Recognizing Employees - low/no cost!

When times are tight, we need to think of ways to recognize people that don't cost money.  According to the Corporate Leadership Council, companies with effective reward and recognition experienced increased employee performance and retention and achieve higher bottomline results relative to their peers. 

I posted a blog at work about no cost ways to reward employees and the number one comment that employees said they'd like their bosses to do was to say a simple "Thank you!"

Other suggestions:

Give them visibility -  let them brief the next level up, take the lead on a project, give them a challenging assignment

Give them autonomy - let them spend a certain amount of time a week working on something they are passionate about and innovating

Give them a party -  celebrate successes as a group, have a pig-in or go out to lunch together

Give them a voice - set up a suggestion box (anonymous, of course)

Give them development opportunities -  set them up with a mentor or coach

Give them a trophy -- create a wacky trophy to recognize an employee's great work and you could then have them pass it on within a month to someone else who's deserving in an informal ceremony of sorts.

Other ideas:

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/firstgentleman/50_242400_7.pdf




Have any you'd like to share?