Staff at London-based PR agency Siren PR have hit upon a simple idea to motivate and engage employees - a star system.
It works like this: each time a member of the team feels they have achieved something worthy of a gold star they email their manager who then passes it on to the star adminstrator - the MD's PA. She then passes it on to the MD who decides if the achievement gets a star. If it does, the whole team is notified - the aim is to spread good practice and credit for the employee.
The star is aslo put on a chart on the wall.
At the weekly Friday afternoon office drinks (Nice!) the week's gold star winner gets to choose the type of drinks they like. There is a quarterly prize draw for and the winner - with the most - gold stars gets a prize.
Team members that do not hand in their time sheets on time each week get a star removed.
The system works incredibly well and the entire team is focussed on getting gold stars. Apparently, the system has proven to be far more effective than previously used (and more expensive) reward and recognition policies.
I like this system because . . .
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It is a transparent form of reward/recognition
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It is simple
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It is realtively cheap
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It enables the team to share best practice
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It is fun
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It works both as an incentive (to do good things) and as a disincentive (to hand time sheets in late)