Low Cost / No Cost Recognition

Tom: Hi Dan. How is your project doing? Is it on schedule and are you controlling the budget?

Dan: Hi Tom. Yes, the projects going really well. In fact I would like to reward some of the team members for the great work they have been doing. The problem is that I do not really have any money in the budget to do anything expensive or elaborate. Do you have any ideas?

Tom: A couple of years ago I was doing a lot of work with a large international organization and they asked the same question. They were wanting to recognize their staff more often but did not have a huge budget to do it with. Over a period of several months and working with groups from all over the world we brainstormed and came up with the following list of what we called Low Cost / No Cost Recognition. Perhaps you'll find something in this list:

Low Cost / No Cost Recognition

• Give positive feedback to individuals at a team meeting
• Organize a team lunch or dinner
• Company branded T-shirts, bags, baseball caps
• Project branded T-shirts
• Article in the local newsletter, including photograph
• Presentation to the senior Management Team or Project Board
• Flowers/gift sent to home address either to the employee or the partner of the employee
• Offer dinner for employee and partner
• Gift vouchers
• Letter or message from higher management thanking them for their efforts on a project
• Breakfast at the office with the team
• Long weekend away with partner
• Visit to another business unit
• Small presents - pen, key-ring, travel bags, briefcase, etc.
• Send to a conference or seminar
• Visit to another company in the form of benchmarking
  
• Write article for a professional journal
• Peer to peer award (coffee and donut coupon)
• Breakfast meeting with senior management
• Team photograph
• Team outings - bowling, beer and pizza, etc.
• Team building / development day - this should have some substance and be linked to the workplace
  
• Celebration cake
• Free tickets to local sporting events
• Team presentation to external visitors
• Send on a training course
• Family visit on site
• Announcement in company magazine
• Free gourmet food hamper
• Employee of the Week award
• Thank-you letter to home (so they can share with partner)
• Special assignment (i.e. investigate use of new software tool)
• A day or half-day or a couple of hours off work - this is probably the best received recognition
  
• Flowers to spouse for inconvenience if employee has been doing a lot of overtime
  
• Write article for internal newsletter
• Time off for charity or community work
• Ask to take on a new challenge
• Given the opportunity to speak about your work at a professional conference
• Given the opportunity to learn a new skill

I am sure all of these would not be suitable for every team or company but they may give you some ideas.

Good luck and best wishes to your team.

For more information about this and other management topics please click here.