Leaderboard Celebrations: Creative Ways to Reward and Recognize Top Performers

Recognition is vital to your company culture and employee retention numbers. In fact, a recent survey showed that over 44% of employees said they were planning to leave their jobs because of a lack of recognition. 

To retain top talent and inspire top performers to go above and beyond – leadership must do more than the bare minimum for their employees. Companies need a thoughtful recognition strategy that aims to reward, recognize, and incentivize your team regularly. With the right initiatives, you can motivate top performers and keep them engaged with their workweek tasks. 

The problem? Cash rewards and shoutouts in the Slack channel are not enough.

We put together a list of 10 creative ways to reward, recognize, and appreciate your employees – so you can start making celebrations and everyday occurrences.

Here’s everything you need to know about recognition and how to use gamification strategies in the workplace.

The Importance of Recognition 

Rewards and recognition are so much more than just incentives. Employees who feel recognized for their contributions are four times more likely to be engaged at work and five times more likely to feel connected with the workplace. 

Recognition shows your team just how much you appreciate them. Whether it’s a cash reward, gift cards, or a spa day – these rewards keep your top performers engaged and increase job satisfaction. 

10 Creative Ways to Reward and Recognize

There are many ways to reward and recognize your team. When building out your strategy, you’ll want to consider your audience. What rewards would your team like? How do they want to be recognized? What is missing from your workweek?

Here are ten creative employee recognition ideas to help you get started:

Spin a Prize Wheel 

Are you looking for a way to celebrate 3, 4, or 5 top performers? With a prize wheel, you can acknowledge everyone who put in the extra work that week to climb the leaderboard. At the end of the week, you can randomly pick someone from the top four to spin the wheel. Whatever the arrow lands on – wins!

This may be more challenging for a hybrid or remote workforce. With Spinify’s prize wheels, you can reward your staff randomly or hand-pick who gets to spin. Whether they’re in the office or working from home – you’ll always have an innovative way to reward your top performers for their contributions. All you need to do is choose a prize wheel, pick the players, set the prizes – and let the fun begin!

Earn a Badge 

Sometimes, it’s the little things that matter most. It doesn’t always make sense to constantly hand out cash rewards and prizes to your top performers every week. However, the last thing you want is for their hard work to go unnoticed. 

With badges, you can highlight your top performer’s accomplishments, ensuring that every achievement is recognized and valued in the workplace. 

At Spinify, we can help you automate your recognition efforts. We’ll reward your sales reps and top performers with a badge the minute they reach a milestone – so you can get time back in your day to focus on other tasks that require more attention. 

Play Their Favorite Song 

Did a top performer reach their new personal record? Did they bring in new business or lock in a renewal? No matter what it is – it deserves a celebration! When your sales managers reach one of these pivotal moments, consider playing their favorite song and let the whole team celebrate! This is a great way to keep morale high and turn every small milestone into a celebration.

Handwritten Notes

There is no better feeling than getting a personalized handwritten note sent to you. When your leadership takes the time out of their day to write a note and deliver it to a sales rep – it won’t go unnoticed. 

Breakfast in the Office 

Help your team start their day on the right track with breakfast in the office. This is a great way to celebrate your team’s achievements and recognize their contributions. Whether it’s Friday or Monday – this breakfast and coffee is always needed!

Office Olympics

If your team has been going the extra mile – what better way to celebrate their contributions than with a fun-filled day of office Olympics? Games and competitions are great gamification tools you can leverage to keep spirits high and combat burnout. 

Ticket to a Concert or Sporting Event

A great way to inspire some friendly competition is to invest in a big prize and tie it to a mini-game or contest. If it’s a concert or event you think your team would like, you can use it as leverage to motivate your team through a sales contest. 

Spinify is one of the best sales contest software options you can invest in. With this tool, you can set up contests and mini-games throughout the week, month, or even year. Our platform will create a leaderboard based on your team’s data, keeping track of everyone’s success in real time. 

Redeem Points in the Spinify Store 

Once you get set up with Spinify, you can create a personalized reward store. This reward store will be filled with rewards, goods, and services your team can claim using their Spinify points. Every accomplishment, milestone, or mini-game your team members win will earn them Spinify points. 

The reward store will not only simplify the celebration process internally for your team, but it will also keep company morale high and motivate your team to push themselves during their work week. They can shop at the reward store and use their points whenever they want to.

Ring the Gong 

Did a sales rep recently close on a big contract? Did they increase their renewal rate, book a record-breaking amount of demo calls next week, or reach their monthly sales goals? No matter what the celebration is – they deserve to be recognized by the entire team for their accomplishment. 

With Spinify, anytime your team accomplishes something big, they’ll have an opportunity to ring the gong for the whole team to hear! This is a great way to celebrate every win and to inspire your team. (Because who wouldn’t want a chance to ring the gong at work?)

Set up a Podium Leaderboard  

Looking for creative leaderboard ideas? A podium competition leaderboard showcases the top three participants for a given time period. With this game, only three individuals can claim the top spots – so everyone will need to go above and beyond to win their claim to fame. 

This leaderboard style is a great tool to keep the focus on your top performers and recognize them for their contributions. Anyone who isn’t in the top three will have to put in the work if they want to climb the ranks and snag their spot on the podium – do you think they have what it takes?

Step up Your Recognition Efforts With Spinify

With our sales gamification software, you can take your employee recognition program to the next level. Our sales gamification tool is designed to automate your recognition initiatives to improve rep success and reward top performers for their contributions. 

Every milestone they reach, deal close, and sale they bring in will be rewarded and recognized. With our platform, you’ll never need to worry. Your team will always be engaged with their workweek tasks and feel appreciated for everything they do.

Book a free demo today to learn more about the best gamification tool on the market.