Have you ever lost potential candidates to your competitor, just right before they seal the deal? Or are you wondering why your top performers are leaving? As the competition for top talents gets fierce, recruiting has become more like marketing nowadays.

No wonder, business leaders should sketch out an effective strategy to attract, engage, and retain the best talents. Fetching talented individuals to join your team is not enough, unless you can assure them to stay and grow with the organisation. While this might sound like a tough task to accomplish, keeping your key employees from jumping ship is not that difficult. Giving rewards and recognition is one of the best (and most effective) ways to improve talent retention.

Everyone in the world would fancy the idea of being recognised and rewarded for their hard work and loyalty towards the company. And your employees are no exception. Be it your new office boy or experienced managers, everyone in your team expects that someone will appreciate the efforts they put in their jobs. When leaders recognise and reward their fruitful efforts, it will make employees feel valued as a part of the team who actively contribute to organisation’s success.

Fortunately, reward and recognition are not always about how you provide cash compensation and tacky benefits for your employees. Recent Gallup survey reveals that money is not the only form of recognition. According to the study, 24 percent respondents believe that memorable recognition comes from high-level leaders or CEOs.

Non-monetary recognition such as compliment and positive feedbacks are proven to be effective in driving employee satisfaction towards their jobs. More than money, employees crave for acknowledgment that motivates them to learn and grow.

In today’s rapidly changing marketplace where job-hopping has become the new norm for Millennials, employee loyalty is increasingly rare to find. That being said, it is imperative for business leaders to recognise and reward loyal workers with long tenure and excellent services.

See: What Does the Reward and Recognition Program Speak of Your Company Culture?

Here are five tips to appreciate your dedicated employees:

Define the goals

Before rewarding your loyal employees, it is crucial to identify what you want to achieve from the effort. Every reward and recognition should not be given just for the sake of appreciating employees’ hard work, but also for higher purpose of encouraging them to be better than before.

Set guidelines

Long service should not be the only criteria to earn reward and recognition. More than long tenure, you have to make sure that they deliver consistent quality and demonstrate excellent performance. You should be clear and transparent in implementing these guidelines. Do not make judgemental decisions based on bias or favouritism.

Prepare the budget

Probably this is the most important part in planning your reward and recognition strategy. Arrange for the budget with your finance department. It is a crucial step to determine how much money the company can allocate towards rewarding employees. Hence, you need to set practical amount of rewards that you can afford to provide.

Pick the right rewards

There are copious options besides cash rewards, such as hotel or lunch voucher, free gym membership, or gift coupons. It does not have to be big and expensive, even simple gifts such as chocolate and pen will do. As stated previously, you should bear in mind that reward and recognition is not always monetary compensation.

Communicate with employees

Leaders should keep communication lines open to ensure that the rewards given are aligned with employee’s high performance. Conduct regular assessments and encourage them to always make improvements despite their current accomplishment. This way, they will not get carried away by the praise but keep scaling up their skills.

Read also: Affordable Rewards and Recognition to Give Your Employees