“Transitions should be marked and milestones commemorated,” explain Chip and Dan Heath in Power of Moments, an extremely relevant book that should be on the shelf for all People Ops leaders and CEOs. This research is wildly relevant because moments are happening all the time in your organization, and these moments are powerful. They can have extraordinary positive impact for your culture.
An employee’s work anniversary is one of these potential moments.
So, how do you celebrate a work anniversary? There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but there are plenty of creative and meaningful ways to make the day special.
In this article, we’ll dig into work anniversaries and explore some unique ways to celebrate them (plus, a little bit on how CultureBot can help). Whether you’re a People Ops or HR Leader hoping to improve employee engagement and appreciation, or a leader, executive or manager interested in recognizing key contributors to your organization, you’ll find some great ideas to fit your unique team here.
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The Work Anniversary and Why It Matters
Sometimes shortened to “Workiversary” or “Workaversary,” the “work anniversary” is simply the anniversary of a team members’ start date.
It’s a milestone.
Whether the organization recognizes it or not, I promise you the team member certainly takes account of this day in their head, asking themselves questions like: Do I like it here? How have I grown? Is this what I thought it was going to be? Am I appreciated? What have I accomplished?
Think about crossing the 1-year anniversary mark in an important romantic relationship, and now imagine your partner didn’t take account of it at all? You’d feel pretty jaded, wouldn’t you?
Work relationships aren’t that different. People put a lot of commitment and dedication into a work environment. It’s a big decision to start a job and to stay at a job. And the anniversary date is an important milestone. Just check out these eye-opening stats if you’re skeptical about how important little recognition moments (50 Must-Know Employee Recognition Statistics). Like this one:
Adopting a simple recognition program that congratulates employees on their work anniversaries can increase the average employee tenure at an organization by 2 years.
The anniversary date is important to the team member. It’s also a massive opportunity for the company because it’s a clear moment.
The Power of Moments: Work Anniversaries
In The Power of Moments, the Heath Brothers dig into research showing that certain brief experiences have outsized impact that jolt, elevate, and change us. In the work context, it’s an important opportunity to grab (or create) these moments and make them more meaningful and memorable.
And work anniversaries are a bulls-eye “moment type” that demands close attention from leaders and organizations.
The Power of Moments research found that moments are created from one or more of these four elements:
- Elevation: Experiences that rise above the routine.
- Insight: Deliver realizations and transformations
- Pride: Commemorate people’s achievement
- Connection: Bond us together.
While reading this list, you may notice that work anniversaries touch on every element.
To get this important celebration right, you should think about creating a moment that incorporates elements of elevation, insight, pride, and connection.
For example:
- Elevation: Go beyond the routine card and cake. Consider unique experiences like a surprise lunch with the team, personalized cards or video messages from managers and teammates, or a custom thoughtful gift.
- Insight: The employee is probably already reflecting on their journey with the company. That’s natural. Lean into that. Create a slideshow of photos from their time or a “yearbook” with messages from the team. Help them feel the insight of the time passed and the contributions made.
- Pride: A work anniversary is a moment of pride. Emphasize their contributions to other team members and make their anniversary visible to others on the team.
- Connection: This is a moment to strengthen the bonds between teammates and managers. A team lunch, getting other co-workers to send messages or sign a card or submit a video, putting together some social event, all of these things are ways to elevate the moment and emphasize the connections that exist in a work environment.
9 Ways I Created Work Anniversary Moments As CEO
Work Anniversaries were extremely important to me as CEO of Levelset, a company I ran for 10+ years and exited for $500M. And since we had 450+ team members at scale, we had one or more work anniversaries occurring nearly everyday. I always understood the value of this moment.
In fact, I genuinely considered it my moment as the leader, because it was a time for me to reflect on and appreciate one of our team members, many who I worked closely with or saw their contributions first-hand. When someone hit a 5-year or 10-year milestone, it was enough to create rocks in my stomach, because of how grateful I was for all of that belief in me as a leader and commitment to our efforts. THAT is why work anniversaries matter and should be elevated.
As CEO, working closely with our People Ops team, we elevated it with a vareity of tactics.
- Know Every Anniversary: This is simple but crucial. Work anniversaries will zoom right by if the leader(s) don’t know about them. I created Slack and email alerts of upcoming work anniversaries, delivered at the start of each month and week. This put the milestone in my mind and made sure I could take notice of it.
- Send a Personal Message: There are many fancy ways to celebrate a work anniversary, but the simplest and purest is probably the best. Take a moment to write and send a personal message to that team member on the morning of their anniversary. Mention something about their work or your relationship. If you don’t know something, reach out to people who do. My example — by the way — cascaded down through the organization, so that other leaders, managers, and teammates were sending personal messages at this milestone as well.
- Exclusive Swag: We created exclusive company swag for team members who notched various milestones. Everyone got a fleece when they hit their 1-year milestone. This became a moment in-itself. When we’d announce the 1-year anniversary, the team would chant “fleece, fleece, fleece.” People walked around the office in their fleece were role models to new hires. And this tactic scaled, so there were 5-year swag items, 10-year swag items, etc.
- Physical Marker (In Office) For Others To See: When someone had a work anniversary, we’d tie a number balloon (with # of years celebrated) to the back of their chair. For an in-person team, this was extremely effective. This made the anniversary visible to everyone in the office, trigging others to congratulate the employee and making the employee feel appreciated all around. Most team members would leave their balloons up for days or weeks, meaning we had number balloons all over the office showing all kinds of different tenures and reinforcing the broad-scale commitment our team had to the organization. Teammates would share photos of the chair balloon on our Slack or their own social media, spreading the information to people in other offices or the public. When it comes to celebrating work anniversaries…physical and concrete items are king!
- The 5 Year Exec Dinner: When people hit a five year milestone, me (and other execs and leaders) would take them (and spouses) out to a nice dinner, and got them a nice gift.
- Slack Congratulatory Message: We’d also post a “happy work anniversary” message to the full team in our Slack’s #general channel for everyone to see, and react to. When the team was small, we’d post individually on the work anniversary date. As the team grew, we’d post a weekly or monthly group as part of a bigger message or collage of photos.
- Thank You During All-Hands: During every monthly, quarterly, and annual all-hands meeting, we always spent time on appreciation, and this included saying thank you to team members celebrating work anniversaries during that period. The longer the tenure, the more personal and specific the message became, but these messages always included photo collages on the big screen, and saying thank you out-loud.
- 1:1 Coffee Dates: While CEO, I spent a lot of time having 1:1 coffee dates with team members, and they were primarily triggered by two moments: (i) when someone joined; and (ii) when someone crossed an anniversary. These were triggers for me to set up an informal session over coffee (or Zoom) to catch up, get to know the team member better, get a better sense of how they saw things, and make sure they knew how grateful I was to them.
- Team E-Cards or Physical Cards: As a work anniversary approached, our people ops group and managers would circulate e-cards or physical cards to people who worked closely with the teammate celebrating, and this created a special keepsake for the celebrating employee.
After Levelset was sold, the acquiring company didn’t do any of these things. Sure, they were bigger. And sure, it wasn’t the end of the world. It’s not essential to the business.
But I can tell you for certain that the difference was noticed, and it made a difference.
Work anniversaries are one of those little things that can get buried beneath the pile of priorities, objectives, and other HR/People Ops tasks…but, if it does get buried and lost, it’s an big missed opportunity.
The lesson from The Power of Moments is absolutely true — certain brief experiences have outsized impact that jolt, elevate, and change us.
CEOs, People Ops groups, and organizations should use the power of these moments. The best case scenario is that you missed an opportunity. The worst case is that you created a “pit” and suffer an outsized negative impact.
15 More Ideas: How to Celebrate Workiversaries
When organizations are in-person and working in the office, it opens up a lot of options to celebrate work anniversaries or “workiversaries” in special ways. But honestly, while putting together this list, it was striking how many strategies can be used both in-office or remotely. It’s clear that the important thing is not where people are located. The important thing is shining a spotlight on the people celebrating and giving them recognition and thanks.
Here are 15 other strategies and ideas:
- A Public Thank You: This can take a few different forms – a public shoutout on Slack or via Email. A post on LinkedIn. No matter how you decide to do it, there is no doubt that whoever’s work anniversary it is – they will feel appreciated. Share what truly makes this individual team member such an invaluable player on your team. The benefits of saying “Thank You” also go far beyond just an individual employee. When you start to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”, it will form part of a successful company culture that supports different personalities – and helps others on your team generally get more engaged with their work.
- Handwritten Notes: This one definitely tugs on the heartstrings a bit because your employee/teammate will know that you took the time out of our busy schedule to really think about him or her and what they mean to your organization. In our current day and age, it’s very rare for people to sit down and write a thoughtfully written letter. The work anniversary is just such a great opportunity to go to your penmanship. And if you just hate writing, or are part of a huge org and want to scale up, use a service like handwrytten or thanks.io.
- Lunch: Lunch can be a very fun way for teammates to bond with one another and celebrate someone’s workiversary milestone. There are many ways to go about this. Catering lunch in-office is commonplace, but also consider going out of the office. Get just a few people together who are closest to the celebrating employee and go spend an hour at a near-by lunch spot. This doesn’t need to be fancy. It’s the thought that counts!
- Decorate: One example on how to do this is in the prior section, my example of tying number balloons to chairs. But there are a thousand ways to use decorations to elevate the moment. Wrap someone’s desk with wrapping paper (we did that!). Hang their photo from the rafters in the main meeting room. Put colorful table clothes on the break room tables with confetti. Get fathead stickers of the employee celebrating and stick them on the conference room door.
- Party: How about a party? Big companies can’t throw parties for every single employee work anniversary, but there are certainly many ways to build-in parties and formal celebrations. You can create celebrations for big milestones (i.e. 10 years). You can create monthly parties with different themes for each month that celebrates folks for that month.
- Recognize, Recognize, Recongize: There are a bunch of ways to reconigze work anniversaries.
- Send a personal message
- Post in Slack or MS Teams (in #general)
- Post on social media
- Include a slide in your all-hands meeting
- Get manager or leader to tell a story or thank the team member in live meeting, or in a recording
- Write a real letter and send it to the employee’s home
- 1:1 With Leaders: The point of this tactic is to have the CEO or other leaders recognize the employee, and one great way of doing that is to reach out and have some coffee with them, or go for a walk. If you’re in the office and nearby, a super effective and meaningful celebration is just to chip off 10-20 minutes from the day, and focus it on being grateful to the employee.
- Thank The Spouse: When someone is working for a company they are sacrificing time and mindshare for their family. The work anniversary milestone is a great moment to reach out to the spouse or family and give them thanks. You can do this with a card, a call, some flowers or cookies delivered, or anything like this.
- Trophies, Patches, and Groups: When you’re in the office, the more physically and concretely you can celebrate a workiversary milestone, the better. Companies like Disney create special pins for all kinds of different market segments and people go wild collecting these things. The scouts does this with patches. When my kids go to summer camp, they get a “# year patch” or sticker each time, and “graduate” into a new type-of-camper. These techniques can be extremely effective and important to employees and teams.
- Social Media Shout-Out: Take your “congratulations” message and post it on your social media outlets, especially important workplace outlets like LinkedIn.
- Gifts / Swag: Everyone loves gifts. You want to be careful here because celebrating a work anniversary should be about recognition and gratitude. You don’t want it to feel transactional with the team member. Nevertheless, there are great, thoughtful ways to do this. Services like SnackNation can deliver a celebratory gift box with tasty treats to a remote employee’s door. Feel free to get creative and personalize gifts based on their unique hobbies and interests….including the next idea…
- Exclusive Swag: I love this tactic. As you can see from the prior section, we employed this one when I was CEO. I really loved not only how the employee was celebrated and liked getting the exclusive swag, but how that swag became a marker within the company, showing others (especially new members) that they had role models and that others were really bought into the organization.
- Digital Memory Book or Card: Use a tool like Canva or CultureBot to create pages highlighting the employee’s biggest projects, proudest contributions, and top moments through the years. Have colleagues record short video messages congratulating the employee as you flip through the memorable scenes. Whether it’s your employees first work anniversary or 15th – they’ve changed, the company has changed, the time have changed – breaking out old team photos, quirky emails, even funny chat communications can really uplift employees on their special day. The nostalgia can put them in a good mood, and can help them imagine how they might craft new memories (maybe even better memories) in the future.
- Play A Game: This one is a lot like the 1:1 with Leaders, or the party. Instead of doing something like that, how about you challenge them to a quick game. Throw in a bunch of congratulation messages or titles and bring a few folks into a physical or virtual game to have a little fun together.
- A Little Time Off? How about giving the employee the work anniversary day off, or maybe let them cut loose after lunch?
Read our in-depth Ultimate Guide & Brilliant Ideas for Team Celebrations.
The Benefits To You, The Employee, and The Company
Workiversaries are more than mere milestones. They’re opportunities to elevate your workplace dynamics, foster a positive company culture, and instill a sense of belonging among your workforce. Celebrating a work anniversary provides a shower of benefits, and here are a few benefits experienced by everyone involved:
- Boost The Employee’s Morale and Engagement: An employee’s workiversary isn’t just a date on the calendar. A moment of pride speaks volumes about their dedication and commitment. Celebrating these events boosts morale by showing you value their work and journey. A simple shout-out in a team meeting, a token of appreciation, or even a personal note from a manager can make the employee feel recognized and valued. This recognition can uplift their spirits and motivate them to aim higher.
- Enhances Employee Engagement: Work anniversary celebrations aren’t just parties. They’re catalysts that drive employee engagement. When employees see their journey being recognized, it sparks a sense of belonging. They feel more connected to the company and their colleagues. This connection fuels their motivation, making them more engaged in their work. It’s a win-win: employees feel appreciated, and the company benefits from increased productivity and creativity.
- Makes You Happier And More Grateful: Study-after-study shows that you’ll be happier if you’re more grateful. Celebrating someone’s work anniversary — someone who is arm-and-arm with you to help you accomplish a shared goal — is a great moment to express and reflect on gratitude.
- Is A Moment To Learn: Especially in bigger organizations, the work anniversary date may be the only day in the year where you spend any time with a given employee. This is a special moment for leaders…as it’s a moment to learn more about that person, their role, and their perspective.
- Create Joyful and Energizing Peak Moments: Celebrating workiversaries is about creating joyful and energizing moments. According to a Rewards and Benefits Association article, workplaces with such peak moments are 13 times more likely to have highly engaged employees and three times less likely to have employees experiencing moderate to severe burnout. So, make the most of these moments to foster a positive work environment.
- Fosters a Positive Work Environment: Workiversary celebrations go beyond cake and balloons. They create a wave of positivity that permeates throughout the office. They serve as a testament to a company’s positive work environment. When you celebrate work anniversaries, you’re not just applauding an employee’s tenure. You’re celebrating their growth, achievements, and contributions to the team. It’s about creating joyful and energizing moments that radiate positive vibes across the workspace.
- Retention: Recognizing workiversaries can also contribute to employee retention. If employees feel valued and appreciated, they’re more likely to stay with the company.
How CultureBot Can Help With Work Anniversaries
The marketplace is full of tools to help leaders make the work anniversary special. All of these tools can be helpful, but the important thing is being genuine and putting effort into this. It is the effort and thoughtfulness that will work here.
Automations and tools can only go so far, and can only really be an aid.
Work Anniversaries are a core, founding feature for the CultureBot platform. This puts celebrating work anniversaries right into the tools you’re already using, like Slack or MS Teams.
CultureBot automatically sends a celebratory message on the day of your employee’s work anniversaries. It allows you to recognize an employee’s work anniversary effortlessly through hand-written notes and stunning graphics sent straight to your existing comms platform, like Slack or MS Teams.
Work anniversaries can be collected by the bot inside your platform, or imported via a CSV spreadsheet. And it can help:
- Keep track of work anniversaries
- Schedule, trigger, and send individual work anniversary congratulation messages
- Create public work anniversary congratulation postings in public channels (1-by-1 or as a weekly/monthly collage)
- Circulate eCards to managers and teammates to sign and deliver to celebrating employees (we integrate with TangoCard)
- Provide gifting opportunities (like gift cards) to employees celebrating
Final Thoughts
When you celebrate workiversaries, you’re showing your team that their dedication and commitment matter, and that’s a message that can motivate everyone to aim higher. It’s also about creating a sense of belonging and connection, which can lead to increased productivity and creativity.
Remember, celebrating workiversaries is not just a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have for any business that wants to have a thriving culture. So, don’t let another workiversary pass without celebration. Make it count and memorable, and watch the positivity ripple through your office.
