn Employees From “Satisfied” to Truly “Happy”

What makes an employee happy? We talk a lot about recognition in this blog — being appreciated for what you do by the people you do it with. And while consistent recognition is the key to keeping an employee satisfied, it’s what people feel as they are being recognized that…

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Ask Madison: Employer and Employees are Ready to Get Back on the Road
Both buyers and sellers of incentive travel programs were surveyed in the 2020 incentive Travel Industry Index (ITII) , a joint initiative of FICP (Financial & Insurance Conference Professionals), IRF (Incentive Research Foundation), and SITE Foundation (Society for Incentive Travel Excellence in association with Oxford Economics. The findings indicate we...
Motivational Tools: Rewarding with ‘Carrots’ or Wielding a ‘Stick’
In some instances, an olive branch might work better. In light of breaking stories filling up our news feeds, the harried story of the Twitter workforce told before the world's eyes has us captivated, regardless of which side of the fence you sit. As an organization rooted in employee engagement...
Ask Madison: 6 Overlooked Signs Your Employees are Quietly Quitting
  After months of unsustainable workloads, chronic stress from the pandemic and uncertainty, and mass layoffs, employees have had enough. They are tired of being unpaid with no appreciation and increased employer expectations .  Answering emails on holidays, taking on additional responsibilities with no pay raise, and forced return-to-office policies...
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