How to Design a Non-Monetary Recognition Program Using HeyTaco

Organizations will have little trouble setting and enforcing a (tight) budget for recognition. But when it comes to actually organizing it? You might be on your own. 

We underrate how challenging it can be to systematize building emotional connections. You have to shift the culture, foster engagement, and motivate teams with authenticity and meaning. Non-monetary rewards for employees are never as easy to choose and arrange as picking out cool presents or sending someone on their dream vacation.

This guide will show how to create a real program—and how HeyTaco can power it.

If you need ways to recognize employees without money and reassurance that peer recognition can take hold at your company, keep reading. 

What exactly is a non-monetary recognition program?

A non-monetary recognition program does not offer financial incentives as employee rewards or recognition. In fact, some non-monetary programs don’t even include rewards. 

When they do, some might cost money, like a team lunch. However, the lower budget is just one of the benefits. This isn’t an option for “cheap” programs; it’s the option for meaningful programs. 

The goals are to boost morale, create connection, and make company values part of the everyday environment. Not create competition or short-term increases in productivity with splash or cash. 

Rather, non-monetary recognition is heavy on shoutouts, praise, rituals, and symbolic rewards. You can plan it in five straightforward steps with help from HeyTaco.

Step 1: What do you want recognition to look like at work?

First, choose which core values or behaviors you want to reinforce. 

Maybe you want to enhance the spirit of giving or strengthen collaboration. Sometimes, patience and positivity are the focus in more high-pressure positions. Identify what your company culture needs more of, what behaviors need louder applause, and make it the center of the program.

This may even help you choose the tone. You can opt to keep it more formal and professional, light and playful, or somewhere in between. The program’s tone can also bear the influence of leadership’s style, or it can be created by participating peers.

🌮 How HeyTaco helps:

Taco Tags help you center core values, goals, initiative, and even fun stuff like inside jokes. (e.g., #aboveandbeyond)

Step 2: Prioritizing peer recognition

Top-down recognition is important. It’s memorable and reassures employees that they’re valued. However, it won’t drive a successful program. Leaders have blind spots, busy schedules, and are less likely to relate to the nuances and habits of employees. 

Peer recognition feels more authentic, is inclusive, and happens more often. Add in easy access, and you won’t have to force or enforce cultural customs. You provide the structure, and participants drive the program. 

🌮 How HeyTaco helps:

• Employees get five tacos a day to build consistency
• Recognition becomes tied to small moments, not just obvious wins
• Lightweight, lighthearted, and non-disruptive 

Step 3: Establish rituals to reinforce peer recognition: Examples and methods

Once we put employees in the driver’s seat, we have to give them directions to the destination. Creating rituals is the way recognition takes root. Giving weekly shoutouts, implementing Taco Tuesday, and recognizing Top Taco Givers encourages participation and reinforces the point of the program. 

You can also embed moments of recognition into meetings, project retrospectives, and standups.

🌮 How HeyTaco helps:

• Updating and customizing Taco Tags to support new rituals
• Fun and gamified experience people actually want to use
• Analytics and leaderboards measure progress and offer more reasons to celebrate

Step 4: Use non-monetary rewards to make recognition stick

Now we’re getting down to the part where others get stuck: employee reward ideas that cost nothing, or almost nothing. 

Fortunately, the standard best practices for employee recognition programs already tell us how to slam-dunk this one. Make it meaningful, specific to the culture, and deliver it right on time. Flexibility, autonomy, and special acknowledgment are more than enough to feel rewarded and strongly reinforce the behaviors we value.

🌮 How HeyTaco helps:

• Stock your Taco Shop with gift-free options
• Let the team design rewards (e.g., pick next lunch, Zoom-free day)
• Use our library of meaningful reward ideas to help keep offerings fresh

Step 5: Keep it visible and ongoing

If you have ever truly studied how to incentivize employees without money, you know the power of belonging. 

Taking someone aside to offer encouragement or praise is great. But when everyone can share in the positivity, they feel more comfortable both giving and receiving it. They become better at spotting chances to highlight it, too, ultimately becoming values champions. 

So, keep recognition visible in work channels. 

🌮 How HeyTaco helps:

• Recognition happens where work happens, not off to the side
• Integrates into Slack/Microsoft Teams/Google Chat workflows
• Ongoing taco economy keeps engagement up

Bonus: Sample non-monetary recognition program template

Ready to put it all into practice? Here’s what a non-monetary recognition program might look like in real life. 

From there, hammer out program leadership and tracking results. You can access this, along with real-life examples applied to specific industries, by checking out our ultimate employee recognition program template. 

Let HeyTaco show you how to reward employees without money

Recognition programs don’t flop because they’re broke; they flop because they lack structure, meaning, and consistency. Moreover, we tend to perceive “big” as “better,” letting the small stuff get lost instead of building upon it. 

Thousands of global teams found a solution in HeyTaco. We don’t just offer an award-winning peer recognition app that’s lightweight and high-impact. We hand you the tools to make recognition consistent, structured, meaningful, fun, and free to try.