Reward and recognition ideas your team will love

1. Start by recognising personal bests

When it comes to reward and recognition, rewarding everyone the same way can take some of the shine away and is often appreciated less than more personal rewards.

By recognising personal bests, you’re taking the time to recognise each individual’s work. Personalising any message will be more likely to get the person’s attention.

For bigger companies, delegate this responsibility to managers. Smaller companies could benefit from managers rewarding their staff too, as they’ll know their team better than most.

However, where possible rewards should be given out by those higher up, like the CEO or Managing Director. Those at the top set an example to the rest of the company and are directly responsible for the culture of the company.

How to do it

1. Start by identifying the KPI’s of each department/role. These will be the barometer for the performance of each person.
2. Then assign the most important KPI(s) to each employee
3. Get as much of an idea as you can about how they’ve performed according to those KPI’s since they joined or in the last year/quarter.
4. Pick an appropriate time to assess everyone’s performance (i.e. monthly or weekly, dependant on their role and responsibilities) and pick out who’s achieved a personal best.

The KPI’s can vary for each employee. For those in Marketing it could be number of leads generated. For those in customer service roles it could be number of queries solved. Anything that relates to performance can be a KPI and it’s totally up to you.

2. Have a leaderboard

Done right, a leaderboard can be fantastic. In some instances, they aren’t appropriate and can be a little divisive. However, as a reward and recognition idea they are a fantastically simple tool to reward and motivate employees simultaneously.

The success of your leaderboard may depend on what department it is being used in. The aim is to create a little healthy competition. Reward comes into it when you offer rewards to those who top the leaderboard, or maybe for those in 1st, 2nd and 3rd place for example.

As mentioned, a leaderboard isn’t always appropriate for every department, but it would be a shame to miss out on the chance to motivate and engage employees in such a simple and cost-effective way. Plus, healthy competition adds a bit of fun.

3. Reward with opportunities for growth

Reward employees by offering to help them improve and progress.

This could be done at a relatively low cost by giving them the opportunity to speak to a director or someone with experience in the company that they might not usually get the chance to learn from.

You could set up a mentorship between two employees where one employee has a level of knowledge and experience that could be incredibly valuable to other members of your team.

Alternatively, rewarding with opportunities for growth could be done through offering to pay for or subsidise a course to help the employee learn and improve.

Educational material can often be too expensive from an employee’s point of view, but for a company it costs relatively little. The rewards are there to be gained by both the employee and the employer.

4. Get creative with your awards

Create new awards to give out to your staff and get creative. Rather than handing out the same staff awards all the time, have a variety of different awards that will make each one worth a little bit more.

For example, in our staff awards ideas blog, we suggested having a ‘Going the Extra Mile’ award. This is one that will be voted for by employees rather than those higher up.

It’s always nice to be recognised by your peers (more on how we can help you with this further on), and if someone goes the extra mile they deserve to be rewarded.

Rather than making it a monthly event or something that’s done regularly, let people nominate someone spontaneously. Sometimes the simplest reward and recognition ideas are the most effective.

5. Let the employee decide how they’re rewarded

We’ve mentioned in this article how not every reward and recognition idea is for everyone, so why not let the employee choose their reward?

Of course, they might just turn around and say they’d like the keys to the company director’s Jag. However, if the company director isn’t feeling so kind, sit down with the employee and ask them for feedback on their job.

If they say they’d like some software to help them perform their role better, look into getting it for them. If they’d like help progressing or improving in their role, look into how you can help them.

It’s a great opportunity for you to gain feedback and reward employees at the same time!

6. Take note and make it personal

This is a simple yet highly effective way of delivering personalised rewards.

Letting staff choose their reward is one thing, but will an employee always ask for the reward they really want?

This is where managers come in and the knowledge of their team really comes into effect.

It’s a bit like buying a present for a loved one. You might listen out for little hints or clues for present ideas. The same applies for reward!

So, someone on your team has mentioned how they would love a weekend away on a staycation with their family. They’ve hit their targets or even overperformed. A Hoeseasons voucher would be the perfect reward wouldn’t it?

There’s that one member of your team who is absolutely obsessed with Marvel. Cinema tickets, right?

By taking note of these little things you’ll be able to reward in a more personalised and meaningful way!

Always keep reward in mind. You never know when the time may come where you really want to give out meaningful rewards to your team.

In this case, it’s as important as ever to empower managers to reward. It helps too if they’re allocated some reward budget.