> Is it take your favourite employees on a retreat, don't worry about the message this sends?
Well the message is "be excellent and next year you'll be there too". A failure to reward great employees out of fear of picking favorites is IMO one of the big problems of modern corporate management.
An impact of an outstanding employee is an order of magnitude bigger than that of an average one. You should reward people accordingly and openly. Here "accordingly" can literally mean "an order of magnitude bigger comp" and "openly" means you tell everyone this guy is rewarded because he works so well.
Instead what often happens is "here's a 20% raise but don't tell anybody so they don't think you're special. We're all equals here".
Well the message is "be excellent and next year you'll be there too". A failure to reward great employees out of fear of picking favorites is IMO one of the big problems of modern corporate management.
An impact of an outstanding employee is an order of magnitude bigger than that of an average one. You should reward people accordingly and openly. Here "accordingly" can literally mean "an order of magnitude bigger comp" and "openly" means you tell everyone this guy is rewarded because he works so well.
Instead what often happens is "here's a 20% raise but don't tell anybody so they don't think you're special. We're all equals here".