Top 5 Creative Ways to Recognise and Reward Employees

This year has been no easy ride for businesses and the individuals within them. Since the pandemic forced a lot of us to work remotely, finding the motivation to persist with our everyday tasks has been a challenge. It is now more important than ever that employers recognise and reward their staffs' efforts to continue working through these difficult times.

Although recent announcements encourage people to work from home once again if possible, there are still many effective ways you can reward your staff for their efforts – and give them the extra boost of motivation they may feel they are lacking. Although business theorists including Herzberg and Taylor suggest that money is the best way to motivate staff, this ignores the additional benefits of non-monetary achievements, such as an improved sense of achievement and self-esteem.

With this in mind, we discuss the top five monetary and non-monetary ways to motivate staff.

Health care happiness

To truly show your employees how much you value not only their labour but their health too, offer them some financial help with their healthcare. Perhaps this could be their employee of the month reward or a worker of the year prize, or just a random time to show your appreciation. Whatever the cause for responding to their efforts is, opting to do this in the form of healthcare costs will help show your value for them.

Whether this is through helping them pay for their prescriptions or pay a year of private health care for them, there are many ways you can help ensure your employees’ health and wellbeing is supported.

Gift vouchers

Now that we can return to shopping outdoors again, help your staff out with their retail therapy and provide them with gift vouchers to use. Gift cards for the local shopping mall is something your staff members are sure to appreciate.

If shopping isn’t quite their preferred choice of activity however, offering gift vouchers with a slight twist is also something you could opt for. For example, paying for a free cinema showing to the movie of their choice including all the snacks and slush machine combinations they desire or funding a mini-golf experience at a venue nearby, or even a trampoline park they’ve been eager to have a go at – gifts can come in more ways than one!

Dinner on the house

As previously mentioned, shopping sprees may not always be your employees’ preferred choice of activity. However one thing for certain is that food will always be a value the entire business shares. What better way to motivate staff than by financing their dining experience then? For staff you feel have set an example the last month, or for ones that have maintained a close corporate culture with their colleagues despite working from home, pay the bill at the restaurant they crave the most.

Delegate their workload

In an ideal world, we would all have the choice as to what tasks we do and don’t do at work, depending on what we enjoy and what we feel is more of a burden. Well, why not give your staff the power to decide this? Rather than rewarding the employee of the month with a bottle of bubbly, allow for them to delegate one their tasks to their boss to do instead – the ultimate reward!

To ensure that everyone’s workload remains balanced and fair, treat this reward in a trade style way – whereby for the task they chose to give away, this is replaced by a task they’d prefer to do instead. Simple!

Employee of the month

Although this is a common process that is used across a lot of businesses regardless of the nature of them, innovate your employee of the month award up with some quirky incentives. For example, purchase a red carpet for them to strut down the office on in front of everyone to give them the five minutes of fame they deserve.

Or, write a hand-written letter to your colleague and let them know exactly what their highlight moments have been this month to show you have taken the time to recognise their efforts. The more creative ways to show your appreciation the better!

All your employees deserve a treat every now and then, whether this be monetary or not, to show your acknowledgement and appreciation for their everyday efforts. Since nowadays developing a strong corporate culture is vital for a business’s internal success, it’s vital your staff feel appreciated and are rewarded in more ways than just a payslip.