Gone are the days of the gold watch as a reward for performance at work, according to a Monday article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch: More and more businesses are getting creative with their incentive programs.
The Times-Dispatch reports that “several hundred” workers out of the 10,300 at DTE Energy receive rewards for the length of their service with the company. Employee Doug Green told the paper that “at 30 years, I picked the crystal bowl. At 25 years, there wasn’t anything I was interested in much, so I got a jewelry box for my daughter.”
Several experts told the Times-Dispatch about the advantages that such rewards programs have over monetary bonuses. For example, companies are allowed to deduct the cost of gift items purchased for the incentive program from their annual taxes. Additionally, the paper reports, employees who receive such a gift from their employer do not have to report it as income on their own tax return.
Other experts have recently pointed out that firms which hand out substantial monetary bonuses run the risk of being associated with recent Wall Street scandals, making in-kind rewards more politic.
