Employee Recognition Awards: Ideas Your Team Will Love

Employees who feel valued stay longer, perform better, and contribute to a positive culture. For large organisations, the challenge is scale: how do you make recognition consistent and meaningful across thousands of employees without it feeling tokenistic or forced?

Employee awards and recognition offer a solution that complements formal reward programmes and fosters a culture of appreciation without adding significant cost or complexity. They:

• Reinforce organisational values. 
• Encourage behaviours that drive business outcomes. 
• Create a sense of belonging and psychological safety.

As Zoe Wilson, Director at ReThink HR, explains in Episode 1: Mastering the Employee Lifecycle of our Do the Best Work of Your Life series: 

“It’s making people feel that they belong - and everybody is so individual and unique. That’s a real challenge. And I think it’s something that’s quite exciting about technology when you can start to personalise things.” 

If you’re wondering how to structure a programme that works at scale, our article on the 5 key elements of a successful reward and recognition programme details practical strategies and ideas.

The best staff award ideas will reflect company culture and values. Candidates in the modern age care deeply about the company’s values aligning with their own. People Management (CIPD) report that UK workers rate employer reputation and values higher than US and European counterparts.

Staple Staff Award Ideas 

Some awards have been so popular they’ve been handed out in workplaces everywhere for decades and continue to be used to this day.

These “go-to” awards are often expected by employees. That said, the cliché nature of these awards can be a little off-putting for some managers. 

However, they’re not to be underestimated and can be customised to suit your company values or internal brand.

Long service award

For any organisation, this is a must. Loyalty is often hugely undervalued and long serving staff are part of the foundations of your business.

Not only will the employee feel more appreciated, but others will see how much you value everyone in the business, particularly those who are loyal.

Anniversary award

Take the time to recognise when the employee joined and how long they’ve been at the company to the day.

The more years they’ve been at the company the bigger the award they get.

Employee of the month/quarter award

This is probably one of the most used of all the staff awards ideas. Recognising employees for their performance is hugely important.

Whether it’s every month or every quarter it’s up to you. According to research, less than 30% of all staff feel valued by their bosses.

Performance award

This could be for someone in the sales team who’s brought in the most clients/customers for the month, a customer service advisor who’s received the best feedback, or someone who’s generally performed well in their role in the last month.

It could also be for an employee who has overcome significant pressure or difficulty in their role. Recognising your overachievers is key!

Creative Employee Awards Ideas 

Creative awards set your recognition apart from that of other employers. One key aspect of effective recognition is the effort behind it. The more creative and personalised your rewards are the more likely they are to be well received.

Going above and beyond award

Pick out someone who’s gone the extra mile or done something out of the ordinary. It doesn’t always have to be work related either.

Maybe someone has done something nice for a colleague or raised money for charity? It doesn’t even have to be a regular award.

Simply hand this award out as and when you wish! Of all the staff awards ideas this is one of the most thoughtful.

Team Impact Award

Maybe there’s a department or a team that’s achieved something significant for the company recently? It could be that they’ve overcome difficult circumstances and continued to deliver.

Rewarding them will not only make them feel valued but will let everyone in the business know what they’ve achieved and how important it is for the company.

Newcomer Award

Are you a fast growing company? If you’ve taken on lots of new hires recently this could be a great staff award.

To make the award fair, try and stick to a particular time frame. For example, employees who have joined in the last year but have been part of the team for at least 3 months.

The usual performance review is great, but an award on top of that is even better.

Leadership award

This doesn’t necessarily have to apply to someone leading a successful team or department. It could be that one of your managers has helped an employee develop their skills and deliver success.

Listen to your employees and see if they credit someone in particular for their successes.

Chairman award

Whether it’s the Chairman, CEO, Founder, Co-founder, Managing Director or otherwise, receiving an award from a senior figure in the business means a lot to any employee.

If there’s someone who has impressed the boss, give them a personalised award and let them know they’re appreciated.

Health & fitness award

Chances are there’s someone in the business who’s turned their health around or exceeded their fitness goals.

Whether it’s weight loss/gain, quitting bad health habits or even achieving something like completing a marathon, let the person know you’ve recognised their achievements.

This award shows the importance of switching up your staff awards ideas to suit everyone.

Peer-to-Peer award

The best office awards ideas don’t just involve bosses. Give your employees a chance to award each other.

Employees could come together and decide there’s someone on their team they’d all like to award.

Retirement award

Retirement is a major event in a person’s life. A retirement award shows that you recognise all that they’ve achieved, not just in the time at your company but in their career as a whole.

A retirement award can help you create a fitting end to a person’s career, which can mean a huge amount to someone particularly if they’ve been a part of your organisation for a long time.

Volunteer award

Volunteers who offer their time, both individually and as a collective, provide invaluable support for charities and organisations who often depend on their selfless contribution!

Those who volunteer and go out of their way to help others should always be rewarded.

When designing recognition programmes, categorising awards helps large organisations maintain fairness and consistency. It ensures achievements are measured against clear criteria rather than subjective opinions, making recognition more transparent and meaningful.

1. Performance-Based Awards - These celebrate measurable achievements, such as hitting sales targets, delivering projects ahead of schedule, or exceeding KPIs. They reward results and encourage high performance across teams.
2. Behavioural Awards - Focused on how work is done, these recognise employees who demonstrate core behaviours like collaboration, adaptability, or leadership. They reinforce the values that shape day-to-day culture.
3. Cultural Awards - These highlight individuals who embody organisational values and contribute to a positive workplace culture. Examples include promoting inclusivity, supporting wellbeing initiatives, or championing diversity.
4. Social Impact Awards - These acknowledge contributions beyond business goals, such as volunteering, sustainability efforts, or community engagement. They show that the organisation values purpose alongside profit.

Team recognition is essential for cross-functional success. When employees work together across departments, acknowledging collective achievements reinforces collaboration and strengthens organisational culture.

• Department Achievement Award: Celebrates a team that delivered outstanding results or met key objectives
• Innovation Award: Recognises teams that introduced creative solutions or improved processes.
• Customer Impact Award: Rewards teams that made a significant difference to customer experience or satisfaction.
• Diversity & Inclusion Champion Award: Highlights teams that actively promote inclusivity and equity in the workplace.

How you present your awards can make a big difference too. 

Thinking outside the box here can make your awards resonate even better and can be a great opportunity to show the rest of your team and those outside the company that you’re committed to recognising your employees for everything they do.

Post on social media

Take a picture and post it on the company social media, with the person’s consent, and tag them in.

Giving staff a shout-out on social media shows everyone inside and outside the business just how much you value them.

Your own awards event

A great way to show appreciation is to take the team out for a meal or drinks and create your very own internal awards event.

This is a great opportunity to take all of your staff awards ideas and present them in a fun and relaxed setting.

Birthday awards

Take the opportunity to make the employee’s day that bit better (providing they aren’t on annual leave of course!) by awarding them on their birthday.

Have a company trophy

It doesn’t always have to be a trophy, it could be something related to the company that gets passed around to people who receive an award.

Think of something that is unique and represents your business, its culture or something that is either interesting, funny or useful.

Wall of fame

You may have heard of this one before, but having a wall of fame is a great way to show everyone who’s been rewarded recently.

It’s also a great way to show how far employees have come in their time with you.

The more creative your office awards ideas are, the better. Create awards that are unique to your business, timely and thoughtful and you’ll be on to a winner.

Managing awards manually is time-consuming and inconsistent. A unified reward and recognition platform makes it effortless to:

• Automate recognition and reduce admin burden.
• Integrate with existing HR systems for a single source of truth.
• Deliver personalised experiences without adding headcount.
• Track engagement and ROI to prove business impact.

If you’re exploring platforms to power recognition at scale, check out our guide on how to choose HR software for your organisation.

Reach PLC, one of the UK’s largest media groups, faced the challenge of engaging thousands of employees across multiple sites. By using our integrated employee benefits, rewards and engagement platform, they introduced digital recognition tools and peer-to-peer awards that made appreciation accessible to everyone - no matter where they worked. This approach strengthened engagement and created a culture of recognition at scale.

As Catherine Bennett, General Manager of Access Engage, our Employee Engagement platform notes:

“Integration is key. With modern technology, being able to integrate employee recognition tools with existing HR systems is critical. Having a single central data platform that feeds into your benefit solution takes away a huge amount of administration.”

Discover the benefits of integrated HR software and see how unified data makes recognition effortless.

Access customer TFG London, the fashion retail group behind Hobbs and Phase Eight, faced high turnover and the challenge of engaging a dispersed workforce. Recognition was central to their strategy. By introducing technology to unify their reward and recognition programme they:

• Created a culture of appreciation across multiple brands.
• Reduced attrition by recognising loyalty and performance consistently.
• Freed HR teams from admin so they could focus on strategic initiatives.

As Dianne Hoodless explains:

“Get the C-suite involved, get that good business case, and show that you want to retain, not constantly recruit - because that saves money.”

Recognition awards for employees are a practical way to improve engagement, retention, and reduce recruitment costs. are a practical way to improve engagement, retention, and reduce recruitment costs. In a market where replacing one employee can cost thousands, recognition programmes help protect budgets and strengthen employer reputation. Employees who feel recognised are significantly more likely to stay, with Gallup finding they’re 45% less likely to leave within two years. High-quality, authentic and personalised praise matters even more, reducing the likelihood of job hunting by 65%.

For large organisations, the challenge is scale. How do you make recognition consistent and meaningful for thousands of employees? The answer is a mix of creative award ideas and technology that automates administration, integrates with HR systems, and delivers personalised experiences without adding extra workload.

Organisations such as TFG London and Reach PLC show what’s possible. By embedding recognition into their culture, they have reduced attrition, improved engagement, and freed HR teams to focus on strategic priorities. With AI-driven insights and predictive analytics, recognition can help to shape retention. Looking to connect recognition with measurable retention outcomes? Download our guide to retention strategies for operational teams for practical tips.

Ready to transform your recognition strategy?

Discover how our Reward and Recognition Programme that can help you scale your rewards efforts.