People repeat what gets noticed.
Employee of the month never fooled anybody. Recognition only changes behaviour when it is earned, specific, and impossible to hand out as a favour.
Why any of this works on a grown adult.
Points and badges sound childish until you look at what they stand in for. Psychologists have been picking at this since the 1970s and keep landing on the same three needs.
- 1
“Am I getting better?”
Competence
People work surprisingly hard for proof that they improved. Not praise. Proof. A trophy is a receipt, and a receipt outlasts a compliment.
- 2
“Did I choose this?”
Autonomy
Recognition you were told to go and collect is just another task. The ones people value are the ones they went after on their own.
- 3
“Does anyone here know I exist?”
Belonging
The one companies forget. People stay where they feel known, and that feeling comes from the people they sit with, not from the company.
A bonus and a thank you are not the same currency. A bonus answers “am I paid fairly”. It has never once answered “does anyone here know I exist”.
And two ways companies get it wrong.
Paying for something people already enjoyed
Put a price on work somebody did for their own reasons and it quietly becomes work they expect to be paid for. You cannot take the price back off afterwards.
Ranking people against each other
A ladder where a colleague has to drop for you to climb buys a small lift at the top and quiet resentment everywhere else. It also sets people against the colleagues they most need help from.
So the trophies measure you against the standard, not against the person next to you. Everyone can reach the top level, and nobody has to drop for you to get there.
So we built it this way.
It has to be earned
A reward your manager can withhold is not a reward. It is leverage. Every level here has a condition the system checks itself.
It has to be specific
General praise fades by Friday. People repeat the thing that got named, so the thing gets named.
There has to be a next one
People speed up when they can see the finish line. One badge and you are done. Levels mean there is always one more.
Fourteen trophies. Nobody hands them out.
Thirty-five levels between them, and the last ones are genuinely hard. The server checks every level against your real records, so no manager can grant one and no manager can withhold one. Undo the work and the level drops again.
- Not a Grey Silhouette
- Leave, Not Vibes
- Quietly Adored
- Skills, Not Guesswork
- Certified Softie
A trophy you have not earned tells you where to go and what to do there.
A nod takes one tap.
Anyone can nod anyone. Never yourself, and once per person per day, so it keeps meaning something.
Give somebody a nod.
Example colleagues. Nothing leaves this page.
Jens De SmetPeople Lead
Sophie BeckerDelivery Driver
Davide CostaHead of Operations
Lena Fischer (you)Dispatch CoordinatorNot yourself
Once per person per day, and never yourself. Same rules as the app.
Do this with your own team.
1 admin and 4 people, free for good. No credit card.
Add a word, or do not
Say what it was for, or just send it. Both land.
They actually find out
On the bell, and in Slack or Teams if you have connected them.
Their colleagues see it
That is the point. Praise nobody witnesses changes nothing.
The sender scores too
Fifteen points to the person who got it, ten to the person who noticed.
No budget to hand out. No feed to perform in.
One AI across all of it, and every module is in every plan.
And yes, there is a league.
Points from trophies, badges and nods add up each week. Five tiers. The top three go up on Monday and the bottom three go down.
- Bronze
- Silver
- Gold
- Platinum
- Diamond
We just said ranking people against each other is one of the two ways this goes wrong. It is. So the table you are on is not the whole company.
You are up against people at your own standing
A group at a similar level, working similar hours. Finishing top has to be plausible this week, or the board is not about you.
A quiet week does not drag you down
Under twenty points and nothing moves either way. Fewer than four people is not a competition, so nobody moves at all.
And you can leave it. One press, reversible, and your trophies and your points carry on exactly as before.
Awards come from people.
Employee of the month, excellence, culture champion, or a whole team. Someone gives it and says why. It goes on your career passport, dated. You can’t give one to yourself.
Most nods. As expected.August 2026
I am the G.O.A.T.August 2026
Carried the squad27 August 2026
And the rewards you pay for.
Medical cover, retirement, allowances, the leave you give above the minimum. Most companies spend a fortune on this and keep it in a PDF nobody opens. Here it sits next to the payslip, in plain words.
Notice something this week.
The cabinet is on by default. Nobody has to set it up.