Where we started

“A sense of disconnection across teams.”

Sound familiar? A lack of collaboration and celebration and no standardised recognition procedures were some of the challenges Quark faced when they first came to us in early 2022.

As a software company specialising in content automation, intelligence and design software, they knew their lack of team cohesion was slowing performance and sabotaging creativity.

Quark wanted to create a sense of connection with their teams of 200+ employees, distributed across India and the rest of the world.

Quark’s HR team searches for the missing piece

Quark was already making moves to improve its company culture – such as the OneQuark initiative, which put a new emphasis on celebrating the team’s diversity as well as introducing more activities for wellness and team bonding. But they also needed practical help with embedding the company’s values into the day-to-day actions of managers and employees.

If we continued without a solution, we would run the risk of poor employee morale, work ethic, and ultimately retention.

Hedieh Kazemzadeh Partner Marketing Executive

Feelings of isolation and disconnection among team members spread across various global locations, hindering collaboration and camaraderie. Critical contributions and achievements of employees often went unacknowledged, leading to decreased motivation and a sense of underappreciation. Finally, a lack of a standardised approach to employee recognition across different teams and managers, resulting in inconsistent experiences and potential feelings of inequity among staff members.

What brought Quark to Mo?

Quark’s engagement goals were clear. They wanted a one-point communication platform for their 200+ employees, a place where they could celebrate work-related wins and drive uptake of employee recognition and incentives.

Mo distinguished itself by meeting all the critical factors we outlined when beginning our search,” says Hedieh. “We really loved Mo’s approach of offering currency instead of traditional ‘points’…  ensuring employees in the different locations could receive recognition in their local currency.

Hedieh Kazemzadeh

Quark’s needs, in summary:

  • Their HR leaders wanted to embed a recognition culture in their USA, UK and India teams
  • Quark wanted a tool that would enhance team connection across global teams
  • They needed a platform that would centralise their reward and recognition processes

Mid 2022: Quark makes the transition

During the 4-week onboarding process, Quark’s HR team needed to know how to present Mo to the rest of the organisation in a way that made everyone feel part of the journey. Individual employees and managers needed to feel confident enough around the platform that using it became habitual.

The support we received in preparing our company for Mo has been outstanding.

Hedieh Kazemzadeh

Our Customer Success team worked closely with Hedieh and her colleague Romilly to develop a bespoke strategy that would target their key goals: connection, recognition and belonging. Together, we customised their Mo platform for maximum impact — including Spending Pots, Insights and Boosts.

From the outset, the support we received in preparing our company for Mo and learning its intricacies has been outstanding. The team at Mo has provided us with invaluable resources, including informative meetings, helpful email communications, and comprehensive online guides to help us get started.

Hedieh Kazemzadeh

How does Mo’s platform work?

Moments: Make every day count.

Mo utilises social recognition to improve engagement and connection. A Moment is a post where employees share important personal or professional updates — such as weekly wins and weekend snaps. Moments foster deeper connections and build genuine relationships with their teams by providing a platform for employees to showcase their accomplishments.

Boosts: Drive performance through action.

A Boost is a prompt created by managers or admins in the Mo app to encourage employee engagement. These can range from reflective questions about weekly learnings to fun requests for pet photos. Boosts drive engagement with Moments, a key metric for Mo’s success. They allow managers to steer engagement and can be targeted to specific audiences, serving as a tool for both company-wide and team-specific communications.

With Mo, we’ve already seen a significant positive impact on our collaboration between offices and different regions. It has allowed us to recognise each other’s work in a more meaningful way.

Romilly Shakespeare Senior Specialist in People, Culture and Belonging, Quark

First signs of progress

It takes time to build new rituals and routines among managers and peers. Even so, Quark noticed several key improvements shortly after implementing Mo – particularly in how the company’s distributed teams worked together.

Romilly Shakespeare, Senior Specialist in People, Culture and Belonging at Quark, described the impact Mo was having in its early days:

With Mo, we’ve already seen a significant positive impact on our collaboration between offices and different regions,” said Romilly. “It has allowed us to recognise each other’s work in a more meaningful way.

Romilly Shakespeare

All of Quark is recognised with an award

We started working with Quark in 2022, and in September 2023 Quark was recognised as one of the UK’s Best Workplaces in Tech. That’s according to Great Place to Work UK, who measure company cultures through extensive anonymous surveys that not only celebrate the best employers but also highlight what companies can do to become a great place to work.

While Mo wasn’t the sole reason for Quark’s recognition as one of the Best Workplaces in Tech, Quark highlighted its implementation – as well as the way it’s helped employees feel more respected and valued – as a key part of raising their internal and external NPS score.

People are talking about different things than just coding and Mo has done that for us.

Mike Hale EVP of Operations

Managers are inspired to lead differently…

The employee experience lives or dies by the behaviour of managers. You need your managers to feel empowered to take action if you’re going to move the needle on employee engagement. With Mo on board, Quark has been able to tackle it.

“Mo is helping us reach out to the entire organisation and let them know about the great work an individual or team is doing,” one Quark manager said. “It is also a great place to get more ideas or see how other teams are doing and how they’re motivating their team members.”

…And it’s not just managers.

Quark didn’t only want a reward mechanism. They also wanted a way for peer-to-peer recognition to take place and a platform that would give everyone a place to share more of who they are both in and out of the office.

“All employees can use Mo, making it non-hierarchical and more accessible,” says Hediah. “This is especially important in India, where we want to see more peer-to-peer recognition instead of only manager and leadership recognition. ”

Solve your engagement challenges with Mo.

Moments

Celebrating Moments that matter improves team connection and boosts productivity by creating a collaborative, recognition-rich culture.

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Rewards

Incentivise your people to do their best work with meaningful rewards. Forget old-fashioned systems. Our Rewards are designed to have maximum impact.

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Boosts

Encourage positive behaviours and activate your managers with automated prompts designed around your company values.

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Assistant

Stay on top of your employee experience with smart suggestions designed to empower busy managers. The Assistant is the perfect tool for people-first management teams.

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Nominations

Stay on top of your employee experience with smart suggestions designed to empower busy managers. The Assistant is the perfect tool for people-first management teams.

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Integrations

Keep everyone in the loop. Mo integrates with your current tech stack, including Microsoft Teams, Slack and your HRIS software.

2024: A lasting cultural shift

Quark can see Mo laying the foundations for powerful, long-term results – especially when it comes to people’s career prospects, sense of belonging and empowerment.

For one, we were proud to hear that Romilly Shakespeare – one of the leaders in bringing Mo to Quark – was promoted from HR Generalist to Senior Specialist in People, Culture and Belonging, in recognition of her efforts in improving Quark’s culture.

Quark is also seeing a much greater level of bonding among its employees, one that’s a direct result of sharing more of themselves via Moments and Boosts.

Mo is enabling us to become a more friendly environment. People are talking about different things than just coding and Mo has done that for us.

Mike Hale

Need a quick answer?

If you’re short on time, these speedy FAQs will help you get to an answer. If you need further help, we offer 30-minute calls with our experts.

Mo is an online platform that empowers leaders to reward and recognise hard work. Our reward and recognition software is designed to make appreciation a daily habit by encouraging employees to celebrate the Moments that matter via a centralised social feed. We help improve engagement, reduce attrition and bring teams together.

Learn more about rewards and recognition

We offer three packages: Recognise, Reward and Engage. Our packages are more than tiers — they’re bespoke strategies designed to help your people achieve the best results. If you want to hear more about it, book a call with one of our experts.

We’re not just good. Mo is built for hybrid and remote teams. Learn more about why we’re great for distributed teams.

Mo makes it easy to engage staff who are distributed, global, hybrid or part-time by bringing them together on a centralised platform. We streamline annual awards, keep track of your team engagement, and take the stress out of employee rewards. Learn more about rewards.

According to Work Institute, it could cost your organisation up to 33% of an employee’s salary to replace them. Mo leverages recognition to improve your employee engagement, helping you reduce attrition rates and save money. We focus on bringing teams together through Moments that matter and never charge reward fees. Learn more about recognition and engagement.

Absolutely! We make it easy for you to add Mo to integrate with systems like Microsoft Teams and Slack. It’s simple to get data from your HRIS into Mo.