I don't know about you, but I find the idea of employee of the month to be one of the biggest demotivators around. Singling out one person a month for praise means that every other employee was - what? Rubbish, late, rude, bored, not doing their job properly, annoyed they didn't get the award this month? Given that an employee of the month award can only "honour" 12 people per year, it can be a real problem to get right, and even more problematic to keep going for the right reasons....after all as an employer you wanted to say well done for a job well done.

So a thought before you embark on something that may act as a demotivator to your staff is this:

If you pay the correct rate of monies for the job being done; if people enjoy doing what they are doing; if the atmosphere is one where creativity, innovation and fun is encouraged; where the boss has an open door policy or similar (suggestion boxes can work); personal and professional development encouraged; and where everyone is treated with respect; you won't need a specific incentive scheme. Because - you as a boss will be the one most likely to do the weird and wonderful such as:

closing the office half a day early...we have an answering machine and email...
sticking a couple of movie tickets into an envelope
or
organising a game of beach cricket

and the best thing about it is, you'll have people turn up and play !!

Where everything can be driven by the dollar, when it should be driven by customer service, we need to start with making sure we are looking after the people who look after the people....

So by all means reward your staff, but do it in a way that doesn't demotivate 99.99% of the rest of your people.