Xceed Financial Credit Union moved its physical recognition-token programme into Espresa as employees shifted to remote work in 2020. Kelly Ritchey-Davoren, then the credit union’s chief people officer, described the conversion in an interview published by Espresa on July 25. [S01]

Keeping the programme, changing its administration

The credit union audited the tokens already held by employees and transferred their balances into the digital system. Staff kept their physical piggy banks and tokens as a familiar part of the programme, while Espresa reproduced the tokens’ appearance online. [S01]

The interview described 50 tokens as exchangeable for one day off, available once a year, and 20 tokens for examples such as movie tickets or lunch. Recognition was tied to the organisation’s values, with a shared feed making acknowledgements visible to colleagues. These were the programme’s reported 2020 arrangements. [S01]

A migration, not a clean-sheet reward launch

That distinction matters because a recognition programme already in use carries an existing promise to employees. Moving it online requires preserving balances and explaining how the same promise will be honoured through a different interface.

Ritchey-Davoren said supervisor-awarded tokens remained part of the initial setup. Allocating tokens for employees to distribute to peers was discussed as a possible later development, not as an implemented feature of this deployment. [S01]

The case therefore offers a practical example of digitising an established reward process while retaining its familiar language and value. It does not establish that the software alone caused an improvement in employee retention, productivity or financial performance.

For reward operators, the useful lesson is about continuity during implementation: record the value already owed, distinguish current features from planned changes, and make the transition understandable to the people receiving recognition.