Celebrating Employee Anniversaries

Celebrating employee anniversaries may seem trivial. It may not significantly add to your bottom line or even be a key initiative in your strategic plan. But by treating each employee’s anniversary with your company as an achievement and a special occasion, you create a positive work environment and encourage employee commitment (and thus increase your employee retention rate).

The fact of the matter is, employees remember their hire date. It’s the career equivalent of a birthday (and who doesn’t love birthdays?) You know who else remember employees’ hire dates? Great managers, that’s who.

Celebrating an employee anniversary can also has a domino effect around the office. It will get fellow employees excited because they know you will offer them the same celebration upon their anniversaries. In the end, taking a day to show your gratitude for commitment of service boosts employee morale and has lasting positive consequences for your organization.

Now, your event doesn’t have to be ornate or extravagant. Here are some simple steps you can follow to create an Integrity HR approved employee anniversary celebration.

We recommend establishing a policy to designate when you will celebrate anniversaries, whether annually or on more momentous anniversaries such as five or 10 years. Take into consideration the size of your company and the amount of your party budget when deciding how you will celebrate.

It is important to maintain consistency so you do not hurt anyone’s feelings by celebrating someone earlier or more frequently than another. (Remember: it’s the small things like hurt feelings that make people leave an organization.)

· Get Out the Calendar: The first step toward recognizing employee work anniversaries is to make sure you’ve recorded start dates in the calendar! Depending on the size of your company, you may need to designate someone for this task (for smaller companies) or use your HR software to be notified about the day (for larger companies). Getting the dates recorded is an optimal way to ensure no anniversary is overlooked.

· Be Sincere and Make it Personal: We recommend acknowledging each employee’s anniversary every year, even if it is just with a small gesture (save the big celebrations for special anniversaries). Make it personal with a card, letter, phone call, personal visit or some other gesture. Don’t worry about making it formal. It just needs to be a genuine expression of appreciation. A few sincere words from management will be noticed and appreciated by an employee and greatly improve their morale. Often times, just a few sincere words of appreciation are worth more to the employee than an expensive gift!

· Think Twice About Giving Monetary Gifts: In employer-employee relationships, money is associated with compensation. The last thing you want to do is confuse employee recognition with compensation.

When you are celebrating an anniversary, you are expressing appreciation for the employee’s service. Compensation is something that is earned. If a gift is perceived as earned, then it really isn’t a gift. Is it?

In the end, it’s important to make it part of your company’s culture to notice and recognize employees. It’s a great gesture to celebrate employee anniversaries, but it’s even better to also frequently celebrate employee successes, accomplishments and contributions as a part of your company culture.

Please sign up to receive our blog posts via email.

Visit our Website Contact Jim Ullery

Download our Brochure