5 Things We Learned From Europe’s Largest Employee Engagement Summit
This May, the Thankbox team headed to London for the 10th Employee Engagement Summit in London. The promise was the biggest gathering of “people people” in Europe, a packed agenda of world-leading experts, and a bustling event village – and it did not disappoint.
Thankbox Co-Founders, husband and wife duo, Valentin and Tsvetelina, spent the day speaking with people about the power of making appreciation simple, scalable, and joyful. It was a pleasure to meet happy customers and receive enthusiastic reactions from people discovering Thankbox for the first time.
Charlotte Dahl, Managing Director of 7 Seas, opened the conference, setting the scene around how, in this time of uncertainty, promoting openness, sharing, human connection, psychological safety, and trust is vital to the success of any organisation.
And the day was all about that—we enjoyed warm, open, positive conversation with hundreds of delegates, partners, and suppliers, without exception!
Here are 5 of the core things we learned from the day:
1. Culture solutions are most effective when they involve the team
Virgin Chief People Officer, Nikki Humphrey, offered up a masterclass in developing a rewards and benefits scheme with company values at the core and people across the whole business involved.
Nikki shared that, by involving the team in the process, they developed "a strong sense of combined ownership, which was really powerful."
They crowdsourced people’s dream benefits and developed a “Screw it, just do it” fund, where each employee gets a pot of money to do something they wouldn’t otherwise. Simple, personalised, and SO Virgin!
It’s reinforced our commitment to building the Thankbox brand, so that customers who share our values of kindness, fun and connection, will see us as the perfect partner.
2. Tech overload is REAL
Estimates on how many SaaS apps businesses use on average varies wildly, but it’s not uncommon for businesses to have hundreds. And a lot of them don’t get used. It solidified our position on making Thankbox as simple to adopt as possible and it makes us super proud of our 50% customer return rate.
We were also interested to learn about solutions that are working hard to bring platforms together and streamline the experience for the user, including Flexspring.
3. Inclusivity is non-negotiable
It was heartening to see such a strong focus on equality, diversity, and inclusion. With incredible speakers, including Joyce Idoniboye, Chief People Officer at Oxfam, there was a strong message about the need to create a sense of belonging for everyone and ensure that rewards and recognition are intentionally inclusive.
4. AI is a priority, but human connection is key
It was interesting to hear a range of views on attitudes toward AI’s role in everything from recruitment to internal communications. The winners will be those who can successfully leverage AI to enhance human connection and increase personalisation.
Hoogly was an interesting solution in this space—they use AI to give employees a safe space to anonymously share workplace issues. AI flags themes, enabling HR teams to act to tackle issues faster—that’s pretty cool!
5. People are still using spreadsheets for appreciation
YES! We spoke to organisations of 300+ people who still have one person responsible for team appreciation, and they manage it by spreadsheets. It has strengthened our resolve to be the simplest, most joyful solution for these people, to make their lives easier and to make it frictionless to share appreciation!
The agenda was so packed with global leaders in HR and Workplace Culture, that we only regret not being able to split ourselves in two to catch it all.
It was brilliantly organised by Engage Employee, and we would 100% recommend it. We had excellent conversations, we have genuine business connections and leads, and we learned a huge amount from talking to delegates and other providers.
We’ll be back, bigger and better for 2026!
