How GEN3 Electric & HVAC Turned Recognition Into a Daily Habit

GEN3 Electric & HVAC didn’t have a recognition problem so much as a recognition logistics problem.

The intent was already there, but it was spread across separate tools and manual tasks that got harder to manage with every new hire.

What recognition looked like before

GEN3 was already doing the kinds of things most HR teams wish they had time for:

• Birthdays: every employee received a $100 gift card
• Five-star reviews: a separate review platform sent out recognitions when customers left great feedback
• Everything else: handled informally, wherever and whenever someone remembered

On paper, that's a thoughtful program. In practice, it meant tracking dates, buying and distributing gift cards, and juggling multiple systems just to say thank you.

Why it was getting harder

If you've ever kept a spreadsheet of birthdays and gift card orders, you already know where this is going. As Samantha, GEN3's Communications Director, put it:

"As the company grows, it gets really hard to manage all those things manually."

There was also no real way to give rewards that felt tangible and flexible. The review platform could send a shout-out, but as Samantha explains, "there was no real way with anything we were doing to monetize the prizes."

GEN3's workforce is split between two very different worlds: field technicians who spend their days in customers' homes, and an office team running marketing, the call center, and memberships. 

When recognition depends on someone remembering to do it manually, out-of-sight people usually fall through the cracks first. And for a company growing quickly, "we'll keep doing it by hand" wouldn't last long.

The Search: One Home for Recognition

GEN3 looked for a single place to run all its recognition and chose Qarrot because it combined existing efforts, added real rewards, and kept costs low.

What mattered in a platform

• Consolidation: one platform to replace several. Qarrot "allowed us to combine several different software we were using into one combined place," Samantha says.
• Rewards with real value: points employees could redeem for gift cards from hundreds of retailers, custom rewards, and charitable donations, not just a digital pat on the back.
• Automation: birthdays and work anniversaries that run on their own instead of living on someone's to-do list
• Cost: a per-user price that made sense for a company of GEN3's size

Why Qarrot

For Samantha, the math was simple: "The cost of Qarrot is just so minimal compared to other stuff we were doing at the time."

Qarrot let GEN3 keep everything it was already doing (the birthday gifts, the review shout-outs) and turn it into one connected system, where every recognition carried points employees could actually spend.

Onboarding and Implementation: Building the Structure First

GEN3 built its program in layers: automated milestones, review-based awards, peer-to-peer recognition, and manager budgets, all tied into how new employees join the company.

Samantha was closely involved in the launch, and the structure she set up in 2020 remains the program's backbone today.

What GEN3 set up

• Every employee gets an account. No opt-in sign-up drive; everyone is on the platform from the start.
• Birthdays and work anniversaries run automatically. The old $100 birthday gift card now arrives as Qarrots (GEN3’s name for its recognition points), which employees can spend however they like.‍
• Five-star reviews become recognition. When a customer names an employee in a review, Samantha posts it on Qarrot, tags the employee, and awards Qarrots. ‍
• Monthly peer-to-peer budgets. Every non-management employee gets a monthly budget of points to recognize a colleague: something kind they did, something they're grateful for, or just a way to cheer someone up on a bad day.‍
• More tools for managers. Managers receive larger point budgets and a wider set of badges to recognize their teams.

It's tempting to think a recognition program lives or dies on enthusiasm. GEN3's experience suggests it's really about structure: once recognition had a home, with automated milestones, regular budgets, and a clear onboarding step, consistency followed on its own.

The Rollout: Launching Weeks Before the Pandemic

GEN3 launched Qarrot in February 2020, just weeks before COVID-19 upended everything, and employees adopted it with very little pushback. Participation grew steadily from there. It's every HR leader's fear: you launch the program, send the announcement, and then nothing happens. That's not what Samantha remembers:

"I don't remember there being too much pushback as far as employees logging in or wanting to participate."

What got people logging in

• Real rewards. Qarrots can be redeemed for gift cards, custom rewards, and charitable donations. "The monetization part of it is really what piques people's interest," Samantha says.
• Recognition for five-star Google reviews. Seeing customer praise turn into recognition (and rewards) made employees curious to look.
• The news feed. Qarrot's feed shows who's recognizing whom and who just earned a five-star review, all in one place. "It's just like a centralized little place for people to see what's going on within the company every day."

The Impact: Nearly Seven Years In, It's Just How GEN3 Works

Nearly seven years after launch, Qarrot has become part of GEN3's company culture.  The team has grown from about 12 users to 84; participation has stayed at 85%, and employees redeem Qarrots for prizes every day.

Recognition is a daily habit

The launch-week spike everyone worries about? It never faded, because it was never really a spike. Recognition settled into the rhythm of the workday:

"It's become part of our company culture over the last seven years. You check your email every day, and you check Qarrot every day at this point."

A Recognition Ecosystem, not a one-off program

GEN3 recognizes people for lots of different reasons, and each one has a place in Qarrot:

• Milestones: birthdays and work anniversaries, automated
• Customer praise: five-star Google and Facebook reviews that name an employee
• Peer-to-peer: Peer-to-peer: monthly point budgets for everyday thank-yous, supported by badges representing GEN3’s company values
• Incentives: ad-hoc rewards to push a goal or promotion

That last one has become one of Samantha's favorite tools. "If we want to push a certain promotion or something like that, it's just so easy for me to say, 'Whoever does this gets 500 Qarrots today.'"

Rewards people actually want

Because Qarrots carry real value, employees treat them like a perk rather than a gimmick. Many save them up and redeem them around the holidays. Custom rewards are a popular choice, too, giving employees options that go beyond a standard gift card. "It's just like this huge extra perk that is money," Samantha says. 

For GEN3, that means no more handling cash or buying gift cards: "We'll figure out how to do it in Qarrot rather than having to deal with actual cash or gift cards."

Blue-collar teams are all in

A common assumption is that field and technical workers won't engage with a digital recognition program. Samantha understands the concern; some of GEN3's technicians don't even like checking email. But it hasn't been an issue. GEN3 is a software-heavy company, and Qarrot is simply one of the apps that comes with the job.

In fact, field technicians are often the biggest winners, since they're the ones out in customers' homes earning five-star reviews. Samantha recently pinged one technician who'd never logged in: "Do you know that you have almost $200 worth of Qarrots in there to redeem?" That tends to do the trick.

How GEN3 keeps participation at 85%+

• Onboarding: Qarrot is part of employee onboarding and introduced on day one and walked through with a manager.
• Monitoring: Samantha watches for users who are still pending after a few weeks.
• Nudging: a direct message to the employee or their manager, often pointing out the rewards already waiting for them.
• Accountability: because GEN3 pays per user, employees who truly don't want to participate can have their account removed (which, as Samantha notes, "usually gets people to go in and start checking things out.")

Flexible enough to grow with them

At one point, GEN3 noticed its spend was running high. Rather than scale back recognition, the team simply adjusted the point value. "People didn't even really notice," Samantha says. "It wasn't a big deal."

The Takeaway: What's the Harm in Trying?

GEN3's story shows that recognition sticks when it has a structure behind it, not just good intentions. Asked what she'd say to an HR leader who's hesitant to invest in a recognition program, Samantha didn't hesitate:

"What is the harm in trying? For us, it's improved our company culture, and I think to HR that should mean the world."

Most HR teams already care about recognition. What's usually missing is the system that makes it happen consistently, for every employee, whether they're at a desk or in a customer's home. 

For GEN3, Qarrot became that system, and nearly seven years later, it's still the place where field and office meet. "Especially with the separation between field and office, it's just a way of staying in touch with your coworkers and being connected."