5 Best Ways to Reward Employees

There’s little doubt that employers should be rewarding their employees for good job. It drives better engagement, improves corporate culture, and helps reduce employee turnover.

Apart from financial compensations, it is also important to demonstrate appreciation and recognize employees’ achievements by rewarding them. There is a number of methods to do so. Let’s have a look at some of them.

Public thank you

Publicly showing appreciation for your team members or the entire team for certain accomplishments can be a great motivator for employees – and what’s important, it’s absolutely free of charge.

When you’re acknowledging someone before their peers, it gives them a sense of importance and shows that they are valued. This simple method is often underestimated, yet, it can bring big results at no cost.

Office parties and team activities

Office parties dedicated to specific events (e.g., New Year, company’s anniversary, etc.) is a common way to reward an entire team for their job. Usually, such parties are held regularly each year and are considered an integral part of office life. This is, by all means, an effective way to appreciate employees and strengthen social ties among them.

Apart from large annual parties, many companies treat their employees with various team activities, like BBQ, board games, outdoor sports, videogames, or monthly happy hours. All these activities help to pull the team members together and increase their engagement.

Extra time off

If your team has been working extra hard for some time, there’s no better way to say thanks than to reward them with an extra day off. They’ll certainly appreciate this opportunity to take a breath after a period of hard work. After all, everyone needs a break now and then.

Learning opportunities

There’s also a less popular but effective way to reward valuable employees, which is to grant them free access to some learning courses or seminars of their choice. Giving this opportunity not only increases employee engagement and loyalty but also helps them develop professionally.

However, such an option would probably not suit everyone, so it’s essential to make sure the employee you’re going to reward is interested in taking learning classes.

Adding bonus points

If your company has a bonus points system, there’s an obvious way to express gratitude to your employees by adding extra points to their accounts. Such a system is a good motivator itself, especially if bonus points can later be exchanged for something tangible like cash bonuses, gifts, days off, and whatever awards you can think of.

For example, with BrainyHR, you can quickly implement and customize an awarding system for your employees where they get bonus points for certain activities. This practice can significantly increase employee engagement and make them more motivated and loyal. What’s more, it makes rewarding an easier task since you’ll have numerical indicators to rely on.