First Bank Celebrates Employees and Drives 90% Program Engagement with Bucketlist Rewards

By Megan Brugnoli, Human Resources Generalist at First Bank NJ

Managing a geographically dispersed team can feel like gathering marbles: Just when everything seems set, something rolls away again. This challenge is familiar in the financial services industry, where multiple branches and regulatory demands complicate coordination. Whether tracking tasks, sharing critical updates, or keeping staff informed of compliance changes, keeping everyone aligned and moving in the same direction is hard.

Distance adds another layer of complexity. Recognizing each other’s successes is essential to maintaining a strong team culture. Still, employees in separate locations often miss out on that recognition—especially when as distributed as First Bank, whose branches span New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Trust, communication, and collaboration are paramount to our work, and creating a positive environment is critical. In a distributed workforce, especially in such a competitive industry, ensuring every employee feels valued and connected is key to long-term success. Gaps in recognition negatively affect morale and the overall employee experience, yet keeping engagement high became more complex as our team expanded.

First Bank is a community-oriented institution focused on personalized customer relationships. Even as a rapidly growing bank that seems to keep breaking our own growth records, our team is committed to serving our communities. But with 26 locations and thousands of employees, the sheer scale can make it difficult for teams to stay connected. Our values revolve around customer service, integrity, and outcomes, but it was hard to translate that into our day-to-day culture, especially with employees scattered across the East Coast.

With so many employees and branches, it can be challenging for people to recognize each other’s hard work. Maintaining consistent employee engagement was even harder, and it got more complicated the more our team grew. Many of our employees’ achievements went unnoticed without a meaningful way to celebrate and amplify successes organization-wide.

As the Human Resource Generalist at First Bank, I sought ways to encourage employees to recognize each other’s work and offer recognition for living our company values. In doing so, we’d also improve the employee experience and boost morale.

We came across Bucketlist Rewards and realized its potential to help us achieve our employee engagement goals. The platform is specifically designed to promote peer recognition, and it is customizable enough that we can start driving greater employee engagement and boosting activity from day one.

The implementation process was straightforward and seamless. We didn’t know software like this existed, but the Bucketlist team completely won us over. They were so helpful and kind and taught us how to build a strategic, well-defined recognition program. We incorporated our core values, allowing everyone to connect specific actions to a core value when commending another team member. This connection helps to nurture a cohesive company culture and allows others to see what these values look like in practice. Companies can customize the rewards to include company swag, real-life experiences, gift cards, “bucks,” or donations.

As the HR Generalist, I quickly took the reins. Today, I’m onboarding new hires, solving challenges, and managing daily operations through Bucketlist Rewards.

Bucketlist gave all our employees a place to belong. It’s simple to onboard new hires, easy for them to learn, and a joy to use every day. The platform is so easy to use, in fact, that most of our new hires engage with it on their very first day. This activity creates a domino effect, where engagement leads to more excitement, recognition, and a vibrant and cohesive company culture.

Bucketlist gave all our employees a place to belong. It’s simple to onboard new hires, easy for them to learn, and a joy to use every day.

I’ve seen Bucketlist bring our distributed team closer together and drive better outcomes for team members in several ways:

• Quick and seamless onboarding: With easy-to use and intuitive features, new hires can start using Bucketlist on day one, making it easy to engage right away.
• Company-wide recognition: Bucketlist’s platform allows for company-wide visibility, so employees feel recognized not just by their immediate team but by the entire organization.
• Core value recognition: Since Bucketlist asks users to provide recognition tied to our core values, we celebrate customer-oriented actions, business integrity, and outcomes, all of which make the program feel personal and strategic.
• Promote health and well-being: We implement monthly wellness activities such as walking, sleep, and meditation challenges to encourage healthy living and keep people engaged even while off-platform. These activities connect employees in ways other than their day-to-day work, with the added benefit of highlighting the importance of their physical and mental health.
• Incentivize participation: We can turn to Bucketlist to create incentives and rewards to encourage employees to complete surveys or forms. The challenge could be simple: “The fastest person to fill out this mandatory form gets a reward.” It really lights a fire under people and helps us achieve our goals faster.

Our employees absolutely love Bucketlist. We’re seeing engagement rates of 90%, and I’ve seen that they’re more engaged, motivated, and willing to go above and beyond than before.

One of my favorite employee recognition stories involves an upper-level manager who wanted to recognize one of their employees for a job well done on an assignment. They gave the employee “bucks” through Bucketlist, only to discover there were other contributors to the project. So, both the manager and the recognized employee gave additional rewards to the other contributing employees.

These acts of sharing recognition create a ripple effect, reemphasizing our standards and commitment to each other. Bucketlist does more than boost employee morale at First Bank. It reveals behind-the-scenes teamwork so that nobody feels forgotten or left behind.

Bucketlist has given us a cohesive culture and a sense of pride and togetherness, regardless of where we all are. We’ve found that it empowers employees, makes them excited to come to work, and makes them more eager to complete tasks on a day-to-day basis.

By Megan Brugnoli, Human Resources Generalist at First Bank NJ

Thanks to the team at Bucketlist, recognition has become a cornerstone of First Bank’s culture. Bucketlist Rewards is vital for maintaining a strong, cohesive culture as First Bank expands into new locations. I can see how it drives better performance and greater employee connections each day. We want to ensure that everyone feels seen and valued and that our employees continue to show up as their best versions.

Any company that wants employees to feel appreciated and good about their work needs recognition software—especially if they’re spread out, hybrid, or remote. It encourages them to celebrate their wins with one another while providing a space to be together.