Company Rewards and Recognition Ideas
polycounter lvl 12
Hey everyone I am in need of some assistance, and ideas.
I was chosen to be part of a team at my studio to come up with some ideas that can be used to reward and recognize people for working hard and being with the company for a long time.
As of right now we have some ideas, but I am reaching out here to get an idea of what other companies do to motivate or reward their workers for a job well done.
Currently we have these ideas.
I was chosen to be part of a team at my studio to come up with some ideas that can be used to reward and recognize people for working hard and being with the company for a long time.
As of right now we have some ideas, but I am reaching out here to get an idea of what other companies do to motivate or reward their workers for a job well done.
Currently we have these ideas.
Performance Feedback (Which will lead to rewards and Recognition)
Playstation Plus Gift Cards (we are a Sony company)
Playstation store gift cards
Free games.
Likewise at the studio there are full time employee and contractors, so things like bonuses to pay wont work as only full time employees would have access to rewards like these and we want all employees to have the ability to get a chance to be rewarded. Likewise there are other "rewards" that full time get such as a 5, 10 and 20 year trophy type thing.
So if anyone could give some ideas, or what their studios do for these type of things I would really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Replies
Pre-paid crecit cards is a good idea though I'll add that to a list of things thank you!
Government bonds? or similar investments?
Took lots of night art courses at the local U as well as nudie figure drawing drop-ins. Even a Don Bluth cartoon workshop in Emeryville (where Pixar hq is located).
Freelancing now, I'd be happy with just Gumroad money or even, if you guys are doing very well (cuz maybe you're fucking SuperCell bought for billions by Tencent) maybe you'll give out 1 year gnomon tutorial subscription membership.
Paid time off.
Sabbatical.
Keep them up please all suggestions are helpful!
Happy hour - work ends an hour early, you bring in a bartender and get people drunk. Alternatively blizzard does a cubicle crawl where you go from cube to cube and have a drink at each one.
A nice bottle of scotch.
In n Out truck day. They come to your office. It's awesome.
Give them a sword. A real sword.
Cigars.
Mini fridge under their desk full of awesome stuff.
Limo to and from work for a week.
late starts ftw.
Or more vacation!
100% agreed. If anything I find rewards for things that are not performance-related to be much more appropriate. Things like getting rewarded for carpooling or biking to work, or even, activities offered to everybody regardless of so-called performance, than anyone can opt-in to without being mandatory.
I would go as far as saying that incentives offered for so-called "hard work" at a studio would be a red flag for me.
I'd second the idea of group art classes (opt-in, not mandatory).
I am not going to go into the differences and the causes of it but I think management is trying to alleviate the toxicity with these "carrots on a stick".
I know Dice do stuff on a team/studio level, If I remember right the whole studio went to Dubai because they hit their sales goal.
reward environment artists by taking them on a group trip to some awesome castle or something.
reward everyone by taking them on paintballing or other fun activities.
rewards in the workplace should always, ALWAYS be fun, engaging, and should in some way help bond the group even further. personal rewards only trend toward unfair competition.
Now it is up to the Management and out of my hands!
Once again thank you everyone for the suggestions and the words of wisdom.
We also had an unofficial "bowling league" during the winter which was pretty fun and handicapped so it was mostly who improved the best/won the most games gets a high score so everyone can play. Ended up stopping once spring hits though as people want to spend time with their families/enjoy the outdoors but its great for the winter chill.
Last thing, the company merchandise is sahweeet. Almost everyone wears Kongsberg t-shirts, coats, or fleeces one day or the other. And the coffee mugs have a picture fade into view when the cup is hot! Free coffee too with the k-cups. Best part of my morning is seeing that picture fade into view, teh coolest!
"What I think the upper management is trying to do is undo the somewhat toxic studio culture that is here at the moment between the full time and contractor workers. "
If you decide on trips and parties or anything else that happens during work hours, treat the contractors just like full time employees, pay them. Most studios tell contractors they won't get paid during the 4 hour museum trip during work hours, so they can either stay in the office, work overtime to make up, or just get a smaller pay check that week. 9 times out of 10 the contractors will stay behind so it doesn't do anything to help full time/contractor relations.
Isn't getting back (money) what you put into the *team* effort good enough? Or maybe your company is another one trying to be shaped like a pyramid scheme pay wise and these are simply carrots of a stick for . Why not just assure them they can get back what they put in, although how you would keep track. Maybe be proactive about keeping track of deserved wages increases.
I've had the idea that "money is the root of all evil" shoved up my ass my entire life only to finally realize that, in our society where everything costs money, even just to set yourself down in the company of others for a short time as an lonely elderly person (aka coffee shop) it is perhaps the largest part of a foundation of happiness, its important and its importance has been under-rated for a long time. Just pay people what they truly contributed to the actually product/service, not what the surplus of labor dictates they will be willing to work for.
My previous studio didn't fall for the "work hard" carrot. At one time leadership had the idea to create a big bonus pool and share it with the hardest workers. People realized that the more people work hard, the fewer each of them would get, to the point where not working gained you more than participating in the rush for the bonus. It turned out that one guy got the entire bonus and that not much extra work was done at all. The plan totally backfired.
One of the many dangers of those rewards.
Back in my previous job there where monthly rewards for people who had the highest costs cuts from lawyer bills, most files closed and another one that I forgot. Needless to say that weren't the smartest incentitives. None of them raised the quality of work, younger employes had smaller cases with lower costs and fewer in numbers so they had no chances of winning the monthly rewards. The rewards improved nothing just gave the people motivation to screw statistics to win them or gave them the feeling of not being among the 'good' workers though often there was little they could do to improve their stats form the get go. Moral was as low as before or even worse as people got the feeling of additional pressure to keep stats up, while not gaining anything from it.
Always keep in mind how important transparency in such things is. If people feel they have no chance in getting it the harm those rewards can cause are big. They are far from the easy solution to go with just to fix some motivation issues.
From my experience relaxed team building events (just events people get time to talk to each other and get to know each other) and solid communications and transparency in every day work situations do far more than any reward-system. Also as Justin Meisse said - treat same things the same way. If your contract workers are actually in a situation that is very similar to your regular workers then pay their company activities.
I think it is saying something that the most asked for thing as a "reward" in our company is reviews on a somewhat regular basis (twice annually) for the non full time employees.
What's the cost of inclusivity? More often than not, it's probably worth it for team cohesiveness to take everyone to an offsite or get everyone that project t-shirt.