This idea is excerpted from Barbara’s book “Handle with CARE — Motivating and Retaining Employees” (McGraw-Hill 2002). 

• Give an employee a surprise day off.
• Write and perform a song about your employees.
• Have a surprise “Queen/King for the Day” celebration for someone who is always there to support others.
• Send flowers to an employee’s spouse, parents, or significant other, thanking them for the great work that employee is doing.
• Use candy names as ways to appreciate employees.  When they have met a sales or other goal, give them a SKOR bar.  If they have gone the extra mile, how about a package of EXTRA gum?  If they have done something really valuable for the team, choose a $100,000 Bar.  If they always make everyone laugh or keep their spirits high, give them a “Snickers.”  If you go to a good candy store, you can personalize something for each person on your team.
• Find a key employee on your staff who enjoys and is good at making employees feel good and make employee recognition a formal part of his or her job description.
• Ask each employee to write down at least 8 things they would like for rewards or recognition—at least two that cost no money, two that cost from $5 to $50, two that cost from $50 to $200 and two dream things.Have a senior manager wash an employee’s car.
• Take out an ad in the local paper celebrating an employee.
• Give an employee a pair of painter’s gloves with the fingers dipped in red paint as the “I work my fingers to the bone award.”
• Send each employee a glass container.  Then give them a different kind of candy to fill it every month.
• On the employee’s birthday let them choose from five different envelopes, each with something they have suggested they would like for a reward.
• Keep an “Appreciation Box” on your desk so employees can let you know what others have done for them.
• Help one of your star employees run for an office in a trade association,  If they win, take away some of their responsibilities so they can handle the extra work they’ve taken on.
• Have an “Achievements Box” in your work area where employees can write down whenever something positive happens.  At the end of the week, read each entry to employees.
• The CEO of a very large company decided to shake hands with every single employee during Christmas week to thank them for their hard work that year.