ApplicantPro Uses Motivosity to Connect a Remote Workforce, Boost Engagement, and Recognize Employees

Motivosity Products: Recognition & Rewards | Surveys | Meetings | Spaces

About ApplicantPro

Built to help businesses hire the best candidates, ApplicantPro offers support to companies of all sizes—from startups to established brands across the country. ApplicantPro has been in business nearly 20 years and boasts 9,000 happy customers, 1.5+ million monthly job seekers, and 5 product lines, including an applicant tracking system, career sites, background checks, and payroll. Their 275 employees are almost exclusively remote, spread out across 19 states.

Motivosity customers since April 2024, ApplicantPro has dramatically improved their employee experience. What once was a slow recognition program, too many tools for HR initiatives, low survey engagement, and no eNPS insight is now a thriving culture of instant praise, employee connection, and reduced cost (plus, less time wasted) from multiple platforms. Tracie Kalmar, Human Resources Manager at ApplicantPro, said “Motivosity helps us run more efficiently and solve problems faster because we’re all connected.” The biggest change for ApplicantPro? 24 unique groups to help bring their dispersed workforce together and create a place for all resources and documents—including a Now Hiring Space, Harry Potter Fan Club, HR Help Desk, Crochet Community, and more!

The Challenge

Before Motivosity, ApplicantPro faced several challenges. With their workforce spread out nationwide, they struggled to keep employees connected. They were also using several different systems for HR initiatives and needed a way to bring everything into one platform—rewards, surveys, engagement activities, and more.

Too many systems for HR initiatives

The ApplicantPro team was using Workplace by Facebook, a tool meant to help teams communicate and share information. “We were with Workplace before they changed their pricing and their structure,” said Tracie. “And now they’re not even supporting it.” The team also used SurveyMonkey to help with surveys and a standard, manual form to help them process recognition rewards.

All three systems were time-consuming and didn’t quite meet the company's needs. “We really needed a better way for managers and team members to recognize each other for all of the work they did,” said Tracie. “And the price increase of Workplace really was the catalyst for looking for a single solution for all of our HR initiatives together.”

A manual, time-consuming recognition program

“We had a form that people could fill out to recognize each other, but it wasn’t used very much,” said Tracie. The old recognition program relied on employees manually filling out a form and nominating a coworker for demonstrating a core value. Employees would get a sticker with a note that detailed how they were living up to that value.

“The process was extremely time-consuming to manage and it was all dependent on people taking the time to submit the form,” said Tracie. “And each step could delay the recognition. We needed something that would be easier to complete and to manage—helping us recognize employees quickly.”

Delayed rewards for employees—up to 30 days or more

The team wanted employees to get recognized as soon as possible. If someone stayed late to help a client solve a problem, they wanted that employee to get recognized that day or the next day at the latest, not the next month. “With the old process, me and my team were the bottleneck,” said Tracie. “Even if managers completed the process perfectly, all of the nominations still always came to me or my team and we had to do the work of filling out the note and sending the sticker. It took a lot of time.”

With the old recognition program, employees weren’t recognized on a timely schedule. In most cases, it took at least 30 days or more for anyone to receive their reward. Employees would be notified of their recognition in a monthly company meeting, but then HR would need to finalize the note and mail it with the sticker.

Only a select few employees were recognized

Out of nearly 300 employees, only 12 or so were recognized on a consistent basis with the old system. Plus, this dismal ~4% was often recognized over and over for the same core values. “We found that the same managers would recognize the same people or they would recognize their whole team all at once,” said Tracie. “This just made it not as meaningful.” Tracie started keeping track of who was recognized and realized many employees had never had a nomination during their entire time at the company.

A disconnected workforce, spread out across the country

With the team spread out over 19 states, ApplicantPro needed a better way to build connection among employees. “We were using Groups in Workplace and employees were very active,” said Tracie. “We really needed something to replace this feature to help us connect employees through their common interests.”

Low engagement on survey responses + no eNPS insight

Survey engagement was low with the old system—SurveyMonkey. “We did get about 67% engagement, but we knew we needed a higher number to get a better picture of what was going on with our workforce,” said Tracie. “We really needed to hear from everyone—the outliers included.” The team wasn’t running any eNPS surveys either, they would only use surveys to get a pulse on relevant topics—no standard survey to measure engagement or employee happiness.

The Motivosity Solution

After adding Motivosity, ApplicantPro found a single solution for their long list of HR asks—one platform to help them with rewards, surveys, employee connection, and more.

New ways for employees to connect with Spaces

ApplicantPro is using Spaces to host 24 different groups for their employees. Ranging from a space for dad jokes to Harry Potter fans, woodworking side hustles, crocheting, and football updates, employees can connect with team members and coworkers from other departments to get to know one another. “As a fully remote company, we are trying to get people together whose jobs don't touch, and help them connect through their common interests,” said Tracie. “With Motivosity Spaces, remote teams that have never met in real life are connecting and we're learning fun facts about them that we wouldn't have known otherwise.”

A better way to host employee resources and communication

With Motivosity Spaces, ApplicantPro has also created groups to help employees find resources and information quickly. These Spaces include the HR Help Desk, work hacks, a leadership group, employee training, and new hire introductions—there’s a Space for everything (and everything has its space!). “We even have department Spaces so teams can keep track of resources that they need and a hiring now page that lists all of our new, open positions for employees to see,” said Tracie.

An automated recognition program

With Motivosity, recognition is fast, easy, and automated—no more waiting on the HR team or the mail to deliver a note and a sticker. “Now recognition is timely and everyone has an opportunity and responsibility to recognize each other,” said Tracie. And with reporting, the HR team can see who hasn’t been recognized to make sure everyone gets a chance to be praised for their hard work. “It’s peer-to-peer, leader-to-leader, leader-to-peer—it's going across departments,” said Tracie.

Flexible, instant rewards

With a peer-to-peer recognition system, employees have access to flexible, instant rewards. “I often log in first thing in the morning and see 18 new notifications of thanks and shout outs and notes of appreciation,” said Tracie. “And a lot of our employees choose to use the Thanks Matters card. They love the flexibility to use their reward dollars on whatever they want.”

New ways to incentivize participation

Motivosity is making it easy for HR and other teams to incentivize participation in surveys. “We do a drawing for Motivosity bucks if we can get everyone to complete their survey by a specific date,” said Tracie. “And for our eNPS survey, we attach an automated recognition to get more people to take it.”

Automated eNPS surveys and pulse surveys for individual teams

“We’re using Motivosity now to help us with eNPS surveys,” said Tracie. The team can also send one-off surveys and let managers build pulse surveys to get more anonymous feedback from their teams. “It’s been so great to help us find out what’s going well, what’s not working, and new ideas on how to improve.”

Results & ROI

In just 5 months, ApplicantPro used Motivosity to see tangible results:

A single place for employee connection, recognition, communication, and engagement—without the increased cost

“There’s so much value in having everything together,” said Tracie. With one platform and the value of Motivosity Spaces, employees are in the habit of logging into Motivosity as the resource for announcements, changes, resources, surveys, and recognition. “Comparing what we were already using and spending with other programs, Motivosity pulled everything together with more flexibility to reward one-offs instead of buying additional gift cards or spending additional money,” said Tracie. Plus, with reporting for the HR team, Motivosity is helping HR communicate with the leadership team.

Better communication, faster problem solving, and increased connection

“Motivosity Spaces is helping us connect teams with common interests, helping us interact with each other, and have virtual activities,” said Tracie. “It’s the closest thing to being in the office without actually being in the office.” With Motivosity Spaces, employees join groups that align with their interests. There are groups for people that like to crochet, play Dungeons & Dragons or Among Us, woodworking, Harry Potter, football, and more. Remote teams that have never met in real life are connecting and learning about each other. “Now, with Motivosity, we feel connected,” said Tracie. “As our employees solve complex problems at work, they do it with a familiar face because they have connections with other people across the business.”

A culture of gratitude

“People are giving away their own earned dollars,” said Tracie. Instead of employees exchanging their earned dollars for gift cards or other rewards, many are using those dollars to thank their coworkers and recognize others for their hard work. Other employees are using Motivosity to help raise funds for employees who are retiring or having a baby. “We have people asking others to donate their Motivosity bucks to these great causes and the needs of their coworkers,” said Tracie. “It’s a fun way for them to use their funds and support their colleagues.”

100% of employees recognized every month vs. just 4%

With Motivosity fully adopted across the business, 100% of employees are recognized every month vs. just 4% with the old system. “It’s going so well,” said Tracie. “Everyone is getting recognized now and that’s been a huge change.” The team is also seeing a lot of recognition across departments—showcasing how much connection and engagement is happening between teams.

Instant praise vs. 30+ days to recognize employees

Now that they can immediately send recognition through Motivosity, employees don’t have to wait 30+ days to receive a note and a sticker in the mail. “Employees are recognizing each other instantly now,” said Tracie.

27% increase in survey completions + more actionable data

ApplicantPro used to see a steady 67% engagement rate with their surveys. Now, with Motivosity, they’re up to 85% engagement, and the completion rate continues to rise. With a new survey process, the team can measure eNPS more regularly and build follow-up surveys to dive deeper into some of the challenges employees are having right now at the business. “Motivosity is allowing us to start those conversations, especially going into budget season and as we're planning for next year—we can make some changes to try and help that,” said Tracie.