Reward and recognition ideas to make your employees thrive

What are the differences between rewards and recognition?

Reward and recognition are often tied together and mistakenly seen as the same thing. While they both demonstrate the act of showing appreciation, it’s important to understand their differences. 

 

While they’re different, rewards and recognition work best together. Recognition is a brilliant way of making appreciation part of your business’ everyday culture, while rewards take that recognition to a higher level and can be used to reinforce specific behaviour aligned to your business’ mission, purpose and values.

Now, are you after some successful reward and recognition ideas?

20 REWARD AND RECOGNITION IDEAS FOR MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES

Feeling seen, heard and respected is an innate human desire (check out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs if you’re not familiar). At work, we all deserve to feel valued and appreciated – that’s what gets us out of bed each morning, drives us to do our best and helps us feel connected to the business we work for and our colleagues around us. Appreciation ultimately helps employees thrive. So, here are some of the best ways to reward and recognise employees, perfect for a modern working environment, that’ll help inspire you to #RecogniseRepeat in your business. 

1. Regular positive feedback

Our research shows that praise from managers has a direct impact on employee morale, so leaders should always take the time to appreciate individuals in their team and celebrate their achievements regularly. This could be a simple message, an email, a call or even in person. It doesn’t take much time or effort to say “thanks”, but it truly goes a long way!

 

2. Monthly or quarterly awards

An award programme with a clear criteria and timings like monthly or quarterly means that employees have something tangible to strive for each and every day. Whether you implement this at a team level or business-wide, the frequent opportunity to get rewarded will boost motivation, drive positive behaviour and, if aligned to your business’ goals, unify the team against a common purpose. 

 

3. Experiential rewards

The best kind of rewards are the ones that are truly memorable, right? To offer something extra special to employees, you could reward them with a free experience. This could be skydiving, supercar driving, a concert, a spa day – something a little more ‘out of the box’ to really get people excited! Even better, you could give individuals the ability to choose the experience. We’re all unique, after all, and the perceived value of an experience will be different for each individual. (Skydiving is a no from me, thanks!).

 

4. Free meal out

Experiences don’t have to be unusual to have an impact. Offering a free meal out with the leadership team at a nice venue can be equally as attractive for employees. Plus, this is a truly personal way to show your appreciation of individuals because you can thank them in person and use the meal as an opportunity to get to know them better. When people feel seen and heard as individuals, they feel truly valued, so this is a powerful way drive emotional connection between leaders and employees in your business. 

 

5. Public recognition

Being recognised by a member of the leadership team, with the added boost of colleagues seeing it too, amplifies the value and significance of the recognition. It could be a business-wide email, a post on your recognition platform or even done in person at an event. The important bit is that it goes beyond a simple exchange between two people. It gives colleagues the opportunity to echo their appreciation and celebrate the individual further. Plus, it’ll spur other employees on to get their moment in the spotlight.

 

6. Out of ‘office’ trip

Get the OOO on and take your team out for an away day! Some time away from the workplace – and we know it’s not always an office – is great way to reward employees with a break, a bit of fun, and an opportunity to connect beyond the day-to-day of work. It could be bowling, an escape room, a golf day – some form of activity away from work. This is better to do at a team level rather than business-wide, because managers can choose an activity that they know individuals will truly enjoy.

 

7. Wellness reward

Knowing just how critical employee wellbeing is, why not reward employees with something that’ll give their wellness a boost? It could be a free yoga class*, discounted gym memberships, access to private healthcare, a mindfulness course or a self-care package sent in the post. We have a range of wellbeing support tools available that might just be the perfect reward to give your people a boost.  

 

*We highly recommend yoga with puppies if you’re really wanting to elevate the reward. We’re totally in! 🐶

 

8. Surprise time off

Time is sometimes the best gift of all and a welcome bonus for doing a great job – even better when it’s a surprise! For individuals or teams that have truly gone above and beyond, a surprise day off will offer them some respite from work and an opportunity to do something they otherwise wouldn’t have time to do. 

 

9. Offer reward points

As a manager, it can be tricky to reward your team. You either try and get creative or buy something generic and risk the reward falling flat. Well, with reward points delivered through our recognition service, individuals have the freedom to choose their reward and find something they genuinely like. They spend their points on an item of their choice from our online catalogue of over 25,000 products and the reward is delivered to their door. The result? A reward that is likely to be far more significant and memorable to your team member, than if you picked it yourself (no offense!). 

 

10. Milestone awards

We want our greatest employees to stick with us, right? It’s therefore important that managers and businesses take the time to celebrate employees’ service milestones. Recognising when an individual reaches their work anniversary is great, but to truly show your employees that their commitment is valued, go one step further and reward them. Those significant milestones deserve to be celebrated! And it’s even better when it’s on time and truly personal – with our automated milestone awards, we can help with that.  

1. Virtual peer-to-peer recognition

We always say this (but it’s always true!), a simple “thank you” goes a long way. Giving your employees the ability to send virtual thank yous to their colleagues through a mobile app and web platform allows them to make appreciation an everyday practice. Being virtual means it’s easy to do which ultimately enables more people to get involved. Plus, peer-to-peer recognition is truly inclusive, because any employee can participate and be recognised, regardless of where and when they work. This puts the power of appreciation into the hands of every employee, giving everyone a collective responsibility to shout out the great things happening across the business. 

 

2. Interactive social wall

To truly get the most out of peer-to-peer recognition, it’s important for others in the business to see when their colleagues are being recognised and equally get the support of their peers when they’re recognised too. This is when an internal recognition feed – like our interactive social wall – truly come into their own. Every message of recognition to individuals or groups is shared on the wall (unless the individual chooses for it to be sent privately) for all employees to see. They can interact by liking and commenting on posts to further support their colleagues. This provides a great way to boost emotional bonds between employees and also give individuals greater visibility with the business because they can personalise their profile with a photo and bio. 

 

3. Team trophy

Recognition doesn’t always have to be intangible. You can choose to make something, like a trophy, a prized item that’s given to an individual or team each month as recognition of their great work. Each month, colleagues can vote for the individual or team that deserves the trophy and it gets passed around the business accordingly. This is a simple and fun way to elevate peer-to-peer recognition, especially if your business doesn’t have the budget to give out rewards regularly. Even better, you could simplify the process by bringing it into your reward and recognition platform. With our bespoke nominations feature, we can help with that.

 

4. Sticky notes 

For those that have the opportunity to see their colleagues regularly and work alongside them day-to-day, a simple way to show some appreciation is to write a thoughtful message on a sticky note and leave it somewhere for them to find. When the person finds the note, they’ll get an instant boost!  

 

5. Tasty treats

Bringing some delicious snacks into work is a great way to show some appreciation to colleagues. Sweet treats and tasty bakes can be the perfect pick-me-up when morale is low, or the team is lacking in energy after a busy working week. Here at Boostworks HQ, we have some very kind colleagues that bring their own baked delights into the office to give us all a boost. We certainly appreciate it! 

 

6. Social media praise

To surprise and delight your colleagues, you can go one step further and publicly recognise them through social media. We often forget to take a moment to reflect on the great things happening around us, so taking the time to do a public shout out will not only give the individual you’re recognising a reason to feel proud but encourage others to get on board and share some appreciation of their colleagues too. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to do this.

 

7. Organise a social

Emotional connection at work is a big priority for employees in the modern workplace, so having the time to connect with colleagues outside of work will help boost morale and connection with your business’ culture. Organise regular social events, big and small, to get people together and strengthen emotional bonds. It could be a pub trip after work, a lunch outing or game of rounders in the park (we love rounders here at BW!). These types of informal occasions solidify work relationships, boost social wellbeing and bring people closer together. 

 

8. Regular compliments

It sounds simple, right? But it’s so easy to forget to tell our colleagues when we think they’re doing a great job, especially in the moment. Giving someone a compliment takes no real effort but can truly make someone feel appreciated, and even make their day. In-person compliments are the most powerful way to appreciate others because you can convey genuine emotion in the moment.

 

9. Virtual party or activity

A virtual get-together is a great way to reward individuals with a bit of fun to break up the day-to-day routine of work and strengthen emotional bonds between colleagues. Things like virtual quizzes and impromptu catch ups help solidify relationships and encourage people to bring their whole selves to work – not just their professional persona – to contribute to building a thriving workplace culture. 

 

10. Recognise life events

It’s always important to recognise the things employees celebrate and achieve outside of work. After all, people that are thriving in life are more likely to be thriving at work! Milestones like birthdays, weddings, buying a house and having children are all examples of significant life events you can recognise. A simple post on a social wall to commemorate these occasions will make an individual feel truly seen by your business and strengthen workplace relationships. 

 

ENHANCE EMPLOYEE REWARDS AND RECOGNITION WITH BOOSTWORKS

Our recent research showed us that a staggering 52% of employees frequently feel unrecognised for their achievements, showing us that businesses in the UK need to do more to bridge this gap. So, whether you’re in the process of formalising your reward and recognition strategy or looking to make some changes to your existing approach, we hope our ideas have given you some useful inspiration. 

We’re people experts here at Boostworks, and a key part of what we do is collaborating with businesses to reward and recognise their employees. Our reward and recognition service, Boost Recognition, offers a smart, personalised way to celebrate success, reinforce company values and enhance your company culture to make recognition part of every day. Our service helps drive retention, boost motivation and build thriving workplace cultures across the UK.

We collaborate with a variety of UK businesses from different sectors to recognise and reward their employees, including GWR, Costa Coffee, Cerulean, Grandir, Northumbrian Water and more. Our mission? To make every person, in every UK organisation, thrive!