What are Employee-Of-The-Month recognition ideas & guidelines that work?

You could take them to lunch, give them a gift card, if it's a retail setting have the manager of the location do something special; lunch for the store for example. Set a budget and you can pretty much do anything. People love being recognized even something small would be appreciated.

The guidelines you use should be important for the company and division being selected. Someone in HR won't be able to meet the same base requirements as someone in Retail, IT, Finance, Sales, etc. You don't want the recognition to become too focused one area of the company.

For the team/department:
A bell in a central area that gets rung when:
- Sales closes a deal for greater than $XX.
- Finance completes a major audit with no findings.
- Operations identifies cost savings of $XX.
- You get the idea. Everyone has the ability to announce their success, and everyone else in the company is expected to show up and recognize the accomplishment.

For individual recognition:
I always liked the idea of a gift card, public mention (plaque, email, newsletter, etc) and a lunch for the employee, their boss, the CEO/CFO/President (someone with significant impact) and one or two colleagues who have helped that person 'win.' This promotes a friendly competition without losing site of teamwork. People now know that they get a real reward, and colleagues understand that their help might get them included in this lunch.

-Reserved Parking Space
-Free month of parking
-Free month's bus pass
-Free tank of gas.
-Gift card for free gas.
-Gift card for free groceries.