139 Top Employee Recognition Ideas

Employee recognition is the act of showing staff appreciation for the good work they do. It can be a formal process, such as in a communication tool, or an informal process, a side conversation between a manager and an employee. Employee recognition can come in many forms and events, including employee service anniversaries or employee of the month. Gallup reports nearly two-thirds of employees have not received recognition in the past year. Thus, anything a company can do will be well received.

Employee Appreciation Foundations

The basics are all about appreciating in a meaningful way, creating a super fun culture. Make sure to do it, so the employees appreciate and make sure employee recognition doesn't backfire.

• Employee service anniversary & birthday celebrations

  The number one type of employee recognition is a service recognition program. For birthdays, many companies may simply give a birthday card to each employee. Think outside the box. Try using birthday cards from nonprofit organizations, such as BirthdayWishes.org.

  Try to tie your company with philanthropy to increase staff engagement.

  An employee that was in my work team who had been working at the company for about 40 years was awarded a recognition banquet and hearty bonus because of his commitment to the company. This person initially came into the company as a parts runner who picked up and transported parts between our facilities. Eventually, he became a materials engineer all through hard work in the company. This person was recognized in a way that really astounded me; they were shown so much respect. They received a whole banquet as well as the award.

  - Reese Azza at Boeing

  I recently had my 5th anniversary of working with my company. My manager and co-workers surprised me by having a party in the office with food catered by my favorite lunch place. They also had a small plaque made that I now display in my office. It was a very nice surprise for me as I was not expecting such a short amount of time to be celebrated.

  - Employee at Walter Energy

  I had a colleague who would always help us out in the morning. Bring us coffee and donuts to save us the trouble. The guy was great and would always do small things like this. One day, the manager decided to pay him back in a special way. He promoted him on the spot on his birthday.

  - Employee at PC Parlor

• Solid track to promotion

  Having a clear definition of what it takes to rise up in the company is vital in recognizing your employees. For instance, Chipotle’s employee recognition program ideas for restaurant staff are based around a fast and clear path to raises and new job titles. If there isn’t a clear track, make sure to keep promoting people who show promise.

  I was hired as a cook and worked hard. Then there was new management that took over. After this happened, I was promoted to assistant manager and got recognition for the things I did right and did well.

  - Shane from Pizza Hut

  One day, my boss approached me and told me that I have what it takes to be an office manager. That is how I was promoted and got the recognition I deserve.

  - Bill from Lap Mail Delivery
• Crawl, Walk, Run into Employee Rewards and Recognition

  From product development to internal employee rewards programs, if you start off with everything, there will not be much room for surprises. So think big and start small.

  Companies can launch with a simple set of features around socially sharing company values. More features are added each month. This can be nominations, anniversaries, incentives, and automated rewards.

• Have an Employee Recognition Program Success Checklist

  Make sure your company is following best practices in regards to your employee recognition and rewards program. If you don't have an employee recognition program, definitely consider reaching out to us at Recognize. Alternatively, we compiled a list of the employee recognition programs out there.

  • Set goals and have aspirations

    It’s important to know why you are creating an employee recognition program. It allows you to measure success.

  • Set and track metrics

    You should also determine what metrics are important for you to track. You need to be able to measure the success of your employee recognition program. It’s important to determine these metrics at the beginning. It makes sure that you are in a position to track these KPIs.

  • Conduct surveys

    Surveying your employees before you launch your employee recognition program is vital to set a standard. Also, follow up every six months or a year. See how your employee’s answers change over time. It can be a very effective tool to see how successful your employee recognition program is. It will help you find ways to improve your employee recognition program.

  • Get different departments involved in the program

    Although an employee recognition program might be spearheaded by HR, your employee recognition program must be managed like any other business initiative. That is with input and work from many different departments of your company.

  • Create recognition badges based on company values

    You want your employees to be recognized for doing the right things. You can promote the kind of actions and behaviors you want your employees to exhibit by centering your recognition badges around company values.

  • Dedicate .5% - 2% of payroll to rewards

    Determine your max yearly budget for rewards before you set the monetary values of your recognition badges and rewards. That way, you never have to worry about outspending your budget. .5 - 2% of payroll can seem like a lot but, if you don’t think you have the budget for it, look at your yearly bonuses budget. Remove yearly bonuses and use that budget towards rewards. You will spread out that good feeling your staff gets whenever they get an end-of-the-year bonus.

  • Offer experiences and cash

    While employees might tell you they would prefer cash over experiences or gift cards, employees will be less likely to notice an extra $50-$100. Furthermore, surveys show that most employees spend their cash bonuses on bills or other expenses. If you offer your employees gift cards or experience-based rewards, they are more likely to spend the money on something they want rather than something they need. With the reward points or gift card, the employee can buy something associated with their hobby. Alternatively, they can spend some quality time with their loved ones. These memories last longer than a simple $50 tacked onto their paycheck.

  • Promote your employee recognition program constantly

    It’s crucial to not only promote your program before the launch but to also promote it regularly as well. Put up posters, distribute desk cards, and include them in your email signature to constantly remind people about the program. Create videos of the leadership team talking about the program and interview employees about their favorite recognition they have received. If you have a TV in the office, use the Recognize kiosk mode to showcase your recognitions regularly.

  • Offline recognition with meetings and events

    Another key aspect is recognizing people outside of the platform and keeping people motivated. Managers should identify top performers during weekly meetings and make sure to give them a shout-out. The company can recognize the employee with an extensive collection of badges in their company-wide meetings. You can make it an awards ceremony where you print out awards and offer free food to make sure everyone joins.

• Brand your employee rewards and recognition program

  Recognize has a long list of names for employee recognition programs. When you brand a program, you are making it larger than just a recognition program. You can call it something new. It isn't our recognition program; it is Unsung Heros, for instance.

• Recognition backfire

  Don’t let your recognition program backfire. Don’t recognize employees for things they should be doing already, such as showing up on time.

  Everyone should show up on time, and they do not deserve an award for that. Instead, recognize for going above and beyond, such as showing up early. Also, make sure to acknowledge everyone and not single people out. It can cause resentment.

  Let recognition be after the fact and spontaneous. Make sure the recognition is just that, a recognition.

  My boss posted my picture in the company’s lobby as ‘Our Number One Salesman.’ I spent my career trying to prove to prospects and customers that I was concerned with solving their problems and helping them succeed. That, after all, was why I was the number one salesperson. But with one glance, that picture destroyed all that work: turning me, in their eyes, into someone whose goal was to sell to them rather than someone trying to help them buy what they needed.

  - Jeff Bezos

  I got an award once for always being on time. Strangely enough, I was the only one to receive this. The managers seemed really happy for me, but the other employees seemed nonplussed or even dismissive.

  - Jon at a large US-based mega store
• Leadership Buy-in to employee rewards and recognition

  A successful employee awards and recognition program starts with leadership. Once leadership is present and there is an executive sponsor for the program, companies need to switch gears to the next step. That includes creating a communication plan for leaders to be involved in.

  That means a shout-out in the newsletter or maybe a President's award. Furthermore, if the leadership KPIs are incorporated into the award system for employees, positive reinforcement will help companies better navigate their overall goals.

• Pay what your staff deserve

  Paying staff what they deserve is the primary way a company should recognize its employees. If your staff is begging for gift cards, your company needs to pay better.

  Be sensitive to possible unconscious biases we may have. Try to be objective about staff's worth. Get money off the table to focus on the task at hand.

• Employee farewell parties

  Celebrate employees who retire or move on from the company.

  I have been working at my firm as an attorney since September 1986. I have worked for the firm and its owners since that time. I decided when I turned 55 in December 2016 to retire and enjoy family and friends more. At my retirement party in March 2016, I was thrilled to have received a picture album of the employees. I also received a put-together notebook with each person making a suggestion of what to do to enjoy the upcoming time. I also received a gift card to a beautiful Inn.

  - Retired employee from Solomon and Solomon, P.C.

  A lead programmer at our company had found another job that had better pay. He was very important for our organization, but we also knew that he deserved more money than we could offer him. So we threw him a nice going away party and thanked him for all his service.

  - Eric from Qflow Systems
• More company values, less rules

  Rather than focusing on specific behaviors, focus more on values for recognizing an employee. Imagination and creativity are stifled when people are told exactly what to do. When HR ties company values into a recognition program, they are promoting their leadership's KPIs. Take this exercise seriously as company values can make or break a company.

  One example is avoiding certain words in your values, such as fun or authentic. In the Recognize employee rewards and recognition platform, company values come first. Company Admins of Recognize create badges that symbolize the company’s values. These values can have points associated with them that can be redeemed at a later time for gift cards and more.

  Recognize has a growing list of company value ideas you can choose from.

• Promote company values through meaningful recognition

  Make the company values in your employee recognition program visible at all times. Create posters about the company values. Create a large infographic about the company values in your lobby. Make the company values truly a part of the organization.

  Tie in company values to recognition. Sixty-four percent of recognition programs' main goal is to promote company values. While it doesn’t have to be your main goal, it is a strategic advantage to incorporate it. Human resources become a partner with senior leadership to discover and align company values and initiatives. In fact, 66% of companies say a value-driven recognition program promotes a better company image. (source: Globoforce)

• Let's get personal

  Much like remembering everyone’s names, showing you care is a big deal. For an anniversary or birthday, have the president, or someone significant in the organization, give out a personalized gift. (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees pg. 365)

• Integrated and seamless employee recognition

  Integrate third-party tools into your intranet or internal social network, such as Recognize app. Recognize sees 8x more recognitions sent when the employees are using it within their workflow. Staying in the workflow is critical and, in most instances, not that hard to do.

  Recognize app provides integration into Outlook, Sharepoint, Yammer, Slack, and Workplace by Facebook. If your recognition vendor’s website uses responsive design, then you can insert it as an iFrame in your intranet. You’ll need to talk to them first as a few security features have to be implemented.

• Employee Promoter Score (EPS)

  Companies should be surveying their staff at least once a year. Knowing your company's net promoter score (NPS) is considered the most important metric to move your company forward. However, do you know your Employee Promoter Score? The EPS is as important as the NPS.

  Glassdoor gives great insights, but don’t shy away from finding stuff out yourself. Recognize provides an ongoing survey to measure staff sentiment. The survey is often used to maintain your authority on the company.

• Wall of staff awards

  When Marin Software added a kiosk of recognitions on their lobby digital signage, peer-to-peer recognition increased. When something isn't easily visible, such as the typical employee recognition form, you can’t expect staff to be using it. Add a real-time feed of recognitions to company flatscreens to keep recognition highlighted.

  Create award certificates for special accomplishments. Recognize app provides automatic certificate generation using custom embroidery. Companies can print them out and create a wall to highlight special accomplishments.

  For instance, Hughes Network Systems has an Applause section of their intranet that showcases recognition (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees pg. 245). Nordstrom also posts recognition letters on a bulletin board for everyone to read (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees pg. 246).

• Budgeting

  For employee rewards, set up a budget. The World at Work survey shows the average amount spent on rewards is about 1% of payroll. However, that's what people do on average. Is that a good idea to only provide 1% of additional rewards? That's like saying you are doing the minimal amount. Try to go beyond average and do 2-5%. Make sure the rewards system allows you to stay within budget and gives a fair shot to all the employees.

  Recognize provides a strategy excel doc for budgeting a recognition program. Click here to download the budgeting spreadsheet for your employee rewards programs..

• New year's employee party

  Company holiday parties can be something staff are excited about, or they can be ridiculed and avoided. If your culture lacks color, step up the new year's parties by hiring a special music act, a comedian, etc. Make them engage in fun activities like photo booths with props, performers on stilts, drawing contests, and you can also hand out special gifts for employees. Help everyone be a winner and have a great time. If at all possible, do not host the end-of-year party at the office and instead throw the party at a cool venue.

• Cultural celebrations throughout the year

  Hold special events for other holidays, not just end-of-the-year celebrations.

  A construction company in California holds a Thanksgiving party for all its staff. All the staff gets $100 gift cards to the local grocery store. Make sure you are sensitive to other cultures. Ask staff what holidays they celebrate and if they want to host an office party. Allowing staff to exhibit their culture engages them on a personal level and gives other staff access to new worlds and appreciations.

  Another example is cultural and diversity events. Celebrating individual differences and special monthly holidays, such as Black History Month and Pride celebrations.See tips on celebrating Pride at your company.

• Mobile

  Smartphones are now an important part of work cultures, with mobile SaaS nearly doubled since 2016. Mobiles are outperforming Desktops by a long shot and this is why companies need to pay attention to mobile. You need to make sure that the vendors are aware of these things.

  The Recognize team predicts linear growth with mobile over the next decade. As AI does more work for employees, people will become backups for the system, simply pressing buttons. This may result in computers becoming more like tablets or large smartphones.

  Employees could be anywhere, standing in their kitchen or at the dog park working on their company-issued tablet.

  Companies must have a concrete strategy on how to get company communication, core resources, and, yes, employee recognition on mobile. Ease of information is critical for efficiency and error reduction.

  When I get up before dawn and make coffee, I’m not on a computer. However, I’m on my smartphone, and I’m checking Workplace by Facebook for our company to see the latest posts.

  - Employee using Workplace by Facebook on mobile

• Friendly competition amongst staff

  Creating a cutthroat culture where individuals are pitted against each other won’t help productivity. However, creating competition in an isolated setting and between groups of people can drive engagement and interest.

  Corporate wellness programs often incorporate team competition. Sales teams have leaderboards. Create leaderboards across locations or teams. Create competition, not around work, but other things. Create an environment where people want their team to win.

• Adapt to different cultures

  See if your recognition program can use different wording or features depending on the region. In Japan, employees prefer one-on-one recognition done privately. Australia, Latin America, UK, and the USA prefer social employee recognition.

  I was new to the company and was still getting used to the conditions, and I still remember that I worked really hard for the company day and night. I still remember like it was yesterday when my manager came to me and said that I had won the best employee award. It made me feel like I was in heaven, and that was the happiest moment in my career.

  - Employee at Nippon Toyota

• Include contractors

  Incorporate all your staff who are contractors or do not have access to the corporate email. At Recognize, we hear from a lot of companies who want to provide digital employee recognition to their company but worry they won’t be able to connect with staff who don’t have corporate email addresses. The solution is to find a way for these employees to be onboard and authenticated using an employee ID so they can send, receive, and redeem recognitions from shared terminals or their personal devices.

• Public & private recognition

  Allow for recognition to be private or public depending on the recipient’s wishes. Some people are more introverted, and some are more extroverted. Introverted employees will appreciate private recognition while more outgoing employees enjoy giving and receiving public recognition. Provide a program that gives both. This is also true for birthday and anniversary recognition. Older employees especially appreciate more private recognition of tenure and birthdays.

• Client-based employee recognition

  Triumph Property Group uses the Recognize app to send recognition in bulk via a spreadsheet of customer feedback. All levels in the organization are recognized- from leadership to the repair staff.

  A customer recognized me for giving me a great experience. I was totally shocked by the recognition from my coworkers and upper management.

  - Jack from Sprint

• Professional development

  Tie recognition into professional development and skill progression. In the book “People Analytics in the Era of Big Data”, the author notes that once-a-year performance reviews are inadequate. If an employee is great during the last month of a performance review but performs poorly the rest of the year, it can seem as if that employee is fantastic all year round.

  Through continuous employee data gathering, leadership gains real qualitative and quantitative insight into their staff’s performance. Thus, tie a continuous positive feedback mechanism into the performance review process, such as an on-the-spot employee recognition program

• Project-based monthly employee recognition

  When Michael Winburn (program director at HBO) was at Popagency.com as a project manager, he would write amazing emails whenever a project was completed. He would give a shout-out to every employee who worked on the project. The lesson is the more clever and funny, the better the staff engagement. Employee recognition doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to be fun, and from people we respect.

• Individual differences

  Be sensitive to individual differences in rewards or even team outings. For instance, paintball may be fun to some employees and quite the opposite to others. To find what differences are present in your organization, use free or inexpensive tools such as Typeform.com to create surveys. They even have an “employee engagement template” to choose and edit.

• Industry differences

  Different industries are faced with different obstacles and challenges. For instance, the medical field is faced with healthcare burnout.Medical, like any other industry, must evaluate the best strategy as there is rarely an all-size-fits-all strategy for employee engagement.

  In contrast, in the technology industry, where many employees are highly skilled, their recognition scheme may face different obstacles. For instance, oversaturating the group with too much recognition can dilute the meaning. The tools to integrate the rewards program also depend on the people it serves. A Github and Asanantegrations where technology staff earn recognition from great code will serve you well.

  Even in technology, there are different roles. How do you incorporate security and cooking staff who may not have work emails? A rewards program that includes support for SMS communication and personal phone sign-in support can make sure all employees are included.

See how Recognize helps companies promote company values and a culture of appreciation.

Core Strategies for Employee Recognition Ideas

These are the main ideas and components successful companies use to motivate and recognize their employees.

• Social employee recognition

  By making an employee recognition program social, your company benefits in several ways. It can become very popular in your organization, sparking more interest. It can connect your staff across locations. It will rally and focus the company behind specific behaviors, values, or initiatives.

  For it to be social, add a feed of public recognitions in your intranet. Email or notify managers and the recipient of their recognition. Allow people to comment, share or like the recognitions.

  Get buy-in from leadership. If the leadership shows interest, others will be engaged. One important tip is to make sure staff see a feed of recognitions relevant to them. Organizations larger than 150 people should try to segment users into different groups and report on what is relevant to them - the people they actually know.

• Peer-to-peer employee recognition

  Peer-to-peer employee recognition is when any employee can give official praise to another employee in the organization. About 50% of companies that have any kind of recognition utilize peer-to-peer recognition programs (source: World at Work).

  It is meant to be instant and social. At the same time, companies should be sensitive to users who may want to receive recognition privately. The benefits of recognition are huge. In the Recognize app, 90% of staff on the platform report looking to stay longer with their employer and being more connected to their employer.

  Some companies may not have a peer-to-peer employee recognition system. These companies often complain that this system is complicated and time-consuming to build up from the ground. However, when a company starts with small steps, it gets easier and seems possible.

  One person was nominated for the award based on the fact that they had been newly trained on a position and did an outstanding job during a busy time with radio traffic and multiple calls during a storm. This was something a coworker next to this person noticed and was amazed at the professionalism and calmness of this person while working. This was something management would have overlooked as they themselves were busy at the time.

  - Dispatcher from Berks County 911

• Manager-to-peer employee appreciation

  28% of employees report the most memorable recognition they received was from a manager (source: Gallup). All companies with any kind of hierarchy can benefit from manager recognition. Companies with mostly remote employees greatly benefit.

  A logistics group in the USA has drivers on the road 24/7. Peer-to-peer recognition for this group breaks down. Supervisor recognition reinforces their great work when no one else is there to recognize them. Ideally, the program alerts managers of the direct reports that haven’t been recognized recently. This will help guide managers to ensure every employee is recognized once a month.

  My boss gave extra hours and a raise to an employee whose dog had become very sick and he needed more money to cover the medical expenses. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise, so he gave him a small pay raise and increased hours for over a month.

  - Employee at Michael’s
• Leader-to-company employee appreciation

  When a company launches a new product, an earnings report is released. Also, when a big initiative is created, companies will want to be able to give appreciation to the entire company in an easy way.

  Using the Recognize employee rewards program, admins can create an incredible employee reward and recognition program. This program will allow only the executives to acknowledge the great work done by the employees. Then the admins create a group that includes everyone in the company. This way the executive can recognize in one action. This is the same process for manager-to-group recognition.

• Nomination program

  The nomination program is above and beyond the program. The well-known ‘employee of the month’ program is included in this program. Here all the staff vote to determine the top employee for specific categories at different times.

  Decide what time periods make sense for your organization. You can have nominations for the month, the quarter, and the year. Think of the categories that are important to you.

  If you are a consulting company, consider innovation or customer service being important. Innovator of the Quarter or Communicator of the Month both are great places to start. Towards the end of the time period, alert staff that voting is now over for that time period. Have a subcommittee decide who the winners are.

  Don’t restrict yourself to just one person for the winner; feel free to select multiple winners. Don’t just look at who was voted for the most. Look at the reasons behind the nominations. If you keep things systematic, frequent, and democratic, you will actually eliminate favoritism.

  Favoritism is one of the main complaints amongst employees. In the best interest of the company, this should be avoided at any cost.

  I received a 'Best in Staffing' award as part of a team of three recruiters. It was a huge honor because most of the recognized organizations are large, even on multi-national levels. The awards are quite prestigious within the staffing industry, and to be recognized for such a huge honor while being such a small 'blip,’ so to speak, was phenomenal. It felt much more like a personal success, as all three of us felt our own individual dedication and work directly contributed to the award. It was a huge deal and well celebrated within our larger company.

  - Employee from Alliance Group

• Multi-level approver nomination program

  Big corporations require multiple levels of approval for specific awards to be handed out in the organization. They often have periods of voting and periods of choosing a winner.

• Elevate nomination by manager

  Set up the nominations so that managers can highlight peer-to-peer recognitions. City of Allen in Texas has city managers give out employee recognitions for a monthly prize. The admins then choose the winner. In their program, employees can't be the winner twice a year.

• Notify managers automatically of direct report activity

  Set up a top recognition program based on the monthly report of the manager. The managers should send direct reports of the employees working under their supervision monthly. It will allow you to detect which manager is acknowledging which employee. It will help the managers to give proper recognition to the unsung heroes on their team.

• Allow for new award winners

  For nomination voting, set up a system where the top employee can’t be nominated or awarded more than once a year. This way, you will always have at least 12 winners.

• Clear communication plan

  A clear communication plan is required for employee recognition and rewards programs, especially for employee peer recognition programs. Any multimedia approach like YouTube videos, powerpoints, posters, banners, emails can be used for this.

  In Recognize’s FAQ, these assets are available. Leadership can send an email after a month of launching a recognition program. A clear communication strategy can explain the advantages and excite the staff about the program. Furthermore, it can show social proof by quoting leaders.

• Marketing materials

  Once your company has an employee reward and recognition program, consider adding these programs to marketing materials and your Glassdoor company profile. Let the world know how you utilize these tools. Apply for top employers of your region to showcase how you engage and care for employees.

• Recognize who give staff recognition

  Recognize employees who contribute the most to your recognition program. In Recognize, you can see who are the top employees when it comes to receiving recognition across company values, time, and groups.

• Non-monetary employee rewards

  Thinking outside the box is required to deliver an effective non-monetary employee rewards program. Usually, a non-monetary reward will accompany a monetary reward.

  A classic example is a lunch with the CEO; the company pays for lunch, but it is a special experience that you can't buy. Another example is a VIP parking spot. At Recognize, we consider a company sweatshirt or company swag non-monetary rewards. Anything that can’t be easily purchased by the employee. This can be free meals at the office, more freedom like work from home or paid time off, better tools like a Macbook, or a corner office.

  Paid time off is the most popular form of non-monetary reward. In Recognize, you can set different variances on the rewards, such as 15 minutes paid-time-off, one hour, half-day, or full-day. Each can have a value associated with them. We recommend you don’t communicate to employees the specific currency value for the non-monetary rewards.

  Even if not with the CEO, lunch or dinner with a group of important people is a way L'Oreal recognizes their employees.

  They had an important dinner coming up the next day, meeting with some people from France, the director asked her secretary if I was invited. She told her I was not, and he said, 'We should invite her; it’s important for her to be there.' I felt amazing that day!

  - Contractor at L'Oreal

• Monthly group employee rewards

  At Recognize, we recommend highlighting the top employees in your recognition program on a monthly basis. Give the top team a pizza party on the last day of the month. Send a group on a fun adventure together. If your company culture isn’t suited for individual achievement recognition, try group recognition instead.

• Team-based employee recognition

  Create a team-based recognition program where you can recognize entire groups or teams. Create leadership-to-team recognition for friendly competitions, especially during busy periods where everyone needs to be focused on a specific task.

• Reporting for recognition and engagement

  One of the big benefits for managers and admins is to have visibility and insights into big people data. The 2020s are going to be a decade of immense progress with big data. Companies need to be collecting and gaining insights now to stay competitive.

  Engagement Analytics starts with questions and the data answers those questions. Here are some questions to consider.

  • Which groups are utilizing the recognition program the most?
  • How many recognitions are sent each month, quarter, year?
  • How many comments or likes to occur on the recognitions either physically or digitally?
  • Are managers utilizing the program? Which ones? Who isn’t using it?
  • Is the company staying in budget and tracking spot bonuses?
  • Who is redeeming the most rewards?
  • What rewards are the most popular and which are the least popular?
  • How does recognition correlate with job satisfaction?

  These questions can be answered from a digital solution and from the help of pulse surveying.

• Employee Appreciation Week

  Dealogic, an international financial organization, has an appreciation week. It’s like an internal conference of all the things Dealogic has to celebrate, including their most valuable assets- their staff.

• Automatic gift cards for employee rewards

  Provide automatic gift cards to make rewarding employees easier. Companies love the option of vendors like Recognize and Tango Card that provide automated gift card redemption. Automated gift cards free up valuable time for your manager to instead work on bigger projects.

• Staff reward budgeting

  Incorporate reward budgeting to account for the size of groups. For example, a manager of a larger team should be able to give more monetary recognition each month than a manager of a smaller group. The World at Work survey shows the average amount spent on rewards is about 1% of payroll. As mentioned above, 1% is low, and companies should try to go beyond that.

• Know which employees are undervalued

  Incorporate a recognition program that informs HR which managers do not recognize their direct subordinates enough. Give your HR an easy way to observe managers. Notify managers who need help recognizing their employees.

• Special experiences for employee appreciation

  The newer generations care more about experiences than getting things (source: CNBC). Luckily, it is just as easy to create a package of experiences for your employees as it is to buy stuff at Amazon or Target.

  Book a climbing lesson at the local climbing gym, rent a boat for an employee’s family at the local lake or bay, pay for a paintball trip, spa package, or a mixology class. Experiences lead to higher and prolonged happiness; make your company the reason for those experiences.(source: Fast Company).

• Negative feedback

  Don’t be afraid to give private or public negative feedback to an employee. Bridgewater, managing $150B in investments, has public disapprovals of employees, even towards the CEO. By balancing praise and feedback, the employee will know all comments are genuine.

• Visible across locations

  Share positive employee stories with different locations. That’s one of the big benefits of the Recognize app, being able to tell stories that are visible across different locations.

• People analytics

  Incorporate people analytics into the recognition program.Continuously survey staff to get a sense of their feelings over time. Correlate KPIs to the recognition program. Use the recognition data to discover trends—map retention data with engagement data.

  Almost 60% of HR and business leaders don’t have an adequate program to measure and improve employee engagement. For this reason, analytics in your recognition program can be a huge competitive advantage (source: People Analytics in the Era of Big Data: Changing the Way You Attract, Acquire, Develop, and Retain Talent).

• Ask employees to do things

  Asking is a sure-fire way to increase the completion of employee tasks.You can ask your employees to recognize others on a weekly basis. They can share their recognition publicly. Also, you can ask the employees to share their avatar in services like intranet and process improvements and ideas.

• Marketing materials

  Use recognitions in marketing materials and talent acquisition materials. Don’t be shy, and let the world know why your organization is awesome.

• Level-based employee recognition

  When staff receive recognition for all the company values, they can be automatically recognized or nominated for a special award. Ask staff to report to their managers when they have completed all the value awards to keep track of this. In Recognize, they can see this in their user profile.

• Spot bonus internationally

  For companies that are international, the recognition program is much more complex if money is exchanged. For completely non-monetary recognition programs or ones around Status, Access, and Power (link to SAPS), sending a spot bonus across the pond may not be a problem.

  USA multinational enterprises employ around 40 million international workers.If an organization wants a whole company, one family recognition program, they will have to determine the exchange of peer-to-peer bonuses across currencies.

• Office incentives for employees

  In Recognize, companies can create any kind of tasks that managers approve in the incentive based app. Different employees can complete the tasks specific to them.

  Some tasks can be applied to all employees. The following are a set of examples.

  • General ideas for office incentives
  • Completing security, discrimination, diversity, job-specific training
  • Completing online training or extended learning
  • Carpooling to work
  • Meditating for 15 min
  • Post about the company on social media
  • Write a Glassdoor, Yelp, or Google Places review
  • Sharing a company Linkedin post
  • Doing weekend community service
  • Taking an extra shift every week for a month
  • Quit smoking for a week/month/quarter/year

  Specific role company incentives

  • Perfect display of products at the grocery store
  • Accounting completing quarterly taxes
  • Bug-free release of new services
  • Submitting an innovation idea report
  • High customer satisfaction score

• Company Value Acronym

  Can you create an acronym for your company values? This is a shortcut to branding your program. For instance, a hospital may have the CARE program: Community, Asking for Help, Right Choice, and Exceed Expectations. What is an acronym of your company values?

See how Recognize helps companies promote company values and a culture of appreciation.

Creative Employee Reward Ideas

Make your recognition program as unique as you can to create culture and buzz.

• Marching band

  Being outrageous is how you can go viral and create buzz. When a team or individual has reached a huge milestone, send in the marching band! Perhaps someone at your company has a daughter or son in a high school marching band who can march right through your office at 4:30 pm on a Friday. Your company will talk about it for years to come.

• Pass the mascot

  If your company or team is new to employee recognition, passing the mascot is a simple program that is easy to get started. It is a way to give thanks each week based on your company values in the form of a physical item. At Breakthrough.com, their mascot is the duck because ducks seem calm, but their feet under the water are moving quickly (source: Recognize)

  The holder of the chalice presents a colleague with this commendation for feats of strength and stamina in the line of duty during our Friday Hour of Awesomeness.

  - Peter Shanley, past Director of Strategic Programs at Neo
• Recognize most professional on Zoom

  Is one of your employees putting an effort to appear professional in Zoom meetings while working from home? Surprise the most put together on Zoom each month with a fun award.

• Games that create awareness

  At Facebook, the whole month of October is dedicated to security, with a twist. Employees are encouraged to attempt to hack other employees' computers. For instance, an employee may leave a thumb drive with a virus on someone's desk. If that person plugs it into the computer, they lose. Staff earns points and prizes for successfully tricking other employees. The result is a fun exercise and creates awareness around cyber security.

• More friends

  Having friends increases retention. Metrobank in the UK has top employees of the company get together for outings, like cooking classes. Another idea, host team pizza parties or play games together. Try to connect employees together and celebrate common things they have.

• Help staff set goals

  If staff can set goals, then the company can recognize the employee for their accomplishment when they achieve their goals. The best employees crave career progression, and showing how they systematically reached those goals is critical in an engaged workforce. Companies are turning to OKR software, such as GroSum, to help manage this process. Plus, many SaaS OKR companies will also provide thought leadership to guide companies along the process.

• Tie recognition to fun company activities

  Popagency.com in Seattle had employees write a poem to accompany their chili cook-off. Ideas Collide uses its nomination program in Recognize app to vote and award employees who have the best Halloween costume. Corvallis Clinic in Oregon has a contest around pumpkin carving.

• Host unconferences at your office

  An unconference is when everyone votes on employee-generated topics around a general idea. In San Francisco and around the world, Lean Startup Circle hosts monthly or quarterly meetings where anyone can present a startup or business challenge. Then people break out into these ad hoc discussion groups. Do this for two or three rounds. Close by coming together and presenting what you learned. Afterward, celebrate the people who stood out.

• Ring the alarm

  Bells aren't just for sales. When the marketing team has a successful advertising A/B test, they can ring the bell. When the engineering team finishes a big project, they too can ring their own special alarm. Allow groups to show their uniqueness.

• Recognizing your drivers

  Companies with drivers, and other employees on the road, can recognize them through text messaging or mobile apps. Provide links to perks or rewards at either local establishments or a national gift card. Since they aren’t with anyone else, they will rarely participate in peer-to-peer employee recognition, so focus on manager-to-peer recognition.

• Text messaging

  Text message employees when they are recognized. Try to connect with your staff where they like to communicate. Texting has become an important part of our social lives. It is a quick way to deliver recognition instantly and conveniently.

  Shining Star Therapy in Chicago uses it to recognize their remote staff. Text message recognition is a great solution to communicating with staff who don’t have email addresses.

• IDEO's storytelling

  IDEO, an innovative design studio based in Palo Alto, California, has IDEO Stories. Employees nominate others to tell a story in front of the company or a group. It is like a TEDx inside their company. This recognizes unique characteristics through the nomination process and connects employees together through storytelling.

• Recognize staff who do charity work

  Create that halo effect and strengthen your employee’s work at your company by implementing charity programs. When staff do charity, give them special recognition. Provide a ceremony or organize storytelling about the experience.

  I was recognized for helping the United Way fundraiser effort by my last employer. At the end of the drive, we raised more money than last year. The committee gave me a bonus in appreciation.

  - Employee from Deloitte

  An entire group of kids came to the company and thanked me for the work that I did for them in the summer. We held a camp for low-income kids, and it ended up being an all-day thing for two straight months. The entire experience was just so rewarding, and having them all get together and come over to thank me was really one of the most emotional days of my life.

  - Jordan Lardani of YMCA

• Secret shopper recognition

  At Krispy Kreme, they send secret shoppers to order custom donuts at stores. When the employees perform well, they are recognized by leadership for showing patience and compassion for customers.

• Physical card-based recognition

  Physical recognition cards are a solution to providing instant recognition to employees who don’t use computers. It feels great as well. Something is literally handed out when someone does great work. The cards can have quotes, fortunes, or horoscopes. The point is to make it fun. Don't forget to include instructions on what to do next.

• Company Store Credits

  Do you use a company store? If not, check out providers like Axiom. They have an API to allow recognition programs like Recognize to allow employees to get company items automatically. Regardless of your recognition program, give away mugs or pullovers that staff want by simply giving them credit in your company store when they go above and beyond.

• Play twenty-one

  Take one from 'poker runs' and play twenty-one for recognition. Every employee can get a card when they do something awesome each month. At the end of the month, all the employees with two cards can play 21. The person who ends up with the highest hand wins a reward. The point is to make work fun! Be serious when you need to be and be lighthearted whenever possible.

• Keep adding new company values to your employee rewards program

  We get it; you’ve already set up an awesome value-based rewards program. However, make sure to keep it fresh by adding new ones and removing old ones. Some values are your foundation and you should not change those. However, others should be added and removed for quarterly initiatives. Check out a list of ideas for company values.

• Give to employees' children

  Pay for summer programs, special classes, or recognize the achievements of the employees' children. For instance, Valassis Communications gives graduation gifts to employees’ children who are graduating (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees).

• Newsletter

  Create a quarterly journal or monthly company newsletter. Have a section that highlights outstanding employees and what they accomplished.

  Label House Group Limited did just that. In their internal newsletter, the section “Caught You Doing Something Right” highlights employees who demonstrate company values and attitudes (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees pg. 259).

  .. My Boss then told the leadership in the company about my ideas, and they also loved it. They ended up flying me out to the headquarters to talk about what I had done and how it could be done nationwide. I was given a fast track to promotion and highlighted in a company email chain about the quarterly success stories.

  - Portia Harris at Hewlett Packard

• Promote recycling

  Recognize staff who recycle or use alternative transportation. Corvallis Clinic in Oregon has an alternative transportation week, and they create a recognition badge to symbolize that accomplishment in Recognize.

• Recognize wellness

  Do special weekly wellness challenges. There are whole enterprise products dedicated to wellness, or you can do it homegrown. Find a program of your choice on sites like Capterra.

  Recognize has a series of wellness badges to take advantage of in a wellness program. Give these out to staff when they accomplish goals. The badges can have a value behind them to be redeemed in a rewards catalog.

  Check out the Recognize Wellness article for more tips and to download the wellness badges.

• Townhalls

  Host celebration gatherings or “town halls” where you highlight the successes of the company and employees. Make it a surprise for the added wow factor.

  A couple of my coworkers told our boss that they had noticed me doing very well in my first few months. During an employee meeting, I was asked to come up and be recognized for that, and they gave me a little gift card. I appreciated it so much, and I've never seen anything like that at another workplace.

  - Employee at Oregon Pacific Bank

  A friend of mine published a paper in Science. My advisor received the email about the acceptance before she did and booked a massive celebratory breakfast for all of us before we got into the lab! The look on her face, and all of ours, was so memorable!

  - Student at MIT

  The company I work for decided to throw everybody a surprise party just to meet our sales quotas for the week. It was an extremely unexpected occasion, and it really made everybody feel like we were appreciated within the firm.

  - Employee at Liberty Inc.

• Location competition

  Create a competition between office locations in a similar region. See who can produce the most in a donation competition or sales competition. Show a leaderboard of different offices by sales per capita.

  All the local stores in the area compete every month to sell a specific product. This month that item is cookies. The store that sells most of the designated items will have a $1000 bonus awarded to the manager for buying things employees need. This is a real incentive. The store just 20 minutes from where I live got this award last month.

  - Michael from Family Dollar

  Our store was rated #1 in the district for both sales and meeting the budget. Our supervisor came down and gave us all gift cards, and we had a pizza party with soda.

  - Employee from Tedeschi Food Shops

• International kiosks

  For international companies, set up kiosks of recognition for different offices. Have the program be centralized for them while being visible across the company.

• Public blog praising employees

  Publicly blog about employees doing amazing things. Allow employees to write on topics they care about. Have a people's choice award posted to the company blog each quarter or year.

• Help overwhelmed employees

  Create visibility into who is overworked, overstressed, or just needs help either at the managerial or employee levels. Creating a culture where saying I need help is a good thing because it improves things moving forward. Reward employees who speak up about themselves or others. Reward employees who take on extra work to help another employee.

• Remember names

  Following Dale Carnegie's lead from his classic, 'How to Win Friends and Influence People,’ people’s names are the most beautiful sound they can hear. Help the executives learn the staff’s names. Help the executives connect with the employees on a first-name basis.

• Onboarding stories

  When new employees are hired, ask them fun questions about their past, have the manager present the new employee in a speech for the whole company in a monthly new hires party.

• Recognize new employees

  When a new employee is hired, make them familiar with the company's recognition program by giving them an automatic new employee recognition.

  Recognizehas a few ways of doing this. One is through the anniversary program, where employees are automatically welcomed to the company within the first week of service and given points to redeem a reward.

• Recognize employees beyond the workplace

  Showcase artwork by employees, like they do at REI, or have monthly fireside chats at lunch and showcase employees' extracurricular activities.

• Anniversary roast

  Employees with 10+ years of service and who contributed significantly to the organization, surprise them with a special event presentation. Tell them it is a mandatory meeting when it is actually a party and roast.

• Be edgy if you can

  Recognition doesn’t have to always come in the form of pure love. Showing you care for someone can be represented in different ways. Certain personalities may prefer pranks, a roast, or friendly teasing.

  A stealth startup in San Francisco puts popups under people’s chairs, so there is a loud pop when they back up. Cover a colleague’s desk entirely in posted notes. In the right environment, it will make the office more down to earth.

• Make fun of ourselves and don't take ourselves too seriously

  Recognize employees who lighten the mood. At Recognize, customers use the “squirrel” badge for people being hyperactive or coming up with a lot of ideas. Have fun and be lighthearted with employee recognition.

See how Recognize helps companies promote company values and a culture of appreciation.

Perks for Employee Recognition Ideas

Perks are what set the top 100 companies from the rest. Thankfully, you too can provide Google-level perks for your company with ease.

• Hotel upgrades

  Give hotel upgrades to hard-working, on-the-road employees. For those employees on the road, finding ways to engage them used to be limited, but today with the internet, we can book or rent or contact just about anyone. Next time a hard-working employee finishes a day, tell them they’ve been upgraded to a penthouse.

• Onsite massage or Massage Envy gift card

  Massage Envy is a partner of Recognize for gift cards. Another easy way for employees to choose their reward. If they want to get a free massage, they can get one with their points. Companies not using Recognize App have many options for delivering a message to an employee who needs it.

  Employees who sit all day and employees on their feet all day, both benefit from a chair massage or more.

  Cryotherapy can be a social activity because two people can go into the freezer together. Sometimes it is easiest to just give the cash to the employee either as points in Recognize or in real dollars through your payroll system. They can choose how to spend their wellness dollars.

  Ensure the redeemers report back what they did so staff isn’t tempted to spend the money frivolously.

• We give trips away

  Enabling employees to connect more with their families is a great way to recognize staff. If you offer special trips or anything that requires planning, either outsource it to a vendor or make sure you complete it on time. Staff feels unappreciated if promised a special gift and the company doesn’t deliver.

• Provide conveniences

  Wash the car, wash the dog, cut their hair, or fix the bike. Living in Silicon Valley, you see a lot of these perks in great companies.

  Zynga had their bike repair truck outside HQ every week. Google has an onsite barber for staff haircuts. Although we can’t all afford a barber or car detail team on payroll, most companies can afford to offer this as occasional perks. Bring in an onsite car wash or barber for a once-a-quarter event.

• Groupon for remote employees

  Find special Groupons in the towns of your remote workers to say thanks in a special way while saving money. We all know a Groupon is a great gift for friends and family, and it makes an even better gift for remote workers.

  While many companies are moving away from remote workers, if remote workers are outgoing and self-starters, companies can save money by hiring employees living in lower-cost areas. Collaboration tools like Slack, Screenhero, Yammer, Google Hangouts, and Recognize make remote working much easier.

  Next time remote employees do a great job, send them a Groupon in their town. Make it surprising and spontaneous.

• Recruitment recognition

  Provide recruitment recognition when staff refers new employees. Deem Inc. in San Francisco gave $2,500 to $5,000 as a recruitment bonus when referring a new employee.

• Give away house cleanings

  The more employees a company has, the more expensive programs become. For instance, it is challenging to give house cleaning to every employee when you employ thousands of workers. That’s where the employee recognition program comes in. By utilizing the democratic recognition scheme, people can redeem having their house cleaned once every month for a year or once a quarter using their points. That way, only people who want it will get it.

  Clearly, companies can give away house cleaning in various ways, with it being a redeemable reward as one of them. For instance, top employees or support agents could receive this. With more and more employees working from home, this is a great gift. House repairs or improvements are other options.

  Another option is using TaskRabbit. The Recognize platform includes TaskRabbit as a reward option staff can redeem with the recognitions they earn. Even if you don't use Recognize, it is possible to buy TaskRabbit for someone else.

• Conferences

  Send employees to conferences who show specific abilities. In gamification theory, it is said users crave status, access, power, and stuff (SAPS). By enabling employees to attend conferences, you are providing access to your employees. When you give staff access, it is more meaningful than purely monetary rewards.

• Mentoring

  Provide opportunities for recognized employees to be a mentor or mentee. Mentoring platforms will facilitate more mentorship. Offload the task to a service such as Mentorcloud or a women-specific mentoring platform, like Glass Breakers.

• Monthly outings

  Get staff together on a monthly basis for an offsite outing, such as a cooking class, go-karting, or a happy hour.

• International employee reward catalogs

  For international companies, create separate staff reward catalogs for different currencies.

• Luxury cars

  Enterprise car rental offers many luxury cars in most cities. Give a top employee a Lamborghini or Porsche for the day.

• Work from home

  Working from home has become more prevalent due to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2019.In the past, working from home has been treated with mixed feelings from leadership. Find a middle ground and reward high-achieving employees with the option to work from home.

  Companies are only as strong as their weakest links. Disruptive employees are more prone to interrupt others in open office plans. That’s one reason to push Friday as a good day for top employees to work from home.

  Working from home makes sure people are held accountable through online communication tools like Slack, Hipchat, or email.

• Nap pods

  Recognize employees who aren’t afraid to go against the norm for the good of the company. One example is power naps at work. Innovative companies like Google have nap pods, a place tired employees can take a quick snooze.

  Before the age of open offices, it was the norm for managers to shut their windows and take a nap after lunch. Lack of sleep lowers your IQ and makes you less productive (source: Business Insider).

  Encourage your staff to nap and even give an award each quarter to the nappers, all the people who took a nap to boost their IQ.

• Make corporate recognition Buzzworthy

  Really thinking outside of the box is needed to be buzzworthy and create a dedicated culture. An unnamed San Francisco tech company throws annual galas for no particular reason. The parties are famous for being extravagant.

  For instance, the CEO will hand people wrapped 100 $1 bills. This philosophy can be tied to employee recognition, rewards, and culture in general. What emotions do you want to bring up when staff think of your company?

• Work retreats

  Work retreats for high-achieving / overworked teams to exotic places is a nice perk. Salesforce has been known to rent a mansion in Hawaii for an entire workweek. This allows workers to relax, have a great team-building adventure, and still get work done.

• Year supply of beer

  Use unique perks in attracting and retaining talent. The startup Hipster made headlines for their ridiculous employee perks listed on the hiring section of their website. They offered things like a year’s supply of PBR.

  A gym membership can cost a company $40-80/employee/month and can mean so much more to general employee happiness. Take it a step further, and pay the employees to go to the gym. It is no secret humans come up with great ideas while exercising.

• Give mindfulness

  Surprise your employee with calming activities when they are overworked, stressed, or were able to achieve a goal. These activities can include on-site yoga or mindfulness meditation for best results.

  More and more HR service startups are inventing programs in B2B mindfulness and meditation, yoga, and massages.

  As employers, productivity is earned back through smarter, more creative employees. Research has shown an increase in brain matter after one month of daily meditation (source: Harvard).(source: Men's Health).

See how Recognize helps companies promote company values and a culture of appreciation.

Non-Monetary Employee Reward Ideas

Non-monetary experiences as employee recognition leave a lasting impression on your staff that can be shared with others.

• CEO Cards

  Create a process to allow anyone to ask the CEO, or one of the executives, to send handwritten cards congratulating staff on engagements, special events, or condolences.

  A popular US airline has such a process where you can submit a form in their intranet that goes to the executive assistant. They will ensure the cards are set up and the CEO can sign special messages. Let the staff know the entire organization cares about them. If a 50,000 person airline can do it, so can your company.

• Book Club recognition

  Utilize your company communication tools like Microsoft Teams or Workplace by Facebook to create Book Clubs on various topics. Create fun rewards for employees who finish books with virtual or in-person gatherings. If virtual, pay for dinner and drinks to be delivered. With Uber Eats, companies can now deliver champagne, snacks, and nearly just about anything.

  Beyond book clubs, give employees the ability to buy books that improve their careers. Any book they want you should buy for them.

• Charity of employees' choice

  Popagency.com in Seattle has a donation matching system as a benefit. Any nonprofit an employee donates to, up to a certain point, the company will match it. Another strategy is to make donations on behalf of employees as a reward. This can be done either via your company rewards catalog or as a bonus for doing great work.

• Guest speaker

  Amazon has guest speakers on a nearly weekly schedule for all their HQ employees to enjoy. You don't have to be Amazon to hire special guests to come speak to your company every once in a while.

  Recognize special employees by inviting them to have break-off sessions with the guest speakers in the morning before the company-wide talk.

• Status, Access, Power, and Stuff (SAPS)

  Give staff who show leadership in specific areas access to a committee to make unique decisions. This follows the gamification acronym SAPS, or status, access, power, and stuff.

  These are the dials you can turn to keep staff engaged. By allowing your staff to be a part of a special meeting where they make decisions, you are engaging that employee both in status as well as power.

• Fly a loved one out to visit

  Surprise and delight a loved one, family member, or friend to visit a traveling employee. This will boost their morale.

• Automatically give recognition based on actions in other tools or systems

  This one may sound complicated, but with Zapier.com or a bit of programming magic, companies can allow one system to feed into many systems now. This is mainly thanks to APIs and Webhooks.

  For instance, admins can now use the Recognize employee recognition platform to recognize someone when they have automatically recognize someone when they are added to a spreadsheet.Another example is a customer support agent joining the team. They can earn recognition automatically through Zapier.

• Unexpected surprises

  Surprise your employees with random gifts or perks. Ahead of company meetings, randomly tape gifts under the chairs. Email the company saying that the first person to respond gets two tickets to the game or show.

• Mail them a company praise card

  This simple but meaningful gesture has a strong ROI on the cost of creating, mailing, and printing. The good news is now there are tools like Canva, Envato, Shutterstock to get you started with creating unique templates.

• Name things after employees

  Do you have a cafeteria or cafe? Name a drink or a sandwich after an all-star employee. Southwest Airlines named the overhead bins after each of their 25k employees (source: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees pg. 255).

  The TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm has an episode on this topic when Larry David, the creator of Seinfeld, obsesses over having a sandwich named after him at a popular restaurant. Larry David in the show, and in real life, is nearly a billionaire. Even with all the money in the world, what he wants is his name on the board.

• Inspire employees' children & help the community

  Inspire staff high school or college-aged children to participate in one-day sessions where they come up with a plan on how to help our communities and the company. Present the ideas, and the company implements the best idea.

• Ideation program

  Recognize employees for coming up with great ideas in your ideation program.

  In 2014, I took the initiative in developing an API and backend system that would assist in real-time notifications of project and work status. I submitted this as a project proposal after rapid prototyping. The next thing I get is a direct call from the CTO and CIO telling me that this is a product quality item and that they want to develop it for resale. I helped head the team to bring out the product. When it was pilot tested, it was purchased by three of our largest clients. Not that long after, I was presented a bonus check and plaque by the CEO at my own office during a town hall. Highlight of my career.

  - Joseph Rice at ISGN

  We are a fairly new company, and quite early on in my career with them, I felt I made a big impact in how the company worked. I scripted a program that made our system much more efficient. My supervisor was impressed and immediately took it to one of the higher-ups. Being fresh out of college and an entry-level employee, it really meant a lot. An email was sent out thanking me in front of other coworkers, and a few months down the line, I was offered a promotion in the programming department. It felt amazing and gave me a lot of hope about my future.

  - Employee from Recognos Financial
• Hackathons

  Similar to how Google used to have their 20% program, it allows teams to form on a biannual basis to come up with new ideas and question old habits in a hackathon. You can use tools to manage the hackathon and follow processes like business model canvas. Recognize employees for creating new programs in the company that fixes problems.

• Corner office

  Trading offices for one month is a win-win. It is a fun perk for employees, and it creates an environment for upper management to mingle with colleagues.

• VIP parking

  Put a parking spot or two right in front of the office for employees to earn or redeem.

• Lunch with the CEO

  Give the opportunity for top employees to have lunch with the senior leadership and discuss concerns or ideas.

Remote worker employee recognition ideas

Since Covid-19 accelerated the pace towards remote employment, engaging in distributed, remote teams is top of mind in the 2020s.

• Add communication tools beyond email and pager

  Communicating with all employees digitally on an instant message platform is critical. Employees are across offices, geographic locations., and now due to covid-19 that wrecked 2020, many more employees are working from home. To create that global communication system, companies need a hub. Also, companies that adopt these systems see a reduction of at least 48%.Internal email is dying, and instant communication chat is here to stay.

  Having video calling and private messaging is really important for workplaces. Powered by the algorithm of Facebook, companies can have important posts rise to the top of the news feed.Workplace integrates into Recognize for employee recognition and other tools via a chatbot interface.

• Workplace by Facebook for company communication

  Workplace is a social feed with video calling and private messaging. Powered by the algorithm of Facebook, companies can have important posts rise to the top of the news feed. Workplace integrates into Recognize for employee recognition and other tools via a chat bot interface.

• Slack for company communication

  The darling of Silicon Valley went public and was acquired by Salesforce. At the time of this writing, we’ll see how Slack fares against Microsoft Teams. However, Slack is a first mover and a customer-centric product changing the way companies communicate. Integrations are through menus and commands when chatting.

• Microsoft Teams for company communication

  Much like what Microsoft does, they come after other products, copy some of their features and try to innovate in their own ways. MS Teams is showing to be a strong competitor as they continue to roll out interesting features for chatting and communicating, such as the Commute Feature.

  Recognize and other tools can integrate into MS Teams by becoming menus and windows. MS Teams combines the best of Sharepoint with Slack into one tool for Microsoft 365 (formally Office 365) customers.

• Hiring for remote work

  Beyond giving employees praise, companies want a strong company culture. That means hiring smart people right at the outset. For remote employees, consider hiring based on self-motivation.

  Employees who report self-motivation are more likely to rate themselves as productive at home. Also, employees with many roommates can get distracted. Further, outgoing employees who are more likely to communicate digitally fare well in remote, sight out of mind roles.

• Clear obligations

  No surprise to learn that Recognize research found that when employees have clear expectations and obligations, then they are more productive at home. This relates to employee recognition because if you make it clear how they can succeed, and they succeed, you can give them recognition for the job well done.

• Online class subscriptions

  With Covid-19 causing so many people to be locked indoors, a great way to train and engage employees is by offering online classes. Classes for career advancement or offer for employee's families to take classes online as a perk. Companies encouraging lifelong learning will benefit.

• Home exercise equipment

  Pelotons are all the rage, but you don’t have to spend thousands to help your employees get better exercise when at home. Things could be as simple as jump rope or five-pound weights. A step-up is a workout bench or a pull-up/hang board. Massage guns are hot right now, and other equipment can be offered as rewards or gifts for hard workers or years of service.

Frontline employees

Many organizations are not only back office enterprises. Many need to think about their stores, factories, and hospitals.

• Utilize SMS to engage frontline workers

  Text messaging is the tool to reach frontline workers in employee recognition.Recognize allows employees to log in with a telephone number and verify via text message. They receive text message notifications when recognized and can then log in to their smartphone to redeem a reward.

• Utilize person email addresses

  From a security perspective, companies want to control company communications. However, it is perfectly acceptable to email staff to their personal email address for receiving recognition and instructions on how to redeem rewards.

• Kiosks for iPads or flat screens

  Employees who work in factories or hospitals should be able to see the recognitions occurring in their organization via TVs or iPads. All levels of the organization can have access. Even night shift staff, such as cleaning staff, can create recognitions from the iPads using their telephone to sign in.

• Custom tailored award certificates

  Often times frontline workers appreciate physical recognition. Make certificates custom tailored to the achievement. Recognize has a set of certificates here.

  To further help companies create staff award certificates, Recognize is building award generators. Try the printable years of service award certificate generator for free.

• Manager reports

  Managers need visibility into their teams. How will all the managers give recognition to those who need it or deserve it every month for years? That’s why bringing reporting to managers' inboxes will help them be great managers.

Final Words

• Employees are the main assets of a company. To successfully run your company, you should provide them with proper motivation. A tailored employee recognition program can successfully provide your employees with this motivation.

  You can utilize any of the abovementioned employee recognition ideas. If you require any assistance, Recognize will be right here to assist you.

See how Recognize helps companies promote company values and a culture of appreciation.