[evilduck]

Employee of the month is stupid. It limits recognition to a single person in a timeframe, even if there are two who deserve it, and falsely creates recognition when maybe nobody deserves it, watering down legitimate recognition potential. Having been in jobs like that before, they're also usually based off metrics that are easy to game or dominate.

Also, for other "big" recognitions, you'd better be damn sure the person deserves it. I've seen people who did one thing at the right time in front of the right people that earned corporate recognition and a bonus while the rest of us were doing equally valuable stuff at a less visible level and got nothing. Nothing kills productivity faster than that.