Quarterly and Annual Awards

During these tough economic times, instead of having monthly or weekly rewards to motivate your employees, quarterly and annually awards can be just as effective. You can give out awards, such as acrylic awards or promotional gift sets each quarter for those employees with the highest sales or who did an outstanding job. This helps motivate people to work hard all the time, rather then just once every couple of weeks.

Annually, you can give gifts to employees who have hit milestone anniversary's, such as 1, 5, 10 or 15 years. The gifts can increase in value depending on how long the employee has been with the company. Make sure its something they can display proudly on their desk and that goes hand in hand with the amount of years they have been there. For instance, a crystal award would work well for a senior employee, whereas a paper weight or silver award would be more suitable for an employee that has only been around for a couple of years.

Cost Effective Rewards

When your company is on a budget and employee motivation is at an all time low, use some of these cost effective employee incentives to keep office moral up:

A free half-day: Everyone loves time off, so reward your employee for a great sale by letting him duck out early one Friday. Not only will they appreciate it, but they will come back more refreshed on Monday morning.

A gift card for lunch: Being able to grab lunch out of the office is always a nice refresher, especially if you aren't the one paying for it.

Candy: A little sugar can always get people back on track.

Thank you card: A personalized note is always a better option then just telling your employees thank you to their face. It shows that you took time to notice their hard work and praise them properly.