May 19th, 2026 Tip Tuesday - Make Nomination Programs Easier to Run and Easier to Scale 🏆

nathangray

Awardco officially launched Awardco Nomination™ last week, which is exciting news for admins who have been piecing together nomination workflows through spreadsheets, forms, and manual follow-up. This new program brings nominations into Awardco in a more structured, scalable way, which helps reduce admin lift, creates a more transparent experience for participants, and supports stronger long-term platform adoption when recognition workflows live in one place.

One important note up front: not everyone will see Nomination Programs immediately. If you do not see it in your admin experience yet, reach out to your Awardco client success manager (CSM) and Account Executive (AE) to talk through eligibility and getting it added.

Also, if you want a walkthrough of how this all works, join our Awardco Academy webinar this Thursday on Nomination Programs. You can register here.

📌 Step 1 - Start with a simple program design

Before you build anything, decide what kind of nomination experience you actually want to run. The strongest nomination programs are usually the clearest ones.

1. Go to Recognition → Programs → Nomination Programs.
2. Click Create Nomination Program.
3. Add the basics: Program name, description, image, and your primary nomination question. 
4. Set your program rules:
   • Who can nominate
   • Who can be nominated
   • Whether nomination limits should apply
   • Whether you want a simple program or one with rounds
5. If helpful, add a Learn More section so employees know exactly what the program is for and how to participate.

Read the support article for more setup details.

Quick win:

• Write your nomination prompt like a real human would answer it. If the question is too broad, you will get vague submissions. If it is specific, you will get stories leaders can actually use to make decisions.

Common pitfall:

• Trying to overbuild version one. Start with one clear use case, like a quarterly values award, leadership award, or peer-nominated culture award. You can always get fancier later.

Pro tip:

• If your admins or leaders are used to old manual nomination workflows, spell out the timeline right in the description or Learn More section so expectations are clear from the start.

🔐 Step 2 - Plan your review flow before you open nominations

This is the part I would especially encourage admins to think through early.

Nomination Programs support approvals and voting, including multiple rounds, but the workflow is a little different than what some admins expect. Manual approver or voter assignment happens after nominations are collected, inside the Round tabs, not up front on the initial settings page.

Here is the practical flow:

1. Build and launch your nomination program, including the number of reviewing rounds your program will have. 
2. Open nominations and let employees submit through the nomination widget.
3. Once you have your nominee pool, close nominations manually.
4. Go to the relevant Round tab, like Round 1.
5. Use Assign Nominees to assign approvers or voters.
6. Run the round and move nominees forward as needed.
7. Finalize winners and send recognitions.

Common pitfalls:

• Looking for approver assignment in the initial setup
• Assuming the platform will auto-close nominations on a schedule
• Forgetting to set an internal reminder for when your nomination window should end

Right now, nomination close acts as your end date, and admins manually close nominations and progress rounds.

Pro tip:

• Put a calendar reminder on your own team calendar the day nominations should close. That one small step can save a lot of “Wait, are we still collecting submissions?” confusion.

🧹 Step 3 - Close the loop for winners and nominees

One of my favorite parts of this feature is that it is not just about picking a winner. It also helps you close the loop for everyone who participated.

Nomination Programs let admins recognize final winners and can also notify nominees so more employees feel seen in the process, not just the final winner list.

Once your final selections are ready:

1. Finalize your winner(s).
2. Decide whether the recognition should be public or private.
3. Choose whether to award points to winners.
4. Review your winner and nominee notification templates.
5. Send recognitions and nominee communications.

Quick win:

• Review the email templates before launch, not after. Support guidance recommends starting from the standard Recognition email template for both winner and nominee notifications, then customizing from there.

Common pitfall:

• Treating the nomination program like it ends when winners are chosen. The admin experience is better, and adoption is stronger, when employees understand what happened after they submitted or were nominated. That kind of clarity builds trust in the program and makes people more likely to participate again.

One last note: if you do not see Nomination Programs in your admin experience yet, the feature is live for eligible platforms, and eligibility is tied to the right platform setup (Awardco 2.0) and pricing/packaging requirements. Reach out to your Awardco CSM and AE to talk through eligibility and getting it added.

Join the Conversation

I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about Nomination Programs in your own platform.

• Are you planning to launch a Nomination Program this year? If so, what kind of award or use case are you thinking about?
• If you have already started exploring it, what questions or setup challenges are you running into so far?

Jump into the comments and share what you’re seeing. Your questions and ideas will probably help another admin too.