Spreading Recognition to a Global Manufacturing Workforce

Ultradent strengthened their culture of appreciation and spread it to their global workforce, both in offices and on production floors.

At A Glance

1600 employees
Fortune's #4 large manufacturer for culture
45-year history

About Ultradent

Ultradent is a global dental manufacturing company with over 1600 employees. Their mission is to improve oral health around the world with quality products, progressive solutions, cutting edge tech.

The Challenge

How do you disseminate recognition to a global workforce when not everyone works at a computer?

Ultradent’s old recognition platform didn’t allow for global reach or customisation. They wanted a tool that would help them reach everyone in meaningful ways.

“We’re present in pretty much every continent in the world, and there’s no limitation to our recognition system. We see recognitions from Brazil to the US, from Japan to China, from South Africa to France, and everyone is engaged."

Favio Paiva
Workday Specialist

The Solution

Customised Global Solutions

With employees in nearly every continent in the world, Ultradent needed a platform that they could customise for different locations. With Awardco, they’ve been able to build custom websites and experiences for their different locations while keeping everything simple and straightforward for admins. Plus, they can offer rewards that are meaningful for everyone, no matter where they live.

Global reach wasn’t the only hurdle—as a dental manufacturer, Ultradent also has a mix of online and offline employees. They wanted recognition that would reach those in front of a computer and those on the manufacturing floor equally.

By putting up posters with QR codes employees can scan, erecting booths at each location with aides who help employees put Awardco on their phones and training managers to recognise frequently, they’ve seen a big impact for everyone.

The success they've seen in all their teams is due in large part the leadership buy-in they've had—everyone, from executives down, believes in the power of recognition and the impact it has on the bottom line which has made it easy to build such an appreciative culture.

The Solution

Impactful Peer-to-Peer Acknowledgement

Ultradent’s previous recognition solution was very top-down, and it wasn’t as effective as they would have liked. After the switch to Awardco, they built out a robust peer-to-peer programme that allows everyone to recognise anyone at any time. Plus, because they’ve been able to save so much, they even give each employee a small budget each quarter to reward each other with!

On top of that, they’ve been able to tie their recognition programmes into their core values, driving desired behaviours and reinforcing their culture more than ever. These two programmes have created a strong culture of appreciation that benefits their existing employees and even makes their recruiting efforts more effective.

David Alsop, Ultradent’s Chief Human Resource Officer, said, “The one thing I love most about Awardco is that it helps people recognise the core values that we want our people to develop, which reinforces our culture more than we’ve ever been able to reinforce it before.”

“Modern recognition with Awardco has created an ecosystem of appreciation. What we’ve found, as employees have recognized each other, is that they’re motivated long term. Employees want to enjoy their work and be successful, and if we recognize them for th

David Alsop
Chief Human Resource Officer

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