“All work and no play…” You know how the saying goes. In the age of fast-moving, well… everything, it’s easy to forget to slow down even when we don’t have pressing deadlines. At that tempo, it’s we can forget to take breaks and eventually reach a point of burnout.

As a manager, it’s not only important to know how to delegate tasks, but just as equally important to give your employees incentives to improve their performance while avoiding that burnout.

Incentives don’t necessarily have to be monetary. Here are a few creative ways you can help your team’s performance.

Point-based rewards: We get rewards on miles we’ve traveled, on purchases we’ve made and even badges based on where we check in on our phones. How can you bring this incentives system to your company? Say that your employees have a flexible deadline to finish a specific training program. In order to make sure that they all finish it at a timely manner, you could divide your employees into teams and give a reward to the first team that completes the training. Perhaps the prize could be a pizza party or a half-day, depending on what suits your company.

Three-day weekends (as it suits your company culture): In order to get the most out of your team, you could offer Fridays off to the individuals that complete the 40-hour week in four days. In order to make sure your entire office isn’t closed, you could divide the company into teams and alternate designated days-off. There are different scenarios that work for differently for each company, but it’s the end result that matters. Hopefully, the day off from work is an incentive to work hard and give better performance.

Employee of the Month — with a twist: Unless your employees really want a plaque to commemorate them as the standout employee for a specific month, you could come up with an Employee of the Month program to highlight the strengths of your employees and give them the spotlight in a different way. It could be anything from a featured article on your website to sending them off to a conference, to an extra vacation day. The choice is yours — just have to implement it!

Are there similar incentives at your company? What works the best? What doesn’t?