UKG Beacon Drives 17% Turnover Reduction at Atlas Hotels

Atlas Hotels is a UK-based hotel franchise group with 58 locations and a workforce of approximately 1,500 employees. The organisation operates well known brands including Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn, and Hampton by Hilton, and prides itself on delivering exceptional guest experiences.

Behind the scenes, Atlas faced growing challenges in maintaining consistency, engagement, and culture across a largely deskless workforce spread across multiple hotel locations.

Challenges

Before UKG Beacon, Atlas relied on a site‑based recognition program called “Smile Points,” where managers manually tracked rewards and recognition using spreadsheets. This approach varied significantly between hotel locations and management teams, resulting in inconsistent employee experiences and limited visibility across the business.

The challenges intensified during the pandemic and Brexit, leading to higher employee turnover, engagement issues, and lower customer satisfaction. With a growing percentage of deskless employees and increased pressure on managers, Atlas recognised the need for a scalable, unified solution to support engagement and retention across the organisation.

Solutions

In 2019, Atlas Hotels partnered with UKG Beacon to realign its recognition practices with company values and create a more consistent, visible approach to appreciation across all sites. By relaunching its values and embedding them into everyday recognition, UKG Beacon became a central platform for meaningful, peer‑to‑peer engagement.

While the pandemic brought an influx of new managers and teams, UKG Beacon also served as an essential training and communication tool. The UKG Beacon team worked closely with Atlas to onboard managers, ensuring they could effectively use the platform to connect with and celebrate their teams.

Key features that stood out to Atlas included:

• Moments Feed: A social‑media‑style space for employees to share wins, comment, and react to peer recognition
• Employee of the Quarter: Streamlined awards processes that reduced administrative burden while spotlighting standout performers
• Mobile Accessibility: An app‑based platform designed for ease of use, well suited for Atlas’s deskless workforce

“We wanted something that wasn’t too corporate,” said Sarah Brocklebank, HR Director at Atlas Hotels. “Having an app‑based platform that is easy to use and log onto was crucial, as we have a huge deskless workforce. We feel that UKG Beacon has such good adoption for this reason.”

Results

The implementation of UKG Beacon delivered value almost immediately. Employees quickly embraced the platform to celebrate teamwork, exceptional service, and positive customer feedback, while managers benefited from reduced administrative effort and easier access to engagement tools.

“If we didn’t have a solution like UKG Beacon, it would take up a lot of admin time and reconciliation from a finance perspective,” Brocklebank explained. “Our employees prefer to interact with a digital platform rather than an offline solution. UKG Beacon enables our employees to get what they want from us.”

Atlas Hotels saw clear, measurable results:

• 17% decrease in employee turnover, with hotels showing the highest UKG Beacon usage experiencing the greatest retention improvements
• 265% increase in shared Moments, reflecting strong adoption and engagement with peer recognition
• Improved guest engagement scores, demonstrating the connection between employee recognition and customer experience

“In a world where managers are saying, ‘We’re having issues with turnover — how do I solve it?’ we can give them UKG Beacon to do exactly that,” Brocklebank said.

Since actively promoting UKG Beacon in early 2022, Atlas has continued to see steady improvements in engagement and retention, solidifying UKG Beacon as a cornerstone of Atlas’s culture.

“When we do something celebratory, we love funneling everything through UKG Beacon so everyone can see, and that’s a big part of bringing the culture at Atlas to life,” said Brocklebank.