Employee motivation is without a doubt one of the keys to success for any company, leading to higher performance and less turnover. One of the means to increase motivation is extra rewards, provided both for stability in work duties and extra activities.

Internal bonus systems are often used to increase motivation in a company. They enable more flexible and profitable mechanisms of rewarding, in addition to a standard salary. For such a system of its own, Brightside Academy Ohio has chosen Waves Enterprise public blockchain, where it can easily create a token-based internal currency, specify the conditions of rewarding and monitor all the payments.

Singapore-based company Tokenomika, the operator of the Waves Enterprise main network and mainnet-based projects, became a technological partner and integrator of the project. An internal token of Brightside Academy Ohio was issued inside the mainnet to reward the employees, along with smart contracts which contain the conditions of rewarding.

At the internal web portal administrators from the education provider create lists of tasks for the teachers and child care specialists — for example, to provide an extra painting lesson or to be punctual during a whole week. Then a task gets a reward range in the internal tokens. All these conditions are stored as smart contracts within the Waves Enterprise mainnet.

Then the employees get access to the list of tasks, perform them and provide the necessary proofs. The administrators review the performance and transfer a certain token sum from the reward range to the employee, depending on the performance quality. The employee gets the tokens at their account within the Waves Enterprise mainnet — these accounts are automatically created for all the participants and administrators of the rewards program.

To access the program and their account, a user needs their login and password only. The entire blockchain infrastructure is operational on its own, so users don’t need a technical background — they can interact within the motivation program in a simple web service. A basic computer experience is enough.

The employees can exchange their tokens for non-monetary bonuses in the internal e-shop. Currently, the available bonuses include Amazon gift cards only, but Brightside Academy Ohio is working to extend the list of the offers, both from external partners and its own HR (a paid time off, for example).

“By understanding the advantages of blockchain technology, we are constantly developing new distributed ledger instruments and tools for businesses to use and benefit from. One of these is a token-based reward system, which is very native to the technology. In Brightside Academy, public blockchain enables users to build a non-monetary instrument of employee motivation, which is intuitive and user-friendly, even for individuals who have never heard of or used blockchain technology.” Carlos M. Parada, CBDO of Tokenomika

Today the employee motivation program of Brightside Academy Ohio enables the employees to exchange the tokens for Amazon gift cards only, but the list of the options will extend. Also, the second phase of the project is planned to add horizontal token transfers, between the Brightside Academy Ohio employees, not only from the administrators.

“We were originally inspired by the video game achievement model, but we went beyond that by offering not only virtual points, but an opportunity to exchange them for real-world goods. Gamification has been trending for many years — it is how the human brain works, at any development stage, from childhood to adulthood. During research, we found that decentralized loyalty platforms have much better transparency for users as well as fault-tolerant infrastructure, so all we needed was a reliable blockchain partner that can bring our rewards program into life. Waves Enterprise blockchain provides an out-of-box environment for solutions like this, so we do not have to worry about the technical side.” Monty Stefansky, Chief Operating Officer, Brightside Academy