Employee Appreciation Day provides an excellent additional opportunity for organizations to show their employees they are appreciated. However, while this day is a special occasion for celebration, recognizing and appreciating your employees should be part of your organization’s DNA.
This article provides fifteen Employee Appreciation Day ideas that HR professionals can use as inspiration for their initiatives this year.
Contents
What is Employee Appreciation Day?
When is Employee Appreciation Day?
15 Employee Appreciation Day ideas
Employee Appreciation Day message examples
FAQ
What is Employee Appreciation Day?
Employee Appreciation Day (EAD) takes place annually on the first Friday of March. The idea is for employers to recognize and thank their employees and show them their appreciation.
Employee Appreciation Day was invented by Dr. Bob Nelson in 1995, initially to market his book ‘1001 Ways to Reward Employees.’
Together with his publishing company, he made sure that the holiday appeared prominently on workplace calendars. This was a successful strategy; the book sold over 2 million copies and was translated into over 25 languages.
When is Employee Appreciation Day?
In 2024, Employee Appreciation Day is on Friday, March 1.
As mentioned above, Employee Appreciation Day takes place on the first Friday of March. Here’s an overview of the dates on which EAD will be celebrated in the next few years:
| 2025 | Friday, March 7 |
| 2026 | Friday, March 6 |
| 2027 | Friday, March 5 |
| 2028 | Friday, March 3 |
| 2029 | Friday, March 2 |
Ideally, though, organizations show their appreciation for their employees all year round. This is why some companies have an employee recognition program and organize their own Employee Appreciation Day or events at different times throughout the year.
15 Employee Appreciation Day ideas
How your company celebrates Employee Appreciation Day should reflect your unique culture and values.
If your organization prides itself on teamwork and collaboration, group activities or team-building events might be the ideal way to show appreciation. Providing a platform for employee-led projects or creative showcases would be more fitting for a company that values innovation and creativity.
The key is to celebrate in a way that not only resonates with your employees but also reinforces the fundamental principles and ethos of the organization.
Let’s take a look at Employee Appreciation Day ideas your organization can consider. Some of them are great for in-office or workplace celebrations; others work well when people are remote.
1. Make employee appreciation part of your organization’s DNA
As mentioned a couple of times before, recognizing and appreciating your employees should be an inextricable part of your organization’s culture.
If this isn’t the case yet, for example, because you’re in a start-up or because of other priorities, this year’s Employee Appreciation Day can be the perfect time to start creating a culture where employee appreciation is part of people’s everyday experience at work.
HR to-do’s
- Consider implementing a simple peer recognition program.
- Read up aboutautonomy in the workplace, its benefits, and how you can foster it in your organization.
- Depending on your (financial) resources, you can choose one or more simple employee recognition initiatives to begin with.
2. Ask your employees what they appreciate
Employee Appreciation Day is about saying thank you to your employees. Therefore, asking them what they would like to see or get from their employer on this particular day makes sense.
Rather than HR departments coming up with tons of different ideas and giving everyone in the organization the same gift card, thank you note, or coffee mug, asking employees what they want is a token of appreciation in itself.
HR to-do’s
- Consider sending out a short employee pulse survey a few weeks before EAD to gather people’s input. If your resources allow it, include various categories for employees to choose from, such as:
- An additional day off
- Fun team activities
- A company-wide event
- Small (physical) gifts
- Open up a suggestion box – both a physical and a virtual one – specifically to collect employee ideas for EAD.
- Ask managers to discuss the topic in their team meetings and share the employee feedback with HR.
3. Create an employee spotlight program
An employee spotlight is an opportunity for your employees to share their unique stories and get recognition for their performance.
Benefits of implementing an employee spotlight program include the fact that it i) recognizes people, ii) builds a culture of appreciation, and iii) fosters connections among employees.
HR to-do’s
- Check out our article on the employee spotlight for inspiration and examples.
- Consider a particular type of employee spotlight to recognize employees on Employee Appreciation Day, for example, in the form of an Employee Award Ceremony.
4. Host an employee award ceremony
What better way to recognize people’s performance and say thank you than by organizing an employee award ceremony on Employee Appreciation Day?
The ceremony can be held in the office or workplace while making it accessible to those working remotely by simply inviting them to an online meeting.
HR to-do’s
- Ask for nominations. Create a process where employees can easily nominate their colleagues for an award. Not only does this boost peer recognition, but it also involves employees in decision-making and increases engagement.
- Think of a fun reward to give employees, for example, a medal or a certificate. The picture below shows the medal we used to thank those involved in our annual HR Trends project at AIHR.
5. Give managers an Employee Appreciation Day budget
If the financial resources are there, giving managers an Employee Appreciation Day budget can be an excellent idea. It kills several proverbial birds with one stone:
- The fact that you reserved a budget shows people that you care and appreciate them.
- It allows managers and their teams to come up with a way to celebrate EAD that suits them best, supporting team bonding.
- It gives managers and teams the autonomy to decide how they want to commemorate and spend Employee Appreciation Day.
HR to-do’s
- Find out if a budget is available to allocate to managers for Employee Appreciation Day and, if so, how much.
- Consider creating an easily accessible Employee Appreciation Day ideas document or resource to share with managers if they need inspiration. Encourage managers also to add their ideas to the resource.
6. Give employees a paid birthday off
This is a typical example of doing things throughout the year that show people that the organization they work for cares about them and appreciates them.
It’s also something that probably no one has any objection against or doesn’t appreciate, and it is something very personal – people’s birthday – that at the same time happens to everyone, which makes it innately inclusive.
HR to-do’s
- Determine whether giving employees a paid birthday off is feasible within your organization.
- Before offering birthday leave, read up on local laws and regulations surrounding this and write a birthday leave policy.
- If you launch this initiative, announcing it on Employee Appreciation Day might add a nice touch.
7. Offer employees a subscription to a wellness app of their choice
Offering employees a subscription to a wellness app of their choice is not only a token of appreciation but can also be part of the organization’stotal well-beingapproach.
To make it easier for people to choose which app they would like to subscribe to, HR teams can put together a list featuring apps in various categories, such as:
HR to-do’s
- Consider offering employees a wellness app subscription as part of your organization’s overall total well-being strategy.
- Stipulate the eligibility criteria regarding the apps people can subscribe to.
- To make things understandable and manageable, keep the short list of apps employees can choose from.
8. Gift personalized fortune cookies
This is an idea that can take various forms. The most straightforward option is to have ready-made fortune cookies with a personalized message, or a thank you note inside for all employees.
Another option can be to suggest this as a fun team activity on Employee Appreciation Day or to ‘let employees be the author of their own dessert destiny’ and gift them a DIY fortune cookie kit.
HR to-do’s
- If you opt for the ready-made fortune cookies, you need to come up with personalized messages or a heartfelt thank you to put inside the cookies. Managers can be of great help here.
- Make sure that the messages in the fortune cookies are inclusive and respectful, aligning with the diverse backgrounds and cultures within the workforce.
9. Organize a gratitude exchange
You can adapt the concept of secret gift exchanges like Secret Santa to show gratitude to your employees.
The idea is that everyone receives the name of a colleague (there are tools you can use for this) and that on Employee Appreciation Day, they send this person a personalized message of appreciation.
This can be an excellent activity for managers to do with their teams rather than a company-wide event simply because team members know each other better, and it is difficult to say anything meaningful to people you don’t know.
HR to-do’s
- Add the gratitude exchange to your organization’s Employee Appreciation Day ideas document or resource we mentioned earlier.
- Encourage managers to organize gratitude exchanges with their teams regularly.
10. Spin the wheel
This Employee Appreciation Day idea involves having a big spinning wheel in the workplace that employees can spin. Doing so allows them to win prizes determined by which segment the wheel lands on. As each segment offers a different prize, there is always a chance to win something.
Prizes can be physical gifts or, as we did at AIHR, experiences like a dinner for two in a unique location or an indoor skydive. What you include depends on your budget.
HR to-do’s
- Determine what exactly you want to use the spinning wheel for. For example, you can reward employees who have reached one of their KPIs for the quarter and let them spin it on EAD.
- Come up with various prizes people can win when spinning the wheel.
11. Buy employees a lottery ticket
A relatively low-budget but usually much-appreciated Employee Appreciation Day idea is to buy employees a lottery ticket. It marks the occasion which, if your organization already has a culture of employee appreciation, can be enough.
HR to do’s
- Before purchasing lottery tickets for employees, ensure that this gesture complies with all relevant laws and company policies. Some jurisdictions have strict regulations about gifting lottery tickets, especially in a workplace setting.
- Recognize that gambling, even in the form of a lottery ticket, may not align with everyone’s personal or cultural values. To maintain inclusivity, you could offer an alternative option for those who might prefer not to receive a lottery ticket.
12. Throw a celebratory event
If your organization has all of its employees working in the same location, or if various locations have their own budgets for these kinds of things, hosting an event like a concert or a comedy show can be a great way to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day.
Don’t forget the option to offer an option to join remotely if you have telecommuting employees.
HR to do’s
- For a company-wide event like this, you might want to ask employees what they prefer: a concert, a comedy show, a bingo night, you name it.
- Consider holding a brief employee award ceremony before or after the event, as everyone will be present.
13. Say thank you
If there is only one thing you do on this year’s Employee Appreciation Day, let it be saying a heartfelt ‘Thank you’ to your employees one way or another.
As we’ve seen in this article, there are a million ways to do this, but as long as it is sincere, the rest doesn’t matter all that much. You can simply write ‘Thank you, I appreciate you’ on a Post-It note and leave that at people’s desks, or encourage managers to do so.
HR to do’s
- Think of a simple way for people to say thank you to each other on Employee Appreciation Day – something that’s easy to organize, like the Post-It note example.
14. Offer employees a gift card of their choice
While gift cards might not be the most original present, many people are happy that they can decide for themselves what they want to get from their favorite store and appreciate the gesture.
In that regard, offering employees a gift card is an excellent way to mark the occasion. But again, this only works if your organization has created an environment where employee recognition is already commonplace.
HR to-do’s
- Ask employees what company they want a gift card from. Like with the app subscription we mentioned earlier, present them with a shortlist of options.
- Come up with a fun way to offer the gift card, for example, a mini scavenger hunt or a raffle draw.
15. Ask for feedback
If, from an HR perspective, your organization has built a culture of recognition and appreciation, Employee Appreciation Day may be a good time to ask your employees what they think.
How do they look at initiatives such as your peer recognition program or quarterly employee award events? Do they feel appreciated in their everyday work experience? What do they believe could be improved?
HR to-do’s
- Consider sending out a short employee pulse survey on EAD to gather employee feedback on the company’s appreciation initiatives and overall experience.
- Ensure that this isn’t the only thing you do on Employee Appreciation Day, but combine it with at least one of the other ideas mentioned in this article.
Employee Appreciation Day message examples
Besides recognizing their employees with small gifts, events, or tokens of appreciation, companies often share messages on their communication channels, such as Linkedin.
Below are four Employee Appreciation Day message examples that can inspire your own appreciation posts.
1. Deluxe
This LinkedIn post from multidisciplinary service provider Deluxe shows the power of simplicity:
- A straightforward thank you to their employees
- A collection of pictures from the people working at the company, and
- The mention that they appreciate their employees today and every day.
When the latter truly is the case, this message is all you need on EAD.
2. Ferring Australia
What’s nice about Ferring’s employee appreciation day message is that rather than posting something on the ‘official’ Employee Appreciation Day, they choose to celebrate their employees at a different time.
In fact, they decided to do so after what seems to have been a long and busy period for their employees. This in itself demonstrates the organization’s commitment to recognition and appreciation throughout the year.
3. DoubleTree by Hilton Atlantic Beach Oceanfront Hotel
Another great example comes from a DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel. Here, too, the message is straightforward and demonstrates that at this DoubleTree, they have what they call Random Employee Appreciation Days, which indicates a culture of appreciation.
4. Ironhorse Funding LLC
Instead of celebrating Employee Appreciation Day, they decided to give it a little twist and had what looks like a great Employee Appreciation Night at one of the offices of Ironhorse Funding LLC.
HR tip
If you’re looking for inspiration, be it for Employee Appreciation Day messages or gift ideas, type #EmployeeAppreciationDay in the LinkedIn search bar, and you’ll get lots of results.
Key takeaway
It’s cliché but true: every day should be employee appreciation day. If this isn’t the case yet in your organization, use some of the ideas listed in this article to start building that culture of recognition and appreciation. Happy Employee Appreciation Day!
FAQ
When is Employee Appreciation Day 2024?
This year, Employee Appreciation Day is on Friday, March 1.
What to do for Employee Appreciation Day?
How you celebrate Employee Appreciation Day depends on various factors, such as the budget available, the company culture, whether or not people are working on-site or remotely, etc.
Employee Appreciation Day activities vary widely, a few examples are having a celebratory team lunch or an employee award ceremony to offering people gift cards or a subscription to an app of their choice.
What to say on Employee Appreciation Day?
The most important thing to say on Employee Appreciation Day is simply ‘Thank you’ to your employees.
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Neelie Verlinden
Neelie Verlinden is a digital content creator at AIHR. She’s an expert on all things digital in HR and has written hundreds of articles on innovative HR practices. In addition to her writing, Neelie is also a speaker and an instructor on several popular HR certificate programs.
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