End of year bonuses are the best way to show appreciation and movitate the troops.

Let's take a look:

First of all, who wouldn't want a little extra something tacked onto that December paycheck right? I know I'd like it. But here's the real question, would I appreciate it? There is a difference. I have to admit I don't sit down and say "I really appreciate that paycheck this payday." I earned it didn't I? So I come to expect that every two weeks, I'm going to be rewarded for my efforts with a paycheck so I don't necessarily review it as something out of the ordinary to appreciate. Same goes with the end of the year bonus.

Achievers is a company that sells employee rewards and recognition software. Their chairman, Razor Suleman says that bonus is like a sugar rush. You're happy when it hits he says, you pay your January credit card bills, but you don't feel it. Suleman says if employers pay annual year end bonuses long enough, employees start to feel entitled to them regardless of how they've performed.

A recent Society of Human Resources Management survey found that companies do better at engaging workers if they pair bonuses with employee recognition programs. Companies that spend one percent of payroll on programs that publicly call out employees for above-average performances see an 85% positive impact on worker engagement and 61% hang onto workers longer.

Acting on employees' suggestions is just one way companies can recognize and reward workers in addition to or in lieu of year-end bonuses.

Another way companies can benefit and show they are being sincere in their recognition is to set aside bonus money that can be handed out at any time of the year. In other words, why wait till December?

A couple of other things. Offer flexible schedules and provide challenging work.

Challenger, Gray and Christmas polled companies and found that more than 40% of them don't offer year-end bonuses. It was 43% to be exact. And of those that did, more than half gave a non-monetary bonus or one valued at 100-dollars or less. 31% gave all employees a bonus based on the company's overall performance. 19% gave performance based bonuses only to certain employees. '

I once had a general manager who wrote a note on the paystub of every employee before handing out the checks on payday. Each of those notes, I assume was personalized to that particular employee. I assume because mine always was. It had something specific about my performance in the past two weeks and it was always complimentary. I looked forward to that each payday as much as I did the money. It made me feel good, wanted and valuable.

While some say giving even a little something to each employee over the holidays is a nice thing, I searched and searched and did not find anything that said it was a valuable thing that contributed to improved performance by the employee or greater success for the company. So with that.

Conclusion: Fiction