"When your people are productive, inspired, and happy, companies large and small can fly"
Aaron Rubens Tweet
Welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview with Aaron Rubens, co-founder and CEO of Kudoboard.
Kudoboard is an online workplace appreciation platform that brings employees together to celebrate moments that matter. With a user-friendly interface, Kudoboard replaces traditional greeting cards with interactive online appreciation boards, driving employee gratitude and connection at scale.
In this interview, Aaron Rubens shares the inspiration behind Kudoboard and its journey since its founding in 2015.
He discusses the importance of workplace appreciation and recognition, highlighting how Kudoboard helps organizations foster a positive workforce culture.
Additionally, Aaron sheds light on the challenges faced by businesses, the impact of virtual work environments, and the expectations for the future.
Join us as we delve into the world of Kudoboard, exploring the power of appreciation, employee happiness, and the vision for success in 2023.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Aaron Rubens: My name is Aaron Rubens and I’m the co-founder and CEO of Kudoboard, where we bring employees together to celebrate moments that matter. Kudoboard is an online workplace appreciation platform for special occasions, company events, and shout-outs.
A user’s first exposure to Kudoboard is often when it replaces the greeting card passed around and signed with an online, interactive appreciation board. It then quickly spreads as an enterprise-wide platform to drive employee gratitude and connection at scale.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffet, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Aaron Rubens: After attempting to organize a group card for an old college friend among a group spread across the country, I realized the need for a virtual-based alternative and started building one.
Kudoboard was founded in 2015 by myself and Kyler Deutmeyer, and we’ve worked passionately since then to revolutionize how people show appreciation.
From the start, the goal of Kudoboard was to be as user-friendly and as simple as possible so adoption could be driven bottoms-up by employees.
Today, the platform is utilized by 10,000+ organizations worldwide, including companies like T-Mobile, Gusto, and GoFundMe. With over 10 million users enrolled, we are continuously inspired by the creative appreciation initiatives organizations and employees embark upon through Kudoboard.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Aaron Rubens: Numerous studies have shown that a lack of workplace appreciation is one of the top factors in quiet quitting and employee turnover, even though it is the most fixable.
How can employees feel like they belong if their peers and superiors don’t recognize their hard work? Business leaders must prioritize implementing recognition programs, which can include celebrating employee milestones such as birthdays and work anniversaries, frequent informal or formal shout-outs, and one-on-one video chats for remote/hybrid employees.
The number one way to create a sense of belonging for employees is to establish a positive workforce culture built on recognition and appreciation. Workforce culture encompasses the atmosphere of a work environment, and 88% of job seekers have said that this element is essential for their professional success.
Managers or leaders are responsible for ensuring that employees feel heard, understood, and, most importantly, appreciated – even if they never step foot into a physical office space.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Aaron Rubens: I believe it’s safe to say that virtual work and commercial environments will continue to grow, and more people won’t consider a job if it doesn’t offer some sort of remote flexibility.
Organizations will have to be in touch with a healthy work-life balance with investments to meet the expectations of increasingly working new generations. As they say, to be competitive and current, one must adapt or die.
Companies are investing to improve workforce culture in order to fully adapt. To avoid falling behind their competitors by missing out on retaining or hiring talent, organizations ensure everyone knows which platforms are used to communicate, connect, praise, appreciate, engage and produce great work — while making the work environment rewarding.
For us, this is great because Kudoboard is proven and loved for remote, hybrid, and in-person teams. We have enjoyed a substantial increase in the usage, demand, and adoption of Kudoboard. We expect this to continue.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Aaron Rubens: The challenge for all organizations is to scale fast and efficiently, with eyes on customer needs and changing tides as the north star. We all know it’s slower to turn a massive ship as the tides change. And regardless of size, a ship is only as good as its crew.
When your people are productive, inspired, and happy, companies large and small can fly. The real challenge right now is keeping your employees happy and productive since work environments have evolved tremendously.
The next 10 years are going to be even more exciting. Having the right technology to empower team success will be essential.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Aaron Rubens: One of the biggest challenges of running a company is that there are countless exciting opportunities for the organization to pursue. And so the job of the person running the company is often to say “no” a lot more than “yes,” to make sure that we can put our full focus on the things that matter most to our customers.
It’s exciting when you get to the end of the process and have the opportunity to deliver something that folks truly care about, but it can be tough along the way because there are so many other things you’d like to be doing at the same time.
Over the past year, for instance, much of our focus has been on making Kudoboard even more of a fit for our enterprise-level customers by introducing things like integrations, automation, admin controls, etc.
But it’s often meant pushing back on other “shiny” opportunities like AI-enabled appreciation which are exciting but a bit more nascent in terms of real demand.
What does “success” in 2023 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Aaron Rubens: Kudoboard’s mission is to empower people worldwide to give authentic appreciation.
Success every year (2023 included) means continuing to grow our impact and value among our customers and doing our small part to create organizations where a culture of gratitude is the norm.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Aaron Rubens for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Aaron Rubens or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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