How do you recognize and reward your people?

Messages about our upcoming "Best in Class Competition" (BICC) are going out at work.  On the Coast Guard side of my life, I see folks taking a hard look at the Coast Guard Innovation program and considering how they can take part.  These are both great programs in the two places where I spend my professional life, but they are just that: programs.  Programs are great, but my thinking today goes more to the things that individuals and teams do in the vast spans of time between official programs.  Leadership is about far more than grand proclamations and new initiatives.

Last week there was a great response to my question, "How do leaders promote and support the health and well-being of those that they lead?"  It seems that out in the world each week there is a new challenge that presents itself, so I'll try to make these questions an each-Wednesday theme.  This week I had occasion to see talented, hard-working people find success and then be largely unrecognized by the otherwise good people that are "in charge."  It's the classic "when the boss takes credit for the great work that you did."  My question this week is, therefore:

How do you recognize and reward your people, motivating tomorrow's improvement over today's already good results?

Please consider that I am not necessarily talking about group call-outs, public recognition, certificates, trophies, and ribbons.  Those are surely a part of the equation, but I am looking for the whole picture, and I am convinced that there has to be something out there more meaningful than the same-old.  I look forward to and appreciate your thoughts!