Ideas for Celebrating Your Employees’ Personal Milestones

The full and original article was published On Inc.

1. Reinvent the Birthday
   Instead of celebrating employees’ birthdays, celebrate the anniversary of their hiring, we can tell each employee that it’s significant that they gave a year of their life to help build our dream. And that definitely deserves cake!
2. Give Groupon Gifts
   Groupon has tons of deals of really interesting gifts that will take employees out of their element, like deals on skiing or rock climbing at a park nearby. This allows a day off from work and a new, exciting experience.
3. Have Their Friend Organize a Event
   Ask their closest friend at the company to organize the celebration so they can come up with more personalized and creative ideas. This also helps create a fun and exciting atmosphere where every few weeks there is a different event to celebrate someone on the team.
4. Give Handmade, Personal Gifts
   It lets the employee know that I know them well enough to know the things they like. And the fact that its custom-made for them feels much more special than a gift card.
5. Create a Birthday Desk Explosion
   Employees decorate the birthday person’s desk/area with a lot of birthday stuff. Have a blow-up, 4-foot-tall cake, birthday care bear, streamers and other random birthday things.
6. Give Notes of Gratitude
   Birthdays and other personal milestones are a terrific excuse to express gratitude. Birthdays are sweeter when you receive a stack of notes from coworkers sharing stories about why they value you and the things you do. It creates a positive reinforcement loop.
7. Give Them the Day Off to Enjoy It
   The best way to celebrate is to give the employee time off. Give staff members a floating birthday holiday to use so they can properly celebrate their birthday.
8. Write a Showcase
   Write a department showcase, which highlights a goal reached or something exceptional the department did together or an individual spotlight, which is less about work and highlights a personal achievement.
9. Sponsor an Event on Their Behalf
   Take the entire team out for a trip or organize an event, but do it in the employee’s name. So if its Jill’s birthday, have her take the entire team out for laser tag but have the company sponsor it.