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Form a team and get a challenge
Employees group into teams of 3, 4 or 5 and receive a themed challenge matched to the reward pool your company has funded.
Cognitive Rewards
Team rewards, earned by playing together
A live, team-based game your company funds and your people play — reasoning, communicating and solving an AI-hosted challenge together to unlock a shared reward.
In short: Cognitive Rewards is a WelloWork engagement game where teams of 3 to 5 employees play a short, AI-hosted challenge together, working through puzzles built around reasoning, focus and communication. When the team cracks the final challenge, the reward pool your company funded unlocks and splits by contribution, with a guaranteed minimum share for everyone who played.
What is Cognitive Rewards?
Cognitive Rewards is WelloWork's own team-based engagement game. Your company funds a reward pool, and teams of 3 to 5 employees earn it together by working through a live, AI-hosted challenge built around reasoning, focus, problem-solving and communication.
Each session is short, visual and easy to pick up — the value comes from what teams have to do together, not from how hard the puzzles are. Because rewards are earned through play rather than tenure or attendance, the game doubles as a light team-building moment without adding to anyone's workload.
How do employees earn rewards?
Every reward is earned by a team, working together in real time.
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Work through it together
Each player sees a different piece of the puzzle, so the team has to talk, share what they know and combine their reasoning to make progress.
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Unlock and split the reward
When the team cracks the final challenge, the reward unlocks for everyone who played and splits by contribution, with a guaranteed minimum share for each teammate.
How a Cognitive Rewards game works
One live session, one shared goal — every player takes part, no one plays alone.
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Team up, 3 to 5 players
Choose a team size and jump into a themed session hosted by WelloWork's AI Game Master.
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Everyone gets different clues
Each player receives a different piece of the puzzle, so no one has the full picture alone.
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Talk it through
The team compares notes, shares clues out loud and reasons through a set of linked puzzles together to crack a shared key.
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Crack the final challenge
Solving the shared key unlocks a collaborative final challenge graded by the Game Master — and the reward pool for the whole team.
Why does gamified, effort-based recognition work?
Recognition lands harder when it's earned together. Cognitive Rewards combines several things that tend to drive engagement.
Engagement through play
Game mechanics make participation feel voluntary and enjoyable, not like another task on the list.
Genuine cognitive exercise
Every challenge draws on reasoning, focus and problem-solving — the same constructs WelloWork's training is built around.
Real collaboration, not just proximity
Because every player holds a different piece of the puzzle, the team has to talk, listen and combine reasoning to win.
Recognition with meaning
A reward the team earns together, split by contribution, signals genuine acknowledgement rather than an automatic perk.
Who is it for?
Cognitive Rewards fits teams that want engagement and recognition to do double duty.
HR & People teams
Running engagement, recognition or wellbeing initiatives that need genuine participation.
People & Culture leaders
Building cohesion across teams, sites or a hybrid workforce.
Total Rewards & Benefits leaders
Looking for a recognition format that's active and memorable, not just transactional.
Teams play in groups of three to five, so the format scales from a single team of ten to enterprises with thousands of employees — challenges and reward pools scale with you.
Explore the rest of the platform
Cognitive Rewards sits alongside WelloWork's wider workplace performance platform.
Frequently asked questions
How does ordering work?
Choose a team size of three, four or five, add the players who'll take part, and fund the reward pool for your session. The "Order Cognitive Rewards" button on this page gets you started, and WelloWork can help you scope team sizes and reward mix before you commit.
What languages are supported?
Cognitive Rewards is multi-language, so teams can play in the language they're most comfortable with. Tell us which languages your teams need when you set up your session.
How are rewards delivered?
Once a team unlocks its reward, each player receives it digitally — a prepaid Visa or Mastercard, or a gift card of their choice — split by contribution with a guaranteed minimum share, so everyone who played takes home something meaningful.
What about the privacy of participation?
In keeping with WelloWork's approach, employees own their participation. Your company sees an aggregated skills and engagement readout across teams, while the playful back-and-forth inside each session stays private to the team that played.