Celebrate Employees Anniversaries

Interesting Ways to Celebrate Employees Anniversaries

Many teams count the numbers of years we have been working at a company. Here are some great ways to celebrate employees anniversaries at your organisation.

Celebrating an employee’s work anniversary or their milestone is one of those events that is the simplest and most easily overlooked. However long their tenure may be, it will always seem forever to employees when they do not feel appreciated at all by their managers or colleagues.

There are many different unique ways you can show the individuals on your team how valuable they are to you and those around them. While there is no need to throw a party or disrupt the entire workday, a few resourceful gestures will go a long way.

By celebrating the anniversary of their hiring, you can inform each employee the significance of their presence in the company and that another year of their time definitely deserves a celebration!

Here are some interesting ways that you and your company can celebrate your employee’s work anniversary.

  • Give a gift voucher
  • Organise a team celebration
  • Support local businesses
  • Enjoy a BYO lunch picnic
  • Anniversary desk explosion
  • Support those less fortunate
  • Give notes of appreciation
  • Arrange a paid day off
  • Employee highlight
  • An anniversary card
  • Give a trophy or a pin
  • Create a magazine
  • Arrange a work anniversary cake
  • Announce their accomplishments
  • Create an electronic card
  • Making it a big deal
  • Sponsor an animal

Let’s get into the details below. Enjoy finding a method that works for you and your team when next celebrating one of their work anniversaries.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

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Give a gift voucher

A great way to celebrate employees anniversaries and also thanking them for their hard work is by getting them an educational (and enjoyable) voucher. Many businesses have vouchers and deals that will take employees out of their comfort zone.

Examples of unusual team activities include skiing, rock climbing, surfing lessons or even a beginner’s lesson in ballroom dancing. This allows a day off from work and a new, exciting experience that your employee can rave about when they are back from work.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Organise a team celebration

Another way celebrate employees work anniversary is by getting their closest colleague at the company to organise the celebration.

One fun way to make this into a game of sorts, is ask everyone to write a short message or memory about the person, and then print them all and place them in a hat or jar. Ask the employee to then pull them out and read them, and try to guess who write the quote.

Their best mates or closest colleague to organise the event; it does not to have to be something big or expensive. This way, they can come up with more personalised and creative ideas.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Support local businesses

You could celebrate an employees work anniversary by supporting your local businesses and getting gifts from Etsy. Etsy is a peer-to-peer e-commerce website focused on handmade or vintage items and supplies, as well as unique factory-manufactured items.

When an employee’s anniversary is coming up, spend some time finding a lovely, handmade gift for them on Etsy.

Knowing that it is a custom-made gift, feels much more special than a gift card. Plus, you are supporting other small businesses with each purchase.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Enjoy a BYO lunch picnic

Assuming the weather is favourable, a team BYO lunch picnic at a local park is a great way to have lunch together, and celebrate the employee work anniversary at the same time. Ask everyone a week or so beforehand, to bring in their own made lunch on a specific day, and then arrange a few chairs and picnic rugs.

Ask the team to walk down to the park together, and if the business can afford it, maybe put on some food or drinks to go with their BYO lunches. This is a great way to see what people eat at lunchtime as well as get an our of all important sunshine in the middle of the day.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Anniversary desk explosion

Another great way to celebrate employees’ milestone is by decorating their desk on or closer to the day of their work anniversary. It is a fun way to let them know you remembered their first day at work and celebrating their milestone.

Surround their desk with balloon and streamers or cover their computer monitors with quirky and funny incidents that happened at work. Nothing is better than seeing your employee’s surprised face as they walk in to find their desk nicely decorated.

I once worked in an office where they entirely wrapped the employees desk in aluminium foil, chair, phone, keyboard and all – it was hilarious!

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Support those less fortunate

Instead of a financial reward to the employee, who can often quickly forget they received something, why not spend that money in helping those less fortunate? You could make a donation to a local not for profit group in the employees name, and print out the donation receipt or create a nice certificate to give to them.

This way, you are not only recognising the person and celebrating employees anniversaries, but also supporting the good work of charities in your city.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Give notes of appreciation

You employee’s personal milestones are an excellent excuse to express gratitude and your appreciation towards them. Anniversaries are more meaningful when you receive a stack of Post-It notes from colleagues, who share stories about why they are valuable to the company.

While this may be considered being cheap in some companies, always remember that it is the memories and the thought that count. Who does not like reminiscing the best times of their work life or being remembered for the good things that happened at work? Hence the importance to celebrate employees anniversaries.

celebrate employees anniversaries

Image: Unsplash

Arrange a paid day off

The best way to celebrate employees’ milestone is to give the employee time off. Perhaps not for all employees, if your company is not able to afford it. Give employees who have been there for a longer period of time, such as 5 years and more.

By doing so, your employees would know that by staying with the company for the long term have its benefits (besides their long service leave and bonuses). This will also reduce the employee turnover rate.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Employee highlight

Perhaps it is time to put your employee in the limelight. If your company have a blog page online or a monthly newsletter, published your employees’ work anniversary or milestone. Interview them the week before and post it on the month of the newsletter (including the date they started working with the company) or on the actual day itself, it is possible.

Try to include their achievement and a photo of them as well. This allows the company to get to know what other departments are doing and gives individual praise too. What a great way to celebrate employees’ milestone!

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

An anniversary card

Let’s get (a little) personal when you celebrate employees anniversaries. Circulate an anniversary card to colleagues discreetly, get it signed and inscribe a special message to the employee.

Let them know that their fellow employees share the excitement and enthusiasm for their tenure.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Give a trophy or a pin

Another great way to celebrate employees work anniversary is to give your special employee a commemorative token of your gratitude for their years of service. To inspire and encourage your employees, create a silly award to give to your employees once a year.

Create goofy awards such as, “Quirky Laughter Award”, “Top Coffee Drinker Award” or even “Miss Congeniality Award”. By creating humorous awards to give them to your employees on their anniversary day, could bring a smile on those stressful days of work.

Everyone could use a little more laughter in their lives.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Create a magazine

In a previous job, we had a design department, and for anniversaries, they used to create a fictitious magazine cover, complete with a photo of the employee and surrounded by funny headlines that the employee may say or do.

Think a picture of Sally, with headlines like “Sally shares tips on Carrot Cakes”, etc. Buy a cheap frame from your local shop, and frame it, and hand it to the employee during your weekly team stand up or another event.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Arrange a work anniversary cake

Celebrating employees’ milestone could be a simple as getting a cake for them. Find out your employee’s favourite kind of cake and order one in advance with special decorations, including name and years of service.

Remember that it is the tiny gestures that matters and who does not want a slice of cake to share on their special day?

Celebrate employees anniversaries

Photo: Krista, Flickr

Announce their accomplishments

Finally, another simple way to celebrate employees’ milestone is by delivering the announcement during weekly company meeting. Give a short speech about your employees’ accomplishments and the number of years they have dedicated to the company.

If you do not have a weekly company meeting, you could write a thoughtful email that highlights a specific employee’s contributions and strengths in front of the whole team on their anniversary.

Not only will your employee feel better about himself or herself, they will also strive to work harder as they feel honoured being recognised for achievements and they were not forgotten.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Create an electronic card

There are some interesting electronic greeting card services out there on the web, that are environmentally friendly replacements for the old school physical card that’s passed around and signed. This can be used for employee appreciation on birthdays, work anniversaries, farewells, etc.

Here’s a page directly to work anniversary cards on Kudoboard.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Making it a big deal

You can also make a big deal out of your employees’ work anniversary by making a big deal out of it. Invest in a gigantic prize wheel, the kind where you can find them at the fun fair.

Label each section with unique gifts such as “Half-Day Friday”, “Movie Passes”, “Shopping Voucher” or “Off-day”. Gather everyone around and get your employee to spin the on their special day.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

Sponsor an animal

In my city, our local Zoo allows people to sponsor an animal on behalf of a person or company. So, a small animal may be $100 per year, and a large animal (think Elephant) may be $1,000. Find out what animals the employee likes most and find out if your local Zoo has a similar program.

This helps both continue the good work in animal protection, and also is a very fun and unusual way to celebrate employees anniversaries in a way that the team will tell others about, far and wide.

 

Celebrate work anniversaries

In Summary

You and your management team may be busy at work, tackling deadline and paperwork for the week or month but is it never a good excuse to ignore your employees’ achievements and anniversaries, regardless if it is for their work anniversary or their birthdays.

As a refresher, those ways to celebrate employee anniversaries again, are;

  • Give a gift voucher
  • Organise a team celebration
  • Support local businesses
  • Enjoy a BYO lunch picnic
  • Anniversary desk explosion
  • Support those less fortunate
  • Give notes of appreciation
  • Arrange a paid day off
  • Employee highlight
  • An anniversary card
  • Give a trophy or a pin
  • Create a magazine
  • Arrange a work anniversary cake
  • Announce their accomplishments
  • Create an electronic card
  • Making it a big deal
  • Sponsor an animal

When you celebrate employees anniversaries, your employees will fell special and valued for their hard work and time they have dedicated to your organisation. Remember to make this an ongoing habit, and do not let being busy get in the way of making everyone in the company feel special at least on one day of every year.