Every year in March, we celebrate employee appreciation day. Those of you who have been working for years will have a fair idea of what it means.
On this special day workers usually, gather and celebrate the joy of being able to work in the same place.
Employers usually present them with something or organize a festival, party or concert to remember, celebrate and mark the day as a special and memorable one.
If you are also hoping to do the same, here are some cool employee appreciation day activities ideas we believe should help you.
But before we get to the ideas and employee appreciation gifts, let us first tell you about the importance of employee appreciation or employee reward and recognition.
Importance of Employee Appreciation:
These are the top two tips that explain the importance of employee engagement or employee recognition.
1. Gives employees the recreation they want:
Employee appreciation day is a wonderful way to let your employees know you care about them.
Most of your workers want to be appreciated for the effort that they put in throughout the year.
Showing them some appreciation will not only satisfy the employees but also reinforce the value that you have in their presence and the work that you do is loved by them as well.
Plus if you want your workers to work hard, you must appreciate them at some point. This can be a great employee motivation for them.
2. To help them work together and cooperate with them:
Another reason why you should celebrate employee appreciation or staff appreciation day at work is that it will keep your employees encouraged.
It will also keep them together and let them cooperate more often.
A few common ways you can get this done is by giving them a personal handwritten note or a card showing how happy you are to have them in your company.
Companies also exchange goodie baskets on this special day to show how much it matters to have good people in your working environment.
Plus employees need to feel respected and recognized. This could be a great chance.
Employee Appreciation Day Ideas and Game Activities:
The following mentioned are few tips on employee recognition and appreciation ideas to celebrate employee appreciation day.
1. Food!:
A very nice and creative idea to celebrate employee appreciation day is by simply host a nice breakfast or lunch menu for all your employees.
This will include the whole company or even a team of people you love or an entire department. The choice is yours. Apart from food and drinks, you should also create a social gathering where you can mix with your employees and enjoy with them.
It helps you develop a good relationship with others too. Having trust will also help you express empathy, teamwork, and cooperation.
2. Play some games:
Games are also a fun and great way to connect with people at work. It is also a fun idea you could try to celebrate employee appreciation or recognition programs.
Playing games will enable you to have fun with your employees, be creative with them and get to know them personally.
If you want, you could also host a trivia contest where you can send a quiz on the mail or just bring in a few board games for people to play over lunch. You can also offer some exciting prizes to them.
3. A free massage therapy session:
Everyone at work will want a nice therapy session. Therefore you can offer some stress relief to them on employee appreciation day itself.
Those of you who love getting a back massage or want a chair or foot massage at work can take advantage of this one.
A chair massage can relax your muscles and make your employees feel good and I guess that is what employee appreciation day is all about… making your employees feel good about themselves and make it a complete employee day.
4. Play cool games:
You could also have an office party if you want, on the employee appreciation day. For this, you can play cool games with office members such as musical chairs, trivia games, etc.
Also make sure that if you are having an office party, you should lamp things up with some good food and great music.
You could also invent your games and try them out with the employees. We bet they will like all of it, for sure.
5. Have a rock concert:
If you go by our advice and would like to do something different and out of the box for your clients, then do make it a point to have a rock concert this employment appreciation day.
Your workers will be more than happy. You don’t have to get Maroon 5 or Red Hot Chilli Peppers for this one.
There are plenty of rock bands out there that play great music. You could meet someone who has excellent knowledge of music, has worked in a music company before and ask if they could play for your employees on the employee appreciation day.
I am sure your employees will remember you for introducing this cool and fun idea.
6. Have a dessert buffet:
I am sure all of your employees love desserts. Who doesn’t after all? Desserts taste great especially if you have just finished a hearty lunch and crave something sweet and delicious.
After the lunch hour is over, you can simply invite all your employees to come and enjoy themselves at the dessert buffet organized by you.
Here you can keep all kinds of sweets, red velvet cupcakes, cheesecakes, ice cream sundaes and all the sweet treats you think the employees will love.
Also, you can distribute some nice chocolate and nut-filled brownies. They will like it for sure.
7. One day sports festival:
This is for all those employers who are sports maniacs at their workplace. You could organize a one-day sports fest for your workers where they can play football, basketball and whatever they please.
You should also have some food prepared for them as well alongside. Make sure to add some hot dogs, fries, burgers, soft and energy drinks. This is a cool way of rewarding employees.
8. Hire a comedian for a few hours:
They all say laughter is the best medicine and why wouldn’t it be?
Laughter is, in reality, a wonderful way to make people around you smile. You could use it on employee appreciation day as well to let your workers have a great time. Hire a comedian for two hours and let them have a gala time.
It doesn’t have to be expensive or pricy. You could keep things simple and still keep your workers entertained. Thousands of people have tried this tip and it has worked wonderfully for them.
9. Gift vouchers:
If you don’t want to have a party or celebrate loudly on employee appreciation day, we would recommend you to keep things simple with cool gift vouchers and some recognition gifts to employees.
For the boys, you can keep a nice cologne and tie gift voucher and for the ladies, it could be a salon discount or clothes and accessories gift voucher.
Gifts like this would also draw a smile to their faces and encourage them to work more.
10. Go on a picnic:
If you think you could handle a picnic with a bunch of your favorite employees, go ahead and invite them to come on a picnic with you.
Going on a picnic will let you come closer to your employees and get to know them even better.
Plus a picnic is a wonderful time to have fun and spend some good time with people you haven’t got to know well. You could do this at an amusement park or even at a local park where more people can enjoy themselves.
11. Drinks! and Drinks!:
Now, this is something we can only recommend if you are bold enough to try it. You can have a whole range of drinks at work on employee appreciation day.
Set up a bar in the evening for two hours on the terrace where your workers can drink whatever they want.
Don’t keep any toxic drinks like vodka. Keep it simple with cocktails, white wine, soft drinks, a bit of champagne and beer, etc.
But if you are going to keep any beer, set a limit as well otherwise your workers might get too tipsy and it won’t be fun at all.
12. Give them a holiday:
This is not the first or the best thing we would recommend to you but if you don’t want to spend too much money, then it would be a smart idea to give them an additional two day holiday.
Workers can during this time go back home and relax a little. It will also help them catch up on sleep, something they probably haven’t been able to do in a while because of work pressure.
Plus holidays are a blessing in so many ways. Your workers will always look forward to the additional ones like this.
Ideas used by other Employees:
The following mentioned are few reward and recognition ideas by other employees.
1. GuideSpeak:
The CEO at Guidespeak Keith Kitani had once said that on employee appreciation day they have a whole range of venues which include weekly win meetings where they also celebrate the success of employees and recognize all colleagues for the jobs they have done so well.
Showing appreciation for an employee is so important in every culture and builds a very strong sense of engagement in the community.
2. Logikcull:
The CEO of Logikcull, Andy Wilson once said that startups are quite hard. They don’t succeed unless they have good people who can help them build a good startup into a company that is successful and thriving.
This could also mean a lot of sacrifices. Also, it means that work will be too much and the people working will feel very stressed and be in poor health. And gadgets can never help you in cases like these.
So during employee appreciation day, they decided to give all of the employees a few Fitbit Charge which can help them stay active, fit and healthy at all times.
3. Roomalia:
Roomalia is also a popular company that had once mentioned that they like to offer hotel rooms to their best workers on the employee appreciation day.
What they do is very simple. The whole team goes out to spend a little time with the team somewhere on the outskirts of the city where the rooms and food are paid for.
Just the tickets have to be paid by the employee or if you are driving them down, then there is nothing like it. Like Roomalia you could do something like this for your workers.
Make them happy by taking them out just for a day. Go fishing with them or camping up the hills. Who knows what could happen?
4. Wiredrive:
Wiredrive is also a famous company that loves to appreciate their workers. Therefore when it comes to employee appreciation day, they make sure to go just beyond having drinks.
They have got new standing desks for the employees so that they can work however they feel like.
Even if it is too hard for them to stand, they could just sit. The whole point is to make them feel comfortable.
The company makes sure to keep in touch with the employees at all times and if they feel they need something desperately, it will be presented to them on the employee appreciation day.
Employee Appreciation Gift Ideas:
Employee recognition or appreciation process needs to be organized in a better manner, as it can greatly influence your employees. This can, in turn, be very helpful for the organization as they can enjoy better productivity, getting more leads/conversions, better customer satisfaction, etc.
Now as you have a better knowledge of employee appreciation, the next step is to manage and organize how to schedule it. Listed below are a few top employee recognition and appreciation ideas.
- Use bonus.ly software platform to provide small bonuses or points
- Have a good book
- Provide career-based rewards
- Maintain a recognition toolkit
- Never miss work anniversaries
- Ask employees about recognition ideas
- Take them out for lunch
- Motivate them to cover that extra mile
- Help them grow in life and career
- Share out the rewards on social media
- Make them breakroom boss
- Provide them gold points which they can encash
- Create memorable moments
- Do not miss birthdays
- Provide additional pay for commuting
- Cheer them in front of others
- Inspire mentoring
- Provide a trophy
- Plan for a staff appreciation day off
- Go beyond in-house recognition
- Recognize non-work achievements
- Monitor team victories
- Take their suggestions and opinions
- Appreciate employee based on their interest
- Show them the business growth practically
- Use few thank you notes
- Allow them to bring their pets to work
- Provide employees a real voice and real choice
- Help them with tax matters
- Try the wall of fame idea
- create cool company accessories for your employees
- Treat your staff
- Plan for a potluck
- Use employee pics on your website
- Have a food truck party
- Celebrations are a way to show recognition
- Make them boss for a day
- Try some creative ideas as rewards
- Execute employee of the month programs
- Provide snacks and treats often
- Gift them flowers and chocolates
- Provide flexible schedules
- Encourage them to decorate their desks and provide a little allowance
- Provide work from home option
- Gift cards on anniversaries
- Try summer Friday holidays
- Making new employees feel special on their first day
- Call up a manicurist at work
- Take them out for games
- Allow them to take leaves to bridge up long weekends
- Arrange few indoor games in the breakroom
- Try fun awards like the best lunchbox, on-time employee, the biggest latecomer
Final Words:
This brings the post to an end. Everyone wants to celebrate employee appreciation day but often we do run out of great ideas.
If you have read this post properly, you will be able to come up with some solid and good ideas for the upcoming occasion. And if you already have, do share some of it in the comment box below. We would love to hear from you.
Also your comments, queries, questions are looked forward to by us. On that note, good luck and here’s hoping you’ll have a wonderful time with your employees this employee appreciation day.
