I have a remote worker (He lives in South Africa, we are in Israel) in my team of 3, and I want to reward him for his awesome work. There is not enough budget to compensate him more but I still want to reward him in a meaningful way. What creative stuff can I do?
Edit: For the sake of the question - my budget is less then 100$.
In addition to work related gifts (tablet) and non-work related gifts (gift certificate), time off can be a reward. Though it does reduce billable hours, so it does have a cost.
The time off can be a full day , or 1/2 a day before a holiday, so they can beat the traffic.
With remote workers in the past we have given them "bonus gifts" such as Ipads, Phones, Monitors, etc. All work related, but allows them to contract better and grow their skills.
Like any gift, figure out who the person is and gift accordingly.
Scan through online gift shops (or simply ebay or amazon) and send him something small with dedicated text of your gratitude. It doesn't need to be expensive but it should be something that he can put on wall (poster) or on desk (small statue for example), so it will remind him of your care for his achievements and motivate him in future.
You still need money to translate into benefits.
For example. were you i nthe office, the offer of 'free coffee' in the office implies a cost for you.
When working abroad sometimes it is useful but expensive to pay for a plane ticket to get to work for a couple of weeks side by side.
Other remote rewards could be buy a ticket to a conference of his/her interest or sponsor him a talk.
In any case you always need money.