Work Magic Awards: How we recognize the employees who embody Rippling’s values
In this article
Most intra-company awards ceremonies follow a cookie-cutter template, honoring employees who hit sales targets or reach career milestones. At Rippling, we work hard to live up to our leadership principles—as a company and individually. Our annual Work Magic Awards are how we celebrate that commitment.
“We wanted to not only acknowledge contributions related to hitting our business objectives, but also celebrate the employees who showcase our core values and do outstanding work that can otherwise go unnoticed,” said Senior Program Manager Gin Travis, who organized the awards ceremony alongside Executive Assistant Meryl Craig. “It’s a nice opportunity to pause, look across the company, and acknowledge the tremendous things our people put forward to push Rippling toward our vision.”
Awards tailored to leadership principles
Our Work Magic Awards honor the stellar employees who embody our nine leadership principles. They also include bonus awards for Rookie of the Year, Unsung Hero, and Dream Team.
Instead of spotlighting employees within only a few high-visibility teams, Gin designed the nomination process to acknowledge Ripplers across departments and seniority levels. She also shared suggestions with employees about how to write effective praise, like focusing the feedback on key contributors instead of groups of people, calling out specific actions employees took to demonstrate Rippling’s leadership principles, and describing the impact standout Ripplers had in the workplace.
Additionally, event organizers sent an automated note to every employee who earned a nomination and shared every piece of written feedback directly with the nominee—so that even those who didn’t win any awards could still receive their well-deserved recognition and appreciation. “Our team-based Slack channels were buzzing with peers congratulating each other,” she said. “We run hard and it’s nice to get an email with multiple people raving about what you’re doing well.”
How we determined our winners
The Work Magic Awards are peer-nominated. Event organizers used Pulse, one of Rippling’s own tools, to send out a company-wide survey for Rippling employees to nominate one colleague per award category.
From there, Gin tallied votes, sorted them by team, and read through commentary to assemble a curated list for Rippling leadership, who then chose finalists within their individual departments. Rippling COO Matt MacInnis and CTO Albert Strasheim made the final call on the winners and runners up for each category. The 2024 awards season included:
3,709 total nominations for 1,104 Rippling employees
77 finalists
18 winners
Meet the 2024 Work Magic Award winners
Rippling held its fourth annual Work Magic Awards in late May. The ceremony was broadcast live company-wide and emceed by Matt, who announced finalists for every category. The winners were announced by each individual’s supervisor or department head, who gave short speeches on the winner’s praiseworthy accomplishments. This year’s winners earned customized Rippling tote bags and wearables to showcase their achievement.
Below are the winners for each leadership principle and bonus categories, along with praise from Rippling colleagues.
| Go and See Rippling leaders spend time in the boiler room. Instead of living in spreadsheets, they study individual successes and failures. They know that firsthand observation is the most powerful kind of data. |
Jenny KimDepartment: MarketingRole: Director, Upmarket GTM
I worked with Jenny on a new enterprise first pitch deck. She watched Gong calls, spoke to every AE, and spoke to customers about what was happening on the field. Thanks to all the work Jenny did in the background, we revamped the pitch with a better perspective.
Jin Baik
Competitive Intelligence at Rippling
| Push the Limits of Possible Rippling leaders set maximally ambitious goals for themselves and their teams. They challenge others’ perceived limitations and achieve more as a result. |
Hannah SmithmierDepartment: SalesRole: Senior Manager, Solutions Consulting
Hannah led the Solutions Consulting org by helping to close over $4 million, and then moved to Europe to help found our Ireland office. It’s her amazing ability to walk into any meeting, regardless of team, country or timezone, to clearly advocate for change.
Paul Barber
VP of Product Sales at Rippling
| Go to Western Union Rippling leaders feel accountable for doing something about the problems they see. They’re never bystanders. They do what’s needed, even if it’s outside of their lane, and even if it’s unglamorous. |
Theresa MortonDepartment: Customer ExperienceRole: Customer Support Lead
When a customer was understandably upset due to an error, Theresa not only delivered clear next steps and a constant stream of communication, but also worked directly with the client to draft carefully tailored responses to ensure the resolution was communicated effectively.
Courtney Freese
Customer Support Supervisor at Rippling
| Build Winning Teams Rippling leaders identify exceptional talent. They attract and retain those people, and challenge them to their limits. They build teams with a fierce desire to win. |
Manish ShuklaDepartment: EngineeringRole: Senior Engineering Manager
Manish owned the entire front-end of the benefits team, which meant he was juggling 30 or 40 projects every quarter. Despite that, he’s managed to retain, grow, promote, coach, and upscale his entire team.
Vivek Subramanian
Director of Engineering at Rippling
| Challenge Each Other Directly Rippling leaders give and receive feedback freely. They challenge others directly and respectfully. They hold conversations in the open and voice what they think is best for the business, even when it’s uncomfortable. |
Rebecca HanleyDepartment: Customer ExperienceRole: Executive Escalations Manager
Becky is the person who handles the toughest, messiest, gnarliest, and most urgent situations for our clients at Rippling. I’ve come to appreciate firsthand Becky’s advocacy for our clients. She won’t rest—or mince words—until the right thing is done for our customers… even in the stickiest situations.
Tomer Schwartz
Product Lead at Rippling
| Decide Quickly Rippling leaders unblock the organization by making decisions quickly. They know most actions can be undone and don’t require extensive study. They exhibit a healthy impatience. |
Stefanie ran a test using existing EOR HR advisors, having them cover new geos. In a matter of a few short weeks, she gained enough conviction to switch our entire operating model.
Robert Fee
Senior Director, Operations at Rippling
| Are Right, A Lot Rippling leaders have good instincts, and they exercise good judgment. They get a lot right on the first try. |
Michelle CheungDepartment: FinanceRole: Eirector, Strategic Finance
Michelle drove critical initiatives central to the company's strategy around growing TAM, winning with larger customers, improving churn, and international expansion.
Ryan Gibbs
VP of Finance at Rippling
| Change Their Minds Rippling leaders are willing to be wrong. They let their ideas rise and fall on the merits, and they don’t pull rank. |
Justin SmithDepartment: ProductRole: Product Lead
Justin has an uncanny ability to come into complex product discussions with a well-formed opinion, keep an open mind throughout the conversation, and adapt his position when he feels that a better idea or new information has been introduced.
Tomer Schwartz
Product Lead at Rippling
| Are Frugal Rippling leaders count the nickels. They’re resourceful in finding paths to the goal, and they avoid waste. They spend the company’s money as though it were their own. |
Sareen VadlamaniDepartment: ProductRole: Product Lead
Sareen has basically single-handedly held down Rippling’s entire compensation department, reconciling competitive market pressures with making sure our budgets balance. He also worked with the product and engineering teams to launch Rippling’s first compensation app.
Darcy Mackay
Sr. Vice President of HR and Client Services at Rippling
Rookie of the Year: Brian Mazzaferri
Brian MazzaferriDepartment: ProductRole: Senior Compensation Program Manager
To manage a team of experts, you need to know some stuff. Through his inquisitive nature and dedication, Brian has become a Rippling expert in record time. He’s also earned the respect of his team and the people around him.
Paul Barber
VP of Product Sales at Rippling
Unsung Hero: Edwin Lai
Edwin LaiDepartment: People and PlacesRole: Senior Recruiting Programming Manager
Even though Edwin was running into errors at four times the rate of anyone else at the company, I have never heard him complain once. Instead, he works with the engineering and product teams to solve issues both for Rippling internally and our customers. Then he goes about his business and puts out quality work for others across the company.
Eric Greenwood
Senior Director, People Operations at Rippling
Dream Team winners: Performance Management Engineering
This team builds and designs Rippling’s Performance Management suite of products and faces enormous pressure every review cycle from managers, employees, and HR teams to make sure everything works all at once. According to Rippling CTO Albert Strasheim, this Dream Team admirably surmounts this pressure and continues to churn out high-quality products and features such as Review Cycles, Surveys, and Goals.
The Performance Management Engineering team members:
Disclaimer
Rippling and its affiliates do not provide tax, accounting, or legal advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide or be relied on for tax, accounting, or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, accounting, and legal advisors before engaging in any related activities or transactions.
Hubs
Author
The Rippling Team
Global HR, IT, and Finance know-how directly from the Rippling team.
Explore more
Nominate an IT Hero: Submissions Now Open
Celebrate the unsung heroes of IT—nominate an outstanding IT professional for the 2025 IT Hero Awards before July 30.
Rippling’s design career ladder: How we help product designers level up
Rippling’s career ladder is a set of core competencies that lean into our mission and values
See how Rippling works like magic in our first-ever brand campaign
Rippling makes it so easy to manage your HR & IT, it feels like magic. Imagine if you could onboard new hires in 90 seconds. Or run payroll in a snap. And even set up all your employees' apps in 1-click — from Slack to Zoom. It’s not hocus pocus. It's work magic.
Adding a touch of motion (and magic) to our product
Discover how Rippling brings products to life through animation with Magic Moments, enhancing user experience and engagement.
Quality Week: 5 days for engineers to solve the things that annoy them most
Learn how Rippling engineers roll up their sleeves to debug, purge dead code, and improve existing processes during Quality Week.Learn how Rippling engineers roll up their sleeves to debug, purge dead code, and improve existing processes during Quality Week.
![[Blog – SEO Image] HR General](http://images.ctfassets.net/k0itp0ir7ty4/5HLyf8smIeVXBQR3yGShjK/37e6a47e8af5dfc448d5e7cce835b4f7/Header_HR_General__1_.jpg)
Rippling earns 40 Voice of the Customer awards, now recognized for companies up to 5K
Rippling wins 40 Voice of the Customer awards, including #1 payroll for mid-market, based on feedback from 10,000+ HR professionals worldwide.
Meet Talent Signal: AI to help new hires succeed
Talent Signal reviews the first 90 days of work product for new hires to generate a “performance signal” for each employee.
SaaD is stopping companies in their tracks. We’re putting an end to it.
Rippling unifies HR, IT, Spend, and more on one platform with a shared source of truth: your employee data. Change something once — a new hire, a promotion, a termination — and it updates everywhere.
See Rippling in action
Increase savings, automate busy work, and make better decisions by managing HR, IT, and Finance in one place.