Recognition rewards can significantly boost a company's productivity. When employees' efforts are acknowledged, job satisfaction often increases, fostering a positive work environment that can positively affect the bottom line. According to a study by Globoforce, 79% of employees say recognition makes them work harder and 78% say it makes them more productive.

Additionally, Quantum Workplace highlights that employee recognition leads to increased engagement, reduced turnover, and enhanced work enjoyment.

Let’s discuss the benefits of recognition rewards, and go through some top-notch ideas for these incentives!

Why Should You Reward Your Employees?

There are many benefits to offering your employees rewards for hard work and problem-solving. Providing incentives encourages them to put their best foot forward.

Let’s discuss how recognition rewards can better your work environment.

Boost Morale

Offering employee recognition rewards can have a positive effect on morale. This, in turn, inspires employees to put more effort and passion into their work.

Employees who feel underappreciated often experience lower job satisfaction and low morale in the office can be harmful to employee mental health. Recognizing and acknowledging employee efforts can show employees that they are valued as part of the team. 

Increase Productivity

It’s tough to motivate yourself to work hard when you feel as though the effort trumps the benefit. Employees appreciate having something to strive towards and incentives are perfect for this. 

Salaries are great but you may need to offer something more to encourage employees to go above and beyond. By offering recognition rewards, employees can work towards things they want and incentivize themselves.

Improve Team Work

Group dynamics are always an unknown variable when working on a project. Different creative visions and methods can cause friction if not managed well.

The last thing your business wants is for a disagreement in the team to weaken and fray the comradery of your employees. Without a shared vision or goal, the team’s effectiveness comes under threat.

However, if there is an incentive that each member benefits from, it gives them something to work towards together as incentives provide employees with common goals.

Increase Employee Engagement

In a large business, it’s easy for employees to feel like cogs in a machine. Wouldn’t you rather your employees feel part of a living, breathing team?

The way to address this is by acknowledging the individual efforts as well as the accomplishment. The best way to acknowledge individual effort is by rewarding it. Not only will employees feel proud and valued, but their successes will serve as examples to others.

Receiving acknowledgment for hard work inspires people to want to work even harder, which improves engagement with the business. This doesn’t just benefit the output of your company, it also improves the relationship that employees have with their work and colleagues.

This acknowledgment also improves the connection between employees and management. This is because employees appreciate being noticed by other important members of the company.

When Should You Reward Employees?

The question of when to reward employees depends on the type of job they’re doing and what your business focuses on.

For example, if the employee is a salesperson, reward them for meeting sales goals. If they’re engineers working on a large project in construction, reward exceptional contributions to that project. Another good idea is rewarding employees who work at your business for a certain number of years.

Each recognition highlights the value of that employee’s involvement in the business, which helps individual achievements stand out. 

Choosing the right time to reward employees is less important than knowing what rewards to give them. The right reward can make all the difference in terms of making employees feel valued. Timing does matter, but it won’t mean anything if the rewards being offered aren’t seen as worthwhile.

While giving rewards out too frequently may devalue them to some, this is not necessarily the case. Offering a variety of rewards offsets the risk of people earning the same reward too many times and losing interest.

What Makes The Best Recognition Reward?

When considering what rewards to offer, it’s important to realize and understand why you’re offering them in the first place. Your reward should, in some way, represent or reflect the nature of the employee’s achievement.

For example, if an employee works hard to meet a deadline, the reward should reflect their timeliness. If you offer custom watches as rewards, that would serve as a symbolic gesture of your business’s appreciation.

Employee recognition rewards offer tangible benefits and goals for employees to strive toward. For this to work, the rewards offered must appeal to your employees and be worth obtaining. There are several ways to ensure that your rewards will appeal to your employees. 

Personalized Gifts

Generic rewards, such as cash, can be great. However, a personalized reward can make an employee feel as though their contribution, specifically, has been recognized. These rewards feel more valuable. 

Giving more personal gifts to employees is a guaranteed way to tell them that their contributions matter.  To find out what your employee likes - you can ask their team, get them to fill out a questionnaire, or allow them to choose!

Aligned With Company Culture

Feeling like you’re part of something special and important means you take pride in your work.

To that end, offering rewards that have relevance to daily office life is a fun way to promote company culture. For example, rewards that feature your company’s branding can make employees feel proud to work there. 

Things like pens, notepads, and even t-shirts add a level of recognition for employees. It also creates a sense of legitimacy in your business and makes employees feel like a part of the culture. 

On the other hand, rewards that tie into inside jokes and popular talking points are a fun idea. These help to get employees interested in engaging with the company and its identity.

Befitting Of Their Achievements

When recognizing the achievements of hardworking employees, you should reward something befitting of their achievements. For more valuable contributions, consider offering bigger rewards.

For example, imagine that an engineer makes a breakthrough in the design of a building that saves time and resources. That’s a significant achievement! As such, a more valuable reward is in order.

Our earlier example mentioned a watch as a reward for timeliness. A valuable reward for a valuable contribution should work the same way, reflecting the scope of an employee’s achievement.

On the other hand, if a salesperson meets a monthly sales goal, the reward should be proportional to the target.

Recognition Rewards That Employees Will Love

Determining what to offer as a reward is important. For lower-tier rewards, smaller and more general items are a good idea. Some common examples include pens, bags, and even snacks. These kinds of rewards are inexpensive but provide short-term benefits to employees that still acknowledge their achievements.

For larger achievements, larger rewards should follow. This helps keep the value of rewards consistent with the value of the achievements that earned them. This also encourages employees to work harder if they have their eye on a higher-tier goal.

To help with the process of choosing what rewards to offer, we’ve listed some of our top ideas. If you’re looking for the perfect way to recognize your employee - read on! 

1. PerkUp Rewards Card

PerkUp rewards cards are a popular and simple reward for hard-working employees. The best part is that they work as low, medium, or high-tier rewards. This is dependent on how much, and what, you load onto the cards. 

PerkUp allows you to issue pre-loaded Visa cards to employees. You can load a voucher to a specific vendor, or a simple dollar amount. This way, employees can buy the rewards that they want. As you’ll see later on this list, a PerkUp rewards card can facilitate many great reward ideas for employees.

The best part is that if your employees don’t spend their perks - they don’t go to waste. Any unspent funds will come straight back to you after a specific period.

With PerkUp, employees can invest in incentives they truly want! If they’ve had their eye on something specific, they no longer need to eat into their finances to acquire it. It focuses on improving the work/life balance for employees so that they can give their best at work and feel the benefits at home. 

No matter what your employee’s interests or needs are, a PerkUp rewards card is a great choice as a reward.

Related: 13 Corporate Gift Ideas To Wow Your Employees

2. A Simple Thank You

Employee recognition rewards come in many shapes and sizes. Depending on the occasion, a simple thank you can go a long way! 

A framed photo or a plaque on the wall of the office will celebrate both the employee of the month, as well as promote them to customers and passers-by. Announcing their name at a meeting also provides them with personal recognition from staff and management.

3. Mindfulness Everywhere Mindfulness Cards ($11.60)

Each of these beautiful mindfulness cards includes an inspiring phrase and a simple mindfulness exercise. Mental health is always an important consideration for employees who do stressful work. 

This set of cards is a thoughtful gift to help keep your staff members balanced. If you’re looking to keep your hardworking employees de-stressed - consider these mindfulness cards. 

4. Extra Leave Time

Another good choice for a team reward is time off. 

After several months of hard work, a successful team deserves a break. Unless you’re planning to set them to work on another project because of time constraints, a few extra days of paid leave is a much-desired reward. Better still if employees can choose when they take it.

5. Lula’s Garden Serene Garden ($28)

Decorating the office space is a great way to express your personality. Flowers and other plants are one of the most popular ways to do this. Why not offer an employee the chance to decorate their space with a Lula’s Garden voucher? 

Employees who don’t have green thumbs will love a succulent gift. These plants bring life into the room while keeping things low-maintenance. 

6. Töst & Töst Rosé ($48)

‍Toast your employees’ hard work with these TÖST combo packs. They include 3 bottles each of the TÖST and TÖST ROSÉ flavors. These all-natural. delicious, alcohol-free sparkling wines create refreshing drinking experiences, perfect for every occasion. 

Combine this with some kind of snack basket to treat your star employees to a miniature picnic. This is a great way to reward them for their hard work.

7. Oh! Nuts Variety Nut & Dried Fruit Basket ($49.99)

Treat your team of dedicated employees to some healthy treats they can share. This gift box of 18 dried fruits and mixed nuts is sure to titillate anyone’s taste buds. 

This snack basket is a safe bet for most employees. As long as they’re not allergic to nuts, employees should generally enjoy this gift basket. 

These fruit and nuts are picked at their prime, and then dried and roasted to gourmet perfection. To add to the sensory delight, they are artfully arranged in this stunning hamper. 

8. A Dedicated Parking Spot

Recognition rewards don’t always need to cost you money! Have you considered offering a dedicated parking space to employees that meet specific goals? This means allowing your employee access to a highly valued parking space - exclusively. 

The high status often stems from being closer to the office for convenience, or under shade or cover for comfort. This can serve as a strong motivator for employees. ‍

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, you see the value of recognition rewards. These rewards can benefit your business by boosting employee satisfaction, office morale, and employee retention. 

Recognition rewards act as strong incentives and motivators. Employees must put in extra work to earn them. 

Many of the rewards we discussed are available through PerkUp. If you’re looking for a wide range of gift options, PerkUp is the way to go. You’ll be able to find gift options for all occasions and all budgets. After all, employee recognition doesn’t need to break the bank! 

We hope we’ve convinced you to consider integrating employee recognition rewards into your business. If we have, then we wish you the best of luck getting started.