How It Only Took 2 Minutes for This CEO to Give An Employee Their ‘Best Day at Work’

Aspire CEO and Co-Founder, Andrea Baronchelli. Source: Aspire

Sometimes, all it takes is two minutes to turn someone’s day around. That was the case for an employee at Aspire — one of SEA’s fastest-growing startups. 
When asked by a journalist when their best day at work was, the employee said “it was when our CEO sent me a recognition message and gave me PraisePal points”.

That culture-focused leader was none other than Aspire’s CEO and Co-Founder, Andrea Baronchelli.

Since 2021, the Aspire team has been using PraisePal to send recognition messages to each other directly on their Slack workspace channel. 

With every recognition message, PraisePal points are also awarded to the receiver, to exchange for tangible rewards in the form of global gift cards or custom company rewards. 

PraisePal Employee Recognition Program Slack Preview

PraisePal recognition channel on Slack. Source: PraisePal

These recognitions messages are then published on a company-wide channel on their Slack workspace - to increase visibility and impact of good work, and encourage positive behaviours among the team everyday. 

Leading by example, Andrea made sure to set aside a few minutes each day to send recognition messages to his team members on PraisePal.

Little did he know, his simple and quick gesture can hold so much impact.


Build a powerful remote team culture using simple recognition.

🎉 10,000+ team members worldwide recognise each other on PraisePal everyday. Try it for your team now!


Why It Pays to Reward With Praise 

You could implement all the possible people initiatives under the sun in hopes to keep your employees happy, engaged, and motivated.

But if it’s not what they need or want, it’s never going to work. 

A recent study on employee engagement revealed that 87% of employees feel that their organisation’s employee recognition program is stale, outdated, or used as disguised compensation.

If the words ‘stale’ or ‘outdated’ are being used to describe your employee strategies, there’s something seriously wrong there. 

That’s why we could all learn from Andrea’s simple yet thoughtful gesture.

It probably only took a minute or two. But to his employee, what matters most is how he took those two minutes in his hectic work schedule to say “Hey, I see your hard work and dedication, and want to appreciate you for it.” 

How PraisePal Allows Leaders to Empower Their Employees Through Recognition  

Praise and (public) recognition makes employees feel valued and seen. Effective founders need to:

  1. Value their employees 

  2. Tell them that you appreciate them 

  3. Praise them publicly for the rest of the company to see their good works 

With PraisePal, we provide you with the platform to execute all three. 

We made it simple and easy for users to send recognition messages instantly, just like how you’d send a text message to your pal (pun intended).

But just because it’s instant doesn’t mean it’s any less meaningful.

More often than not, it’s the (seemingly) small actions in leadership that turn out to be the big things that matter to your people. Strive to make work a place your employees love through a habit of recognition. 


“As their effort is recognised, they begin to consider the company to be a part of their lives. It goes a long way toward making the workplace a place where they want to work”. — Gerrid Smith, Founder of Corporate Investigation Consulting 


Build a powerful remote team culture using simple recognition. Top startups leaders are already doing it.

🎉 10,000+ team members worldwide recognise each other on PraisePal everyday.

Try it for your team now!

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