REWARDING your employees is hard. Wanting to reward them iseasy. This is particularly true at our insurance agency. AllHigginbotham employees own stock in the agency, and theircommitment to their investment shows. Thanks to our staff,Higginbotham won the “Best Place to Work in Dallas-Fort Worth”award from the Dallas Business Journal. The votes of 90% of our196-person workforce earned us a spot on Texas Monthly's 2006 “BestCompanies to Work for in Texas” list.

I know Higginbotham is a great place to work fromexperience–I've been an employee at the agency's Fort Worthlocation for 16 years. Until recently, the only part of myresponsibilities as personal-lines manager that I didn't like wasrewarding my workers. It's not that they didn't deserve accolades.The problem was with me. Each year, I strived to come up withcreative, meaningful, yet budget-conscious ways to say “thank you.”But no matter what I devised, it seemed, some employees ended upfeeling slighted.

This year, I finally got it right. I devised an agencywiderewards program that didn't break the budget or bruise any egos,and that I'm convinced will work for any company. I call it “ThreeWishes.”