A big part of showing your team how much you recognize and appreciate them is to spend some company money on them. They helped earn it, after all, so they should also get to celebrate with it. Experiment to find out what are actually meaningful as gifts, and keep those offerings fresh and surprising. Boring old pizza parties need not apply.
To afford this experimentation, we've established a One Percent Rule (yes, rules are bad, except this one). We allocate 1 percent of our top line for Surprise and Delight moments for our team. I strongly believe every company should do this. If you're a $5 million company, that means you have $50,000 right there to spend on your team. If you make $2 million a year, that's $20,000 for team surprises. Besides, that $20,000 isn't considered profit since it's taken from the top line.
In other words, this isn't about finding money in the budget. It's about having it and giving it, no matter what. By including team care money in the budget, we don't have to ask permission to do these things. We don't have to worry about taking money from other areas. We don't have to fret about whether or not we can do it. It's in the budget, so it's easy. It's formal and official. It eliminates friction around how we spend our money.
And with this allocated money, we can give amazing gifts of appreciation to our team. Gifts that actually mean something to the person being recognized.
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