Salesforce.com is rolling out its new Work.com platform this week at Dreamforce 2012 (#DF12) in San Francisco. As discussed earlier this month, Workday features prominently as a critical partnership in the Work.com offering, although it was nowhere to be seen in the “Work.com” product area of the Salesforce Campground on Tuesday evening (“Day 1 at the Dreamforce Expo).
However, what was visible on Tuesday was the new rewards platform in Work.com, where employees and managers are able to earn and award not just badges and points but now also gift cards as part of the fulfillment component of an employee rewards program. Here at Dreamforce, Salesforce will be announcing their partnership with Amazon to enable gift cards as a new component of their rewards platform.
Tech-enabled social recognition and performance solutions are on the rise, incorporating peer-to-peer recognition delivered in a social environment integrated with a rewards platform that increasingly includes gift cards and other merchandise. The latest strategies take traditional recognition programs focused on event-driven milestones and pre-determined rewards and merchandise levels and transform them into a real-time, contextual social and performance-based solution that taps into the unique motivators of individuals.
In a market that is estimated in size at 2% of company payroll, it is not surprising that Salesforce is expanding its social performance platform to play where companies like Achievers, Globoforce, O.C. Tanner, Rideau and many others have already staked their claim. Utilizing a cloud provider like Amazon is a natural step for Salesforce, and I expect many similarly situated partners will be brought together into a comprehensive rewards network where companies can plug into and tailor solutions for the unique needs of their organizations and individual employees.