Best practices for custom rewards

What does a good custom reward look like?

Affordable
Desirable and Exciting
Aligned with your culture

How many points should rewards cost employees?

As a best practice, the price of your least expensive custom rewards should be less than the monthly allowance. So if your employees receive 100 points per month to give out, price your least expensive tier of custom rewards at 100 points or less.

You can also offer aspirational rewards that are more expensive, but you want to make sure that employees feel like rewards are attainable in a reasonable amount of time.

If you have rewards that cost more than the monthly allowance, your employees will need to save up multiple months for them. Including a few expensive rewards is okay, if 1) there are also more attainable rewards in your catalog and 2) the reward is desirable enough that it’s worth saving points.

Another approach to custom rewards is to incentivize employees to get certain rewards, like wellness or professional development rewards. You can create rewards that you want employees to get and make them inexpensive.

How much will custom rewards cost the company?

Though you won’t be billed through Bonusly for custom rewards, custom rewards aren’t “free”. Keep in mind that custom rewards require administrator time to fulfill and maybe funding from other budgets.

Pro-tip: Be realistic about the time you can put into custom rewards. If administration time is a concern, it's usually best to start off with only gift cards, which require no administration time. Though custom rewards can be exciting, waiting for a busy administrator to fulfill isn't a great experience for employees.

Ideas for custom rewards

Brainstorming questions

What can you offer that money can't buy? -- You can offer time with leadership, company discounts, or office specific rewards and events.
What is something relevant to just your company? -- You can offer donations to a company charity, or vouchers to local businesses and events.
What would you like to promote in your culture? -- You can offer rewards to promote healthy living or professional development.

Specific ideas

Social

Choose the theme for the next company meeting
Design and run a bracket challenge (think March Madness)
CEO wears a costume for a video call or online meeting
Earn VIP status or employee of the month with a badge to display on your company site and social networks.

Low-Cost Ideas

Inspirational/motivational card sent from the CEO
Sleep-in day (a chance to sleep in without affecting PTO)
Special treat sent directly to your house (like cookies or ice cream, yum!)
Choose your own custom reward

Fitness Classes & Gym memberships

Offer reimbursements or subsidies
Organize in-office classes

Healthy eating

In-office healthy lunches
Gift cards to local healthy restaurants
Bring a nutritionist in for a day
Weekly fresh produce delivery
Cooking classes reimbursement

Workshops & Speakers

Invite speakers to come to your office. Topics could be personal skills (public speaking, goal setting, personal finances, etc.) or industry specific knowledge (new skills, industry trends, etc.)
Offer subsidies for outside training and conferences

Charity Work