100 Low or No-Cost Employee Rewards

• Giving flowers.
• Let employees nominate others due an award.
• Give a hamper filled with goodies.
• Give a “pass around” award.
• Declare days of appreciation for outstanding contributions.
• Give restaurant vouchers.
• Organise a free lunch.
• Allow greater employee participation in creating the team identity and branding.
• Give team based reward and recognition days/half days.
• Allow top performers to “go shopping”.
• Give novelty awards e.g. an energiser bunny for those who just keep going and going! A toy road runner for those who work really fast!
• Send notes of appreciation.
• Allow occasional controlled lateness.
• Give scratchies to those who offer exceptional service.
• Send notes of appreciation to the family for exceptional work. e.g. lots of overtime or travelling.
• Publicly list thank-yous and successes on posters in common areas.
• Give a magazine subscription for one year.
• Give subsidised travel.
• Use representative of the month/year awards.
• Give a nice pen.
• Give a plum assignment.
• Provide one month of dry cleaning.
• Provide one month fitness club membership.
• Support and subsidise special training.
• Provide a massage, facial or manicure.
• Install a home computer.
• Upgrade the company car.
• Provide a hot air balloon ride.
• Provide a parachute jump.
• Provide a harbour trip for family.
• Champagne brunch.
• Gift voucher.
• Case of beer.
• Kids toys.
• Newsletter feature about staff.
• Relief from personal chores e.g. getting car washed/groomed, lawn mowed for a month.
• Spend time with the employee.
• Surprise doughnuts/muffins/ Easter eggs.
• Surprise picnic at a local park.
• Life Saver award – give Life Saver candies and a personal certificate of appreciation.
• Catered dinner served by the manager.
• Printed T-shirts with a special message.
• Use employees in commercials.
• Allow employees to name delivery vehicles with children’s names.
• Pay parking fines for a month.
• Have pot luck dinner.
• Give bed and breakfast breaks.
• Give cash for suggestions that save money.
• Let white collar worker spend a day with the CEO.
• Take families to theme/leisure parks.
• Spread positive rumours about team members (be careful with this one though!!)
• Acknowledge the achievements of employee’s children in the newsletter.
• Print awards on individual’s business cards e.g. sales representative of the year.
• Have employee breakfasts with the boss.
• Invite spouses to evening functions.
• Send get well/congratulations cards to employee family members. Show genuine interest.
• Give a day off on pay if employees refer new hires that make it past the probation period.
• Give tickets to sporting events.
• Grant unpaid leave for personal requests.
• Introduce flexitime arrangements.
• Subject to exceptional performance, give a one off extra week’s holiday.
• Consider offering other benefits to staff at no cost e.g. dry cleaning pick up, car wash/oil change/service in the car park, shoe repair service.
• Give cash bonuses.
• Give real gold coins.
• Give $20-$100 bills to employees who perform.
• Leave cash with thank you cards on employee desks, where they will be seen.
• Give small, but permanent, pay rises to reward outstanding performance.
• Give small cash presents at Christmas and on birthdays.
• Offer cash incentives for improvements in productivity.
• Use fake cash to reward employees during meetings to assess product knowledge. At the end of the meeting use the fake cash to run an auction for prizes.
• Give one off cash rewards for high scores on performance evaluations.
• Use extra effort tokens awarded by co-workers. These are redeemable towards other prizes/gifts.
• Reward with company stock.
• Get your employees to put 6 percent of their pay at risk. Pay a sliding percentage of this amount based on how close the department comes to its annual goals. Less than 80% means no increase; 80-100% means a 3-6% increase; 101-150% means an increase of 7-19%.
• Implement profit share bonuses.
• Implement gain share bonuses.
• Give tickets to concerts.
• Give movie tickets.
• Give a rental limo ride.
• Offer wholesale purchase discounts.
• Give ‘thumbs up awards” exchangeable for merchandise.
• Give televisions and/or VCRs.
• Allow some choice with uniforms.
• Reward with food.
• Give recognition trophies/plaques.
• Give lotto tickets.
• Give female employees a free “Make-over” or time at a salon.
• Give a free manicure/pedicure.
• Have a party for no reason at all.
• Order in Pizza for lunch.
• Have an annual achievers banquet for staff and families.
• Take your employees out to lunch on their birthdays.
• Have more fun around the office.
• Consider merit badge awards. The honouree could get $50.00. Five or more awards could get an extra $100.00.
• Have an employee of the month scheme voted by all employees.
• Consider using a Pacesetter award. As a Pacesetter, an employee receives a certifi cat e, a new business card that carries the term Pacesetter and a lavish night out. You might want to add preferential discounts on company merchandise.
• Buy a real coffee machine for the staff kitchen.
• Have an annual drawing for each of the employees who have participated in the suggestion scheme.
• Give an employee whose idea is implemented 15% of the savings achieved in the first two years.
• New product suggestions receive awards of up to 3% of gross sales for the first year.