When designing or updating your employee recognition program, remember that awards don’t have to cost a lot of money to be truly meaningful. The more unique the award, the more it will be treasured by the recipient. Any business can create unique awards with a little thought.
If your business involves a specific product, you can use that product to design a unique award. For example, if you ship oranges, consider a “golden orange” award. Does your business make bowling balls?
Create a miniature silver bowling ball award. If you build thermal tiles for the space shuttle, use defective tiles cut into pieces to mount on awards. The list goes on and on of unique treasures that say something about what the company produces while creating a beautiful award.
The goal when designing unique awards is to create something that anyone outside the company would look at and say, “Where did you get that?” Think outside the box to find the award presentation that is right for your business.
One public speaker received an appreciation recognition award that was created from a postage stamp block mounted on a beautiful graphic that was computer generated. The speaker had dozens of letters of appreciation for his speaking engagements, but this one became a treasure because it was so unlike all the others. The award cost the creator only $2 or $3, but the uniqueness made the award special.
If you have an art or graphics department, those creative artists can help you develop beautiful, unique and inexpensive employee recognition awards.
If you don’t have an in-house graphics group, ask some of your most creative employees to come up with ideas that are easy to implement and low cost. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the ideas your employees develop to create unique, treasured employee recognition awards for your firm.
