How to plan an employee appreciation day

Here, you will Learn How to Plan an Employee Appreciation Day !Your employees deserve an appreciation day. We are glad to see that these days many companies have realized the true importance of having good team members. Companies that think of their employees as disposable do not grow and prosper. Companies that actually care about their employees and appreciate the work done by employees grow and prosper because in such companies, people actually apply themselves.

The best way to motivate people has always been to reward their accomplishments and motivate their efforts. If you are know How to Plan an Employee Appreciation Day day then you need to make sure your employees feel properly appreciated. Here are some tips to ensure that happens.

Highlight Team Efforts

Whenever a team performs well, remember to highlight the whole team by bringing them to the stage or taking their names. Do not only refer to the team leader or the head of the department; make the whole department and team feel appreciated. Taking the name of every team member is not too hard, unless you work in a huge organization where there can be hundreds of people in the same department. People like being mentioned and when a team does well, the whole team needs appreciation, not just the team leader.

Bring the best performers to the stage

The people who are the best performers in your organization are the people truly applying themselves. You need to appreciate these people for two reasons. The first is that they deserve it; they have worked hard and shown commitment and you need to reward that if you want them to stay committed. The second reason is that it also shows other people that hardworking people will be appreciated and motivates them to join the ranks of the people brought to the stage or mentioned by name on the stage.

 

Include their families

This one depends on the size of your organization. If you are a small company then you can easily invite just the employees and have a lot of fun. Smaller teams are more intimate with each other and they will be able to have a great time. If you are organizing an employee appreciation day for a large organization then you should be able to afford an employee appreciation day that includes families as well. It is a great idea to have an annual event where the families of the employees are invited as well. You can double it as an employee appreciation day as well as a family festival of sorts for all the employees.

Shut down the office

How serious are you about appreciating your employees? Unless you are in the service industry, you should be able to have a day off for your employees. Yes, it hurts the business a little but it can be managed, and the dividend paid is huge. When you announce that the employee appreciation day means no working on that day, the mood will change. People will know you are serious about appreciating employees if you are willing to put your shutter down. Do not hold an employee appreciation day on a holiday; this will just aggravate people that one of their holidays was eaten up by a work event.

Competitions

Having competitions is always a good idea. Tug of war is a good activity to have between your employees. You can also include sports and hold small games for fun between different teams. Food eating competitions are fun as well. Basically you will need competitions that are easy to get into for everyone. So complex games like chess will not be fun for everyone, but games which are easy to understand and compete in will be a hit. You can even hold a talent competition on singing or you can hold a Cappella competition if you really want to have fun. Remember those stupid races in schools, such as holding an egg in a spoon and racing to the finish line? Those work surprisingly great in an office event as well. Just make sure that the prize is something fun so that everyone can really compete. Cash prizes are not recommended for work events because they can lead to unfriendly competition as well.

Music

Music makes a huge difference in any event. If you really want to up the ante then we would suggest you add a musical performance to lunch or dinner. As your employees sit and eat while enjoying the music you will see that they are all having fun. Dinner and entertainment is a classic and they both go very well. As for the band, there are always local bands available. Try to go with something different; don’t go for hip-hop or rock music even if they have the most listeners in your office. Go with something classic like the blues. If you just play popular music the impact isn’t really that much. If you play something that isn’t usually heard by anyone then you have the chance to make things memorable. No matter what type of music we like to listen to when we are alone, when listening to music while eating something classy really hits the spot.

Holidays as prizes

We saw this at an employee appreciation day where we had gone to set up a mobile rock climbing wall. A company was holding small competitions and the prize was a 1 day holiday you can take without any reason. The prize wasn’t monetary so it was easy for the company to afford and the employees loved it. No matter how dedicated an employee is to your organization, they will always be glad to get a day to spend as they want to spend it. Just make sure you do not give out too many holidays!

This also allows people to be competitive without feeling bad. Instead of competing for money or for some shield, they are competing for a day off, and they will end up having a really fun competition. You can even simply hold a competition where the person who can come up with the best thing to do on a day off gets a day off. This allows people to open up about what they like to do and is fun for everyone.

Create a play area

And we don’t just mean one for kids. This might surprise you, but older people still love the things that teenagers and kids do. When we started out we were surprised whenever adults were on the rock climbing wall or the inflatable obstacle course. Soon we realized that pretty much every adult likes playing in the play area. We even have adult sized inflatable obstacle courses and mobile rock climbing walls now to better accommodate such fun. It is not hard to see why old people like the same things as young people; climbing a wall or running through an obstacle course is fun no matter what your age. You can also use this as a competition; the person who climbs the portable rock climbing wall fastest or clears the obstacle course fastest can get a prize.

Give out certificates

For some reason, we humans really appreciate receiving not just compliments but tokens of appreciation too. So make sure that you give something out. Some companies make small items with the company name like key-chains and bottle openers for everyone. Others make shields for the best performers only. It is up to you to decide what the better approach is for your company. Just be sure that you have something to give to your employees, something they can look at later and realize that they are appreciated by their employers.

Clear the schedule with everyone first

This is the most important part of planning an employee appreciation day. Often different teams have different deadlines and ask. Make sure you do not end up planning the employee appreciation day on a day when a team has a lot of workload. This means that you will need to talk to all the team leaders in the organization and ask them if their schedule is clear for the day you are planning. You have to accommodate everyone so talk to everyone and only choose a date which suits everyone.

Keep the day about them

This might be the biggest sin when it comes to employee appreciation days. We have seen this a lot of times; the CEO comes to the stage and starts talking about the company and his/her vision about the company. If the day is an employee appreciation day then you need to make sure that everything that happens in the event happens with a focus on employees. Keep all the discussions about them. If you need to give a speech about the future of the company then give it from the point of view of the employees. Talk about how things are going to be better for them and how team efforts can lead them towards success. Do not make the day about the organization; make it about the people of the organization.