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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Designing Sales Meetings That Drive Business Outcomes, Not Just Attendance
Annual sales meetings often represent one of the largest internal investments an organization makes each...
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....

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Workplace Culture

Knowledge Center

Knowledge Center

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Blog

How to Help Employees Avoid Loneliness and Burnout

With fewer boundaries between work and recreational time, many employees are at risk of burning out. Remote work has increased by 115 percent in the past decade, creating a potentially dangerous combination of loneliness and burnout. Everyone starts the new year refreshed and energized with their resolutions, but they may…

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Blog

5 Tips to Boost Employee Learning

Employers in tune with the needs of their workforce understand that today’s fast-paced environment requires workers to constantly upgrade their skills to remain competitive. A culture of learning is essential due to emerging technologies that are constantly evolving and market forces that are constantly shifting. On-the-job training and development is…

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Performance Perspective

Emphasizing Culture Over Cool in the Workplace

Workplace perks such as hammocks, foosball tables, and nap pods are popping up with more regularity in companies that want to appeal to younger workers. While they may seem cool to prospective employees, it is important that businesses not confuse these draws for a strong workplace culture. Companies that want…

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Blog

Does the Employee Experience Trend Replace Engagement?

The employee experience trend has emerged across global workforces, becoming a strategic priority for company leaders. This new trend has organizational leaders questioning whether experience replaces engagement . Rather than viewing these as competing concepts, industry leaders recognize that the employee experience is primarily the driving force behind engagement.  What…

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Blog

Move Over Millennials, Here Comes Gen Z!

While “Millennial” has long been the buzzword associated with young, coveted workers, a new generation is quickly working to displace them. Generation Z refers to individuals born after 1996, making up a startling 61 million people in the United States, larger than the number of Millennials and Generation X, and…

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Performance Perspective

Millennials are Maturing. Now What?

While the ranks of Millennials comprise the largest in the workplace, they also represent the biggest challenge for employers. This group currently registers the lowest level of employee engagement, something that’s putting a strain on their loyalty and commitment. So what can companies do to counteract that trend? How can…

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Blog

How Employee Recognition Can Help Kill Office Cliques

Many people want to form close bonds with their colleagues. However, some types of relationships in the workplace can actually harm your business. Workplace cliques are close-knit groups of employees who socialize inside and sometimes outside of work, while at the same time excluding other co-workers from this socialization. While…

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Blog

How to Become a Talent Magnet in 2019

Attracting top talent is a key priority for companies as the talent pool becomes more diverse and skilled, and expects more from employers. To achieve this goal, businesses must create a company environment where employees would want to work, grow and thrive. Here are ways businesses can become a talent…

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Blog

Savvy Workspace Design Increases Engagement & Boosts Productivity

Decades of research confirm that a person’s environment affects their mental and physical health. Being complex human beings, employees cannot be treated like machines. They thrive in places that cater to both comfort and focus, that enable social engagement and collaboration, and that reflect the corporate values they share. A…

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Blog

3 Steps to Take if Your Company Culture Has a Bad Reputation

Founding Father and inventor Ben Franklin said it best: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” A company’s bad reputation quickly casts a shadow on the positive aspects of that organization. All it takes is a couple of unfavorable…

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Why Recognition Is the Most Powerful Tool to Protect High Performers
Organizations often treat recognition as a perk — something nice to have, something extra. But for high performers, recognition is not a perk. It is protection. High performers carry tremendous emotional and cognitive weight. They take on more work. They solve more problems. They mentor more peers. They generate more impact. And they do it all without asking for much in return. But every human has a tipping point. And without recognition, high performers hit theirs much faster.
The Myth of the Unbreakable High Performer
High performers are often described with an almost mythic quality: resilient, unstoppable, reliable, self-driven, limitless. They are the employees leaders depend on — the ones who say yes when others hesitate, who push harder, who deliver when the stakes are highest. But there’s a dangerous flaw embedded in this mythology: High performers are not unbreakable. They are simply quiet about the breaking. This misconception is costing organizations dearly.
Six Early Warning Signs Your Top Talent Is Quietly Burning Out
Burnout rarely erupts suddenly. It whispers long before it roars. And with high performers, the whispers are almost silent. Unlike struggling employees, high performers don’t telegraph their distress. They continue delivering, continue meeting deadlines, continue producing high-quality work — until the moment they can’t. By the time leaders notice something is off, the emotional damage is often months in the making. The challenge isn’t that high performers don’t show signs. It’s that leaders aren’t trained to recognize them.
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