100 Low or No-Cost Employee Rewards
Here are some suggested rewards that we have found work well over the years:
- 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.