Recognition used to be considered a “soft” HR metric—nice to have, deeply human, but rarely viewed as a strategic data source. Workhuman is looking to end that era for good. Today, the employee recognition giant unveiled Topics™, an AI-powered capability that turns everyday recognition messages into real-time intelligence about how strategy is landing inside an organization.
The pitch? The behaviors companies want—leadership, safety, customer obsession, AI adoption—are already showing up in the language employees use to praise one another. Leaders just haven’t been able to see it at scale. Until now.
With Topics, Workhuman aims to make recognition data function like a live sensor network for company culture and strategic alignment, replacing the familiar lag of quarterly reviews and employee surveys with something closer to a real-time strategy dashboard.
And this is no boutique feature. Workhuman says nearly all customers—representing more than 7 million employees—will have Human Intelligence® active by year’s end, laying the groundwork for Topics to operate at global scale.
Beyond Surveys: The HR Data Leaders Actually Want
If Human Intelligence gave HR leaders a new lens on culture, Topics takes it a step further: it turns social recognition language into decision-grade analytics.
It’s a bold repositioning of recognition from “moral booster” to “organizational telemetry.”
“For years, companies have measured outputs, but couldn’t see the human behaviours that produce them,”
— Eric Mosley, Founder & CEO, Workhuman
Mosley frames this as a transparency breakthrough for senior leadership. Knowing if a strategy is “working” typically requires reading lagging indicators—sales cycles, retention metrics, survey results, performance data. Topics flips that script by surfacing directional signals earlier, based on the behaviors employees highlight in one another every day.
If enough employees begin praising colleagues for AI innovation, customer impact, or cross-team collaboration, the system detects it instantly. Likewise, if a strategic priority isn’t being reflected in recognition language, Topics exposes the gap.
“Without that layer of truth, oversight is just guesswork,” Mosley adds.
And boards don’t like guesswork.
CHROs Gain the Data They’ve Been Waiting For
HR’s influence has risen, but so has the pressure to justify programs, culture efforts, and investments with hard numbers. KeyAnna Schmiedl, Workhuman’s Chief Human Experience Officer, says Topics directly addresses that shift.
“CHROs are being invited into more conversations where business strategy is being shaped. But with that seat comes accountability,”
— KeyAnna Schmiedl, CHXO, Workhuman
She argues that Topics gives HR a credible, evidence-backed way to show how culture is driving (or blocking) outcomes—something most people analytics tools still struggle to do without heavy manual effort.
Workhuman claims it’s already using Topics internally, and that it’s helped the company sharpen focus, adjust programs, and accelerate alignment.
How Topics Works: Strategic Signals, Powered by Peer Recognition
Early customers have been testing the feature for months, and their feedback points to five standout capabilities:
1. Recognition Tied Directly to Strategy
Leaders define priority Topics—think “AI Transformation,” “Customer First,” or “Safety Culture.” Workhuman’s Human Intelligence maps recognition messages to these categories automatically.
No tagging. No manual classification. No extra work for managers or HR.
2. Real-Time Behavioral Insight
Instead of waiting weeks or months for survey cycles, Topics shows live trends in behavior and adoption:
-
Which initiatives are gaining traction
-
Who is driving momentum
-
Where alignment is weakening
-
Which teams need reinforcement
It’s essentially a behavioral seismograph.
3. A New Layer of Business Intelligence
This is where Workhuman is trying to shift the category. Recognition becomes enterprise intelligence, not just HR data. Companies see:
-
Cultural health
-
Leading performance indicators
-
Early signals of change readiness
-
Alignment to company goals
This is the kind of insight that typically requires consultants, surveys, and multiple people analytics tools stitched together.
4. Data Built on Authentic, Organic Signals
Every insight comes from peer-to-peer recognition, a uniquely first-party dataset that is:
-
Unscripted
-
Voluntary
-
Grounded in actual behavior
-
Generated at high volume
Most recognition platforms can’t claim this level of linguistic richness or global scale.
5. Executive-Ready Dashboards
Curated dashboards offer:
-
Real-time reporting for executives and boards
-
Retroactive views of past programs
-
Alignment maps across teams and geographies
-
Clear narratives for investor updates or strategy sessions
This is where Topics makes its boardroom play.
Workhuman’s Strategy: Redefine Recognition Software as Intelligence Software
Workhuman has spent the last few years methodically repositioning itself from a recognition vendor to a culture and performance intelligence company, with Human Intelligence at its core. Topics represents the next layer in that transformation.
While plenty of HR tech vendors talk about “connecting people to performance,” few can tie behavior to business outcomes using real-time, first-party language data at enterprise scale. Most depend on surveys or observation models that update too slowly for today’s pace of change.
Topics could give Workhuman a defensible edge at a moment when AI-powered HR analytics vendors are crowding into the market.
This also marks a rare moment where HR tech aligns precisely with what CEOs and boards want:
-
Strategic clarity
-
Real-time insight
-
Early detection of gaps
-
Behavior-based indicators
-
Proof that culture is a performance lever
If Topics does what Workhuman claims, it could become a staple in enterprise people analytics toolkits, not just recognition programs.
The Bigger Trend: Strategy Execution Is Becoming a People Data Problem
Topics fits neatly into a broader trend in HR technology: companies want to understand strategy execution through behavior, not abstractions.
For years, culture and strategy have been treated as separate domains—one soft, one hard. But the pandemic, hybrid work, and AI-driven transformation have accelerated a shift. Now:
-
Strategy adoption is a behavioral challenge
-
Behavioral tracking is a data challenge
-
Data challenges are increasingly being solved through AI
Workhuman is betting that recognition data—long dismissed as “feel-good HR data”—is actually one of the richest behavioral datasets companies have. And with millions of employees generating recognition messages every day, the signal volume is enormous.
It’s no coincidence that Workhuman is rolling out Topics only after near-universal adoption of Human Intelligence among its customer base. The system needs massive scale and dense linguistic inputs to work.
Now it has them.
The Bottom Line
With Topics, Workhuman is pushing recognition well beyond morale boosters and engagement scores. It’s positioning recognition as a strategic telemetry system—one that can detect how deeply initiatives are taking hold and where attention is needed, often before traditional metrics catch up.
For HR leaders, this means a more credible seat in strategic planning.
For executives, it means faster insight and fewer blind spots.
For the recognition category, it’s a move toward genuine enterprise intelligence.
As organizations grapple with AI adoption, cultural fragmentation, hybrid work dynamics, and increasingly complex change agendas, solutions like Topics hint at what the next generation of HR analytics might look like: faster, deeper, more behaviorally grounded, and integrated directly into the moments people celebrate at work.
If Workhuman succeeds, recognition won’t just be a cultural practice.
It’ll be a strategy detection engine.
