There are many third party employee rewards platform in the market. The organization should select a platform based on their specific business needs However, there are certain basic features that every employee rewards platform should have. These are those:

1. Manager and Peer-to-Peer Recognition  Managers and peers should both be able to nominate their team members for different award categories based on their roles. 

2. Approvals and Budget Management  There should be different levels of approval workflows depending on the category of the award. The platform should also enable reward budgets to be managed at the department or unit level.

3. Individual and Team Awards The employee reward platform should allow both individuals and teams to be nominated for different categories of rewards and recognition. 

4. Monetary and Non-Monetary Awards Managers and peers should be able to give both monetary and non-monetary awards. These awards can be released with e-certificates or e-cards to the recipients, after the necessary approvals.

5. Points-based System Monetary awards should be mapped to reward points in the employee rewards platform. Each reward point should have a specific value in monetary terms. 

6. Redemption  Redemption of reward points for gift cards or merchandize should be a core feature of any employee rewards and recognition platform. This would provide freedom of choice and convenience for the employees.

7. Wall of Fame The employee rewards platform should have a digital wall where the award winners are showcased. Other employee should be able to likes and comments with congratulatory messages on these posts.

8. Leaderboard A digital leaderboard in the employee rewards platform would show the highest award winners, either in terms of number of awards or in terms of rewards points. This can give social recognition to employees within the organization. 

9. Integration with Internal Platforms  To create additional social visibility for award winners, the employee rewards platform should be integrated with other internal systems such as Microsoft Teams, Yammer, Slack and Intranet. The platform should support easy and quick integration with such popular platforms. 

10. Integration with Social Media Platforms  The importance of social media today cannot be overemphasised. Hence, employee rewards platforms should allow employees to share the rewards and recognition they have received, on social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

11. Reporting and Analytics The HR teams should have access to the live data for tracking and management of the program at their fingertips. This requirement can be fulfilled through detailed reports, dashboards and searchable data on the platform. 

12. Self-Service Administration The HR team should be able to make changes to the program on the fly without requesting the product support or internal IT teams. The employee rewards platform should offer a user-friendly and intuitive self-service console to make the necessary changes in the platform settings.  

The above are just the basic and mandatory features for any employee rewards platform. Other platforms such as HiFives  have advanced and differentiated features that can take the employee rewards and recognition programs to the next level.