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Show Your Appreciation: 7 Cool (And Inexpensive!) Employee Reward Ideas

Ask around to your employees and you’ll find a shockingly high number of them feel unmotivated when it comes to getting work done. There are so many distractions and ways that employees feel exhausted and overworked at the end of a week, that they need to feel appreciated. With the right employee reward ideas, you ensure that they will feel loved and cared for no matter how tough their work gets.

Here are five exciting rewards to consider.

1. Restaurant Gift Cards

One of the things that your employees love to do on their time off is to get together with their family and friends for a meal. Rather than leaving them to spend their hard earned money on food and drinks, for a job well done with a gift card.

Gift cards for nearby restaurants are great if your office is centrally located. If people are going to their lunch breaks to a place that you all know and love, you could give them an extra treat with a free meal there. They might come by on the weekend to share their favorite work restaurant with a loved one.

Restaurant gift cards are good because they often work for food or for happy hour drinks. If your team member wants to share the wealth with the people who helped them to get where they are, then they could buy everyone an after work cocktail. A drink or some appetizers ensures that everyone gets to share in the positive potential of this kind of employee reward.

2. Home Improvement Rewards

When most people are seeking to excel at their job, they’re thinking of a specific reason to motivate them each day. One of the things that people work hard for is to improve their life away from work. Lots of people find motivation in building up their home or doing some small home improvement jobs.

If you know your employees and coworkers can relate to this, then you should consider offering them some home improvement rewards. A gift card to a local hardware store or a large home and garden shop could be just what they’re looking for when it comes to improving life away from work. Your employees’ home is their sanctuary and making it a place where they can build up a warm and inviting place.

Home and family are important to all of your employees and they might struggle to get those extra shifts or get that raise to help finish that big project. However, if you can step in and help them with a little bit of money, they might be more motivated and devoted to their workplace. When they see their hard work paying off in the form of a big home improvement project, they’ll be pleased.

3. Streaming Subscription

One of the things that most everyone loves to relax with is one of the many streaming services out there. Between Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and a thousand other options, there’s something for just about everyone’s media tastes. If you have a staff that spends a lot of time out on the road, a streaming audio, podcast, or satellite radio subscription could make work more enjoyable.

Streaming subscriptions are often accessible with a gift card or an online voucher. If you call up the streaming company ahead of time, you could end up with a bulk discount for purchasing a bunch of cards at one time. Companies love to partner with a workplace like yours, so negotiate with them and see what they can offer you.

There are lots of ways to offer this kind of service to your staff or your workplace. If you’re struggling to figure out which one works for your staff, there’s no point in surprising them. You could just send out a survey.

When you give your employees yet another way to relax, you tell them that their downtime matters to you and that you want them to feel refreshed. Most workplaces are trying to find more ways to take up their employees’ time, but rather than that, go the other direction for a refreshing take.

4. A Staff Trip

Taking a staff trip could be a cheap way to reward a team that does well. Rather than rewarding one single employee, if your whole staff is doing well, you could reward everyone at the same time. There are expensive ways to do this and cheaper ways too.

Taking a staff trip could be as big of a deal as taking everyone to a go-kart track or out bowling. It could be as major as a spa day or a vacation out of town. You could also make it small and meaningful by having a picnic in the park on a Friday afternoon.

Give them something to look forward to all week and you’ll find that they’ll be extra dedicated.

5. Reusable Drinkware

If you want to eliminate waste at your office and offer a meaningful reward to your employees, you could give them a variety of drinkware as a gift. When they do well for a month, they could get their own custom coffee mug with a name or photo on it.

Go to a site like CustomEnvy.com to see what your potential options are. There are some great ways for your staff to have fun or for you to have fun with your staff. The more options you can offer,  the better your staff will perform for their tumbler or drinkware.

Employee Reward Ideas Should Feel Special

When you choose employee reward ideas that feel special, then you ensure that your employees will feel cared for. The more time and energy you give your rewards, the more you make sure that what they offer you is clearly appreciated.

If you want your rewards to make your employees feel appreciated, take our suggestions for one that .