Seattle Children’s Hospital and Achievers Honored for Bolstering Workforce and Patient Experience

Seattle Children’s and Achievers selected as winners in the Brandon Hall Group Excellence Technology Awards for enabling patients and families to directly celebrate healthcare workers, raising the bar for employee recognition in healthcare

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Achievers, the leading recognition and reward platform for employee experience, today announced a joint win with Seattle Children’s of a Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award for driving innovation in rewards and recognition. This prestigious accolade honors Seattle Children’s and Achievers for creating a groundbreaking integration that brings patient and family recognition into an employee recognition platform.

Since its founding in 1907, Seattle Children’s has grown to serve patients and families in Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho and beyond, and covers the largest service area of any independent nonprofit pediatric institution in the U.S. In 2019, Seattle Children’s sought a scalable recognition system to better appreciate its incredible staff and connect them to the organization’s mission. The Achievers API, a user-friendly and science-backed solution that makes recognition accessible directly in employees’ flow of work and is built to scale, proved to be the ideal fit. With Achievers, Seattle Children’s launched the Wave program, which quickly became a cornerstone of its employee engagement strategy, supporting staff through unforeseen challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Seattle Children’s enhanced its partnership with Achievers in 2024 by debuting a patient-driven “pay it forward” initiative that integrated patient recognition capabilities within the Wave program, leveraging Achievers’ platform in a first-of-its-kind use case. The initiative received over 148 patient and family submissions during the pilot phase alone, 10% of which attracted engagement from other staff. The program was well received by families, including those speaking languages other than English, demonstrating Wave’s inclusive approach for those who often face additional hurdles in their care journeys.

Key features of this Brandon Hall Group-approved program include:

• Airtight security and privacy features to safeguard sensitive patient data
• Social and points-based recognitions that are visible in a company-wide newsfeed
• Custom celebration cards for milestones like birthdays and other achievements
• Built-in communication center that enhances program communication and promotion

“At Seattle Children’s, we are committed to providing hope, care and cures to help every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible,” said Michelle Primley Benton, Director of Engagement and Retention. “Empowering patient families to personally recognize the staff members who live out our mission is really meaningful. They strongly appreciate our team's support during what is, for many, the most stressful times of their lives. Integrating patient recognition into the Wave program fulfills patient and family requests and ensures the acknowledgements reach the right people while offering every workforce member the opportunity to amplify and celebrate them.”

“AWI data recently identified health and medicine as the most underrecognized global industry of 2024,” said David Bator, Managing Director of Achievers Workforce Institute (AWI). “Seattle Children’s not only proved that there is no reason for healthcare companies to miss out on the fantastic employee satisfaction, belonging, and engagement that comes with employee recognition but took it a step further, enhancing recognition’s impact by empowering patients and families to participate in the recognition experience. Thank you, Brandon Hall Group, for honoring this game-changing work and to Seattle Children’s for setting a new benchmark for employee appreciation in healthcare.”

Brandon Hall’s Excellence in Technology Awards recognize the most innovative and impactful applications of technology in learning and development, talent management, talent acquisition, HR, workforce management, and sales enablement. The award entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran industry experts and Brandon Hall Group’s senior analysts and selected based on their ability to demonstrate innovative solutions to critical business challenges, measurable results, unique differentiators, and clear technological advancement.

A complete list of this year’s winners, along with past recipients, can be found at excellenceawards.brandonhall.com/winners/.

About Seattle Children’s
Seattle Children’s mission is to provide hope, care and cures to help every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible. Together, Seattle Children’s Hospital, Research Institute and Foundation deliver superior patient care, identify new discoveries and treatments through pediatric research, and raise funds to create better futures for patients.

Ranked as one of the top children’s hospitals in the country by U.S. News & World Report, Seattle Children’s serves as the pediatric and adolescent academic medical center for Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho – the largest region of any children’s hospital in the country. As one of the nation’s top pediatric research centers, Seattle Children’s Research Institute is internationally recognized for its work in neurosciences, immunology, cancer, infectious disease, injury prevention and much more. Seattle Children’s Foundation, along with Seattle Children’s Guild Association – the largest all volunteer fundraising network for any hospital in the country – works with our generous community to raise funds for lifesaving care and research.

For more information, visit seattlechildrens.org; follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram; or subscribe to our Healthy Tides newsletter.

About Achievers
Achievers partners with hundreds of organizations around the world to elevate their engagement and retention strategies through our employee recognition, voice, and connection solutions.

Visit us at www.achievers.com.