An experimental employee reward system designed by the team of Kraków Airport Hotel has been recognised by the jury of the prestigious CSR Poland Awards. The innovative solution has been shortlisted in the Employee Wellbeing category.
The competition accompanies the CSR Poland 2026 conference organised by the Poland Business Run Foundation and, as the organisers emphasise, “was created to recognise and honour companies and individuals who make a significant contribution to social initiatives and the development of responsible business in Poland.”
“This year’s edition represents an impressive level of engagement,” emphasises the organiser, the Poland Business Run Foundation, which reports that 127 projects from 80 companies were submitted across four competition categories: Community Engagement, Volunteering, Employee Wellbeing and CSR Leader.
The scale of interest clearly demonstrates that CSR is no longer merely a complementary element of corporate strategy, but has become one of the key pillars of modern management. More and more companies treat social responsibility not as an obligation or a reputational tool, but as a genuine instrument for building long-term value and competitive advantage.
- “127 submissions send a clear signal: corporate social responsibility in Poland is entering a new stage. Each of these projects represents real change and proves that modern companies can successfully combine business objectives with authentic care for people. I am proud that, as a Foundation, we can recognise leaders who inspire the entire industry to take action,” says Agnieszka Pleti, President of the Poland Business Run Foundation.
The winners of the fourth edition will be announced on 12 March during the gala ceremony concluding the conference.
HBT Coin is a unique, industry-first experimental initiative within the HoReCa sector, piloted at the Hilton Garden Inn Kraków Airport, managed by Kraków Airport Hotel - a company belonging to the capital group of John Paul II International Airport Kraków–Balice.
In response to low engagement in traditional employee benefit programmes, hotel staff designed their own value-exchange model in which participation in physical activities, personal development, reading initiatives and socially integrative projects is rewarded with HBT Coin tokens. Within the organisation, these tokens function as a symbolic internal currency that can be exchanged for selected benefits, including hotel and restaurant stay vouchers, educational subscriptions, shopping vouchers, cinema tickets and fuel cards.
Each benefit available in the internal cafeteria system is proposed by employees to ensure it reflects the team’s real and current needs.
An innovative element of the project is the possibility of transferring accumulated tokens to one another in the form of 'Kudos', strengthening a culture of appreciation within the organisation.
HBT Coin is not a one-off initiative, but a shift in the way the organisation perceives its relationship with employees - from beneficiary to partner and co-creator of value.
What sets the project apart from similar initiatives is the reversal of the traditional top-down logic of employee programmes. It is not a system designed “for employees”, but by employees - from problem identification, through mechanism design, to value distribution principles.
Such a level of bottom-up participation remains rare in the HoReCa sector and represents a genuine social innovation in the workplace.
The implementation of HBT Coin has delivered measurable and qualitative results in the areas of internal CSR, employee wellbeing and organisational culture. The project has effectively increased employee engagement in health-oriented, developmental and social activities - areas previously underrepresented in traditional benefit systems.
“The introduction of our own internal employee currency increased participation and strengthened employees’ sense of agency. They not only used the benefits, but actively co-created the distribution model. Wellbeing, development and CSR activities began to be perceived as genuinely valued aspects of work, rather than optional add-ons with limited motivational impact,” explains Ewelina Kubaśka, Project Coordinator and HR Business Partner at Kraków Airport Hotel.
The initiative has strengthened an organisational culture based on cooperation, mutual recognition, trust and shared responsibility. This was particularly visible in the popularity of the peer-to-peer Kudos mechanism, which enhanced team relationships, integration and created an additional informal appreciation system - important from the perspective of retention and job satisfaction.
HBT Coin is an example of bottom-up innovation developed with organisational support. The pilot phase was implemented in an analogue format through a dedicated activity card and a stamp-based system representing tokens.
Further iterative development is planned, including expansion of the catalogue of activities and benefits, as well as the creation of a mobile application for token management (HBT Wallet). The application would also be designed and developed by hotel employees themselves. They will define the system logic, design the user journey and code the application, developing new digital competencies in their free time - an activity that will naturally be rewarded with additional HBT Coin tokens.
In this way, the system symbolically “closes the loop,” creating a circular model in which engagement generates value, and that value returns to employees in the form of new development opportunities.
