I've worked with various organizations during the course of my corporate career and to be honest, they all understood the meaning of diversity of motivation with 1 exception. Ten years later, it isn't a big deal for me but I do remember a particular quarterly recognition award at my last employer called Sparkle. It was something I really wanted and worked towards. There was no monetary benefit and for me acknowledgement of my efforts was important.

The award that quarter went to another Senior Manager for my hard work on a very difficult assignment. Of course I protested but to no avail. There had been a mistake because another Manager who was up for Partnership had overheard a conversation, wanted to raise his profile and made the recommendation without checking who was the leader of the assignment!

I reported this to my boss and HR to no avail. The Partner wannabe's chances would be affected with the correction and my boss's view was it was already in print and it didn't matter because I was a genuine Sparkle.

I guess they thought money would be a better reward and I got a 25% bonus that year but i left the firm and decided I wanted to sparkle elsewhere.

Non-monetary rewards should not be underestimated when it comes to motivational tools.