How a sceptic turned their biggest worry into a data-backed culture engine
Samantha Howieson
Challenge
Being a mostly remote team made it hard to replicate the small, in-person moments that build connection and acknowledgement. eNPS surveys surfaced a pattern of people wanting better recognition. The existing process was a manager-nominated monthly award that required Sam and her team to prompt action and source vouchers for each recipient. Sam's concern with moving to peer-led recognition was that it risked rewarding visibility over real contribution.
Solution
Sam opted to try Zuzo, reasoning that the potential benefits outweighed the risks, and that she could cancel anytime. A year on, Peach's recognition foundation is the daily appreciation running through Zuzo. On top of it, Sam and her team have built a process to generate data-driven recipient shortlists for their monthly Spotlight Awards and an insights engine that flags early misalignments between values and behaviours.
A sceptic's case for peer-driven recognition
When Sam first learned of Zuzo she was doubtful.
"I was very cynical about Zuzo because I was concerned that it might become a popularity contest amongst peers. I was concerned that the people that are most 'well-liked' and most seen across the business, get rewarded, whereas some of the hard workers may get forgotten about. Having recognition so public felt quite risky, and I worried it would become competitive and be demotivating for certain people."
Through her considerations though, Sam weighed the upside against the risks. "If we publicly recognise and make 70% of our Peachies really happy through this process, then that's better than doing nothing, right? We decided to celebrate that 70% rather than no one at all, and then we are actively working with managers to ensure the quieter team members are also recognised where due."
Counterintuitively, it can be the quieter people who end up benefitting the most from peer-driven recognition. Big sales deals and prominent client projects will always get the flowers they're due, but by giving everyone's closest colleagues a platform to illuminate their otherwise unseen work, the backstage brilliance gets its time in the limelight too.
Recognition that runs itself
Before Zuzo, Peach's monthly Spotlight Awards meant Sam and her team personally sourcing and buying individual vouchers for winners. "It would be a case of, 'this person wants an Amazon voucher, this person wants a Takealot voucher, this person wants a restaurant voucher,' and I would have to go and make all those purchases," she says.
"It saves me a lot of time."
Day-to-day, the admin required for recognition and rewards has disappeared almost entirely: "It's just easy 'cause it runs on its own." Asked what would happen if it disappeared tomorrow, Sam doesn't hesitate: "It's pretty embedded in our ways of work now. I think if we took it away, it would be felt for sure."
Results
Turning recognition into insights
What we praise is what we reinforce. On one hand, placing team values at the heart of each Zuzo nomination helps align on-paper culture with in-practice culture. One the other hand, seeing what your team praises every day holds a mirror up to the moments where the words on the wall don't match the reality.
Sam first began analysing Zuzo data to inform other recognition intiatives. They built a rhythm around evaluating Peach's recognition activity against the company values and generating a monthly shortlist of standout people for the ExCo to vote among for Spotlight Awards.
"We're using Claude to analyse our kudos channel every month, assessing the way our values are working in practice and what we define as impactful work at Peach. It recommends the top five people, based on our definition of impact, and Exco votes on the one or two people they feel deserve the spotlight."
When, through that same analysis, Sam noticed recognition skewing toward long hours and weekend work, she flagged it directly to leadership: "The way we recognise our team members is a direct reflection of the behaviour we want to reiterate and support on the ground. We needed to be more intentional about focusing on the impact the person is making."
Recognition data, became a way to hold the business accountable to its own stated values.
The busy report that makes coaching easy
Sam also uses Zuzo's engagement data as a coaching tool with department heads.
In place of a vague reminder she is now equipped to make a specific, defensible ask of key individuals on the team when holding them accountable.
"I always enjoy the report you share with me around people that haven't engaged, because I've used that to ping HODs: 'our team is asking for recognition, you haven't nominated anyone in the last two months, and it needs to come from you.'"
When it doesn't feel fair
For all its advantages, Sam doesn't pretend that peer-driven recognition is the perfect way to recognise every employee. She describes a moment where the "popularity contest" dynamic she had originally worried about showed up in practice, where a nomination to a quieter colleague received less attention than a similar one for a more prominent personality, "He spoke to me and said, 'I actually feel less appreciated by comparison'" she recalls.
Sam treated it as a coaching moment rather than a platform failure, talking it through with the employee. Her overall verdict, weighing the rare rough edge against the broader impact:
"The benefits of Zuzo far outweigh the negatives."
The numbers behind the budget
Sam's recognition budget had been primarily allocated to funding 8 to 10 Spotlight awards each month. These would ultimately impact only that handful of people and came with the aforementioned administrative drawbacks. Having re-allocated that budget toward peer-allocated rewards, their all-in monthly cost of Zuzo falls is in a similar range, but reaches far more of the organisation every month, on a day-to-day basis.