No matter what the reason, all staff love being rewarded!  Whether it’s a recognition award for a job-well-done, a milestone award for long-service, incentives and bonus schemes or just to build some team morale, the ways to reward your employees are countless!
If you’re not sure where to begin, or are looking for something different to last year’s rewards, we’ve compiled a little list of staff reward ideas for your workplace in 2015 that defy conventionality.

1) Vouchers for the local café

Where there’s an office, there are coffee drinkers.  Fact.  Whatever it is about the office environment that fosters caffeine addiction, we’re pretty confident your local hipster café is mostly still open thanks to your employees’ bean habit.  Treat the team to their favourite roast with a voucher or 10!  It’s much easier than bringing in a fancy barista-level machine that will only cause arguments over why there’s always spilt milk on the bench and the sink filled with a seemingly unending pile of unwashed mugs.

2) Mani/Pedis

OK, it doesn’t sound like something that might suit all the members in your team but you’d be surprised how many people love a manicure and/or pedicure, yes, even the blokes!  It may be a good idea to get a feel for the crowd on this one but, if your team are willing, a little pampering goes a long way.

3) Team dinner or night out with eftpos card ‘tabs’

We’ve all been to an event or two where the host has put on a tab only to discover other people have literally consumed it all before you’ve had a chance to even approach the bar.  Or perhaps you’ve been out for a team dinner in the past and noticed some people love an excuse to order up big on the company bill while others don’t want to appear impolite and only order the soup.  You can ensure there’s equal reward distribution by giving everyone an eftpos card with the same ‘allowance’ for the night so the less opportunistic team-mates don’t miss out on the fun.

4) Donation to a Charity of their choosing

This is the kind of reward that is ‘rewarding’ in a delightfully warm and fuzzy way.  Let the team member(s) choose a worthy cause that is close to their heart and put in a donation under the employee’s and company’s name.  Good karma all round!

5) Professional development courses

This is another win-win for both your employees and your company.  The employees can boost their skills and knowledge sets so they feel they are better equipped for – and supported in – their jobs.  This will help employees feel they have potential for career progression within the company and, obviously, a better trained team is better for the company!
Bonus insight: Employees especially love when these kinds of courses are done during their regular work hours as it can help to break up the monotony of their day-to-day roles and actually helps to motivate and increase productivity upon return to the office with their voucher-purchased skinny double soy coconut latte in hand (or whatever it is the hipster kids are serving up these days).
Not sure these ideas will work for your business? Fear not! We’ve got plenty of other, more conventional ideas in a handy infographic which you can check out here.