The revealing moment in Terryberry’s story belongs to a hospital system considering a gift. Tidelands Health wanted its employees to feel appreciated. A focus group had supplied a useful detail: people liked gifts bearing the health system’s logo. An obvious next step was to give everyone something. Then the human resources team considered the cost and the work of organizing a one-time distribution. Appreciation, it turned out, had an administrative department.
- The object still matters. Terryberry pairs custom physical awards with recognition software.
- The habit matters, too. Peers and managers can recognize contributions throughout the year.
- Measurement needs a second question. Participation tells you who showed up; listening helps reveal how they feel.
The gift that became a habit
Tidelands had relied on gift cards. According to its account published by Terryberry, changes in IRS guidance prompted a rethink. The team then reconsidered the branded gift proposal: could the same budget support something ongoing? It selected Terryberry’s platform and brought service awards, performance incentives and nursing awards into a points-based program. Wellness participation could earn points as well.
The shift gave employees a choice of rewards and created a shared place for appreciation. Terryberry subsequently reported that engagement at Tidelands rose from 68% to 77% in the first year. That is a nine-percentage-point increase in a customer example, rather than proof that software alone produced it. The human detail is more persuasive: day-shift employees could leave appreciation for night-shift colleagues on the recognition wall. People separated by the clock could see one another’s contributions.
Customer-reported, before and after
The lesson is portable. Ask employees what recognition means to them before choosing the merchandise. Consider whether the budget should fund a ceremony, a recurring practice, or both. Give colleagues a way to notice work their managers might miss. None of those decisions requires waiting for a new app.
A watchmaker learns to count moments
Terryberry’s history makes the branded gift detail especially apt. Founded by H. R. Terryberry in Grand Rapids in 1918, the business began in custom jewelry. Its centennial account describes an early ambition to handcraft pocket watches for companies rewarding top performers. A watch had a practical use, but it could also carry an employer’s appreciation beyond the presentation.
The company’s own timeline places its emergence as a recognition and rewards specialist in the 1970s, followed by online rewards and social recognition in the 2000s. Two acquisitions make the expansion concrete. In 2013 it bought Seattle-based MeritShare, bringing more social recognition expertise into the business. In April 2022 it acquired Walker Tracker, whose software ran step and activity challenges.
Today, the old craft remains part of the offer. Terryberry designs and manufactures symbolic awards, including jewelry, pins, plaques and trophies. That gives it a particular position in HR technology: an employer can buy a recognition system and commission the physical object that marks a career achievement from the same supplier. An app notification is quick. A ring asks for a different sort of attention.
Four doors into the same workplace
The current umbrella is Be Engaged, a program connecting recognition, rewards, well-being and listening. Earlier materials call the software the 360 Recognition Platform. The newer offer makes the company’s ambition clear: help HR teams coordinate experiences that might otherwise sit with separate suppliers and separate reports.
Peer appreciation, manager recognition and service milestones.
Points redeemed for merchandise, experiences and other rewards.
Movement challenges, wearable connections and well-being resources.
Employee surveys, sentiment analysis and eNPS reporting.
Be Recognized supplies peer and manager recognition, a social feed and automated milestones. Be Rewarded supplies the choice of what to receive, including company merchandise, Amazon products, experiences and charitable donations. The two can connect a specific contribution with a reward without requiring HR to select the same present for everyone.
Be Well adds team challenges, maps, wearable integrations and well-being resources. Its activity converter supports more than 125 activity types, including cycling, swimming and gardening. That detail matters: a step competition designed only for enthusiastic walkers can become an excellent way to congratulate enthusiastic walkers. Broader participation requires more ways to take part.
Be Heard brings surveys and analytics into the arrangement. It offers anonymous and attributed feedback, pulse and lifecycle surveys, and breakdowns by team, location and manager. Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, captures employees’ willingness to recommend their workplace. Be Heard can be bought separately in Plus and Pro plans, so an employer need not adopt every product to start listening.
Terryberry organizes its engagement framework around purpose, leadership, well-being, equity, empowerment and belonging. These are useful prompts for a conversation. A survey may reveal that one team feels overlooked even while the company-wide recognition feed looks busy. Comparing those signals can guide an intervention; a correlation between recognition and sentiment still needs interpretation.
The price of appreciation
Terryberry earns money through business software subscriptions, services, awards and reward fulfillment. Customer orders define the scope and fees. Its general terms distinguish subscription services from professional services such as implementation, design and consulting. A purchasing conversation should therefore separate the system’s operating cost from the amount reserved for employees’ rewards.
The distinctive advertised reward rule is pay-on-redemption. Clients pay for points when employees redeem them, rather than when the points are issued. That changes the timing of reward expenditure. It does not make subscriptions, setup work or custom awards free. A sensible budget accounts for those items, fulfillment and the staff time needed to run the program.
The company has outside investment behind its expansion. Tenex Capital Management lists November 2019 as its initial investment date. The MeritShare and Walker Tracker purchases show what expansion bought: social recognition and wellness capabilities alongside the award business. In the UK, a March 2023 launch brought benefits, recognition and milestone awards into one platform, with Village Hotels describing access for its 4,500 employees.
A program has to reach the people
Terryberry works with HR leaders and employers across healthcare, hospitality, manufacturing, construction and retail. Its current company history says more than 44,000 organizations worldwide have trusted it over the years. That is a broad history of customers served, rather than a disclosed count of current software subscriptions.
For these employers, access can be more consequential than another feature. A hospital colleague on shift, a worker on a construction site and a hotel employee moving between guests have different opportunities to open a portal. Terryberry offers mobile experiences, QR access and physical milestone delivery. Its frontline guidance also describes passwordless and offline participation options.
“It helps people understand why we do what we do.”
Jeremy Stephens, Tidelands Health, on connecting recognition with core values
In June 2026, Terryberry announced availability on ADP Marketplace. Supported integrations sync employee information such as hire date, department and manager into Be Engaged. The immediate benefit is unglamorous and useful: better underlying records for the recognition program. An anniversary celebration has less charm when it arrives on the wrong date.
Alternatives include specialist recognition suppliers such as Awardco, Workhuman, Reward Gateway and O.C. Tanner, along with separate survey and wellness products. Terryberry’s case rests on combining several functions with custom physical awards and program support. A buyer should weigh that combination against the tools already working well, the integration effort and the people who will administer it.
The thank-you after the notification
Terryberry’s careers page describes internal recognition and incentivized wellness programs, and names collaboration, innovation, customer focus and courage among its values. Selling appreciation gives a company an unusually direct invitation to practice its product. The photograph of its team supplies a welcome reminder that the manufacturing and software operations have human participants of their own.
For a prospective customer, the practical test is whether managers participate, employees trust the listening process, and frontline colleagues can use the tools. As a matter of management judgment, a points program will struggle if employees’ complaints about workload, fairness or leadership go unanswered. A cheerful feed cannot do that work for the employer.
Tidelands’ decision offers a more useful starting point than a shopping list. Listen first. Make appreciation specific. Let people choose a reward. Look for the colleagues whose work disappears between shifts, locations or meetings. Then ask whether the experience improved. Terryberry supplies tools and objects for that sequence. The employer supplies the reasons anyone would want to remember it.