Great work anniversaries are a team sport
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by Rick Joi Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries. |
Do you want amazing work anniversaries at your organization?
Get more people involved!
Many roles from across the organization all bring something special to work anniversaries, and the magic happens at organizations where each of the roles come together as a team.
Here’s a list of the many “positions” on the work anniversary team — each linked to the blog posts that are most helpful for each of them:
Human resources – Human resources can do a lot for work anniversaries, but perhaps the biggest thing they can do is to be the spark that inspires the many other people throughout the organization listed below to get involved.
Managers – Managers are really high leverage in that there are a lot of them and they’re closest to employees. As you get started, you’ll want to think about the managers at your organization who are most excited about managing and most on the lookout for ways to improve their craft. Getting them excited first and piloting anything you’re thinking of doing can create the early wins that make it easier to get others on board.
The CEO – There are many different types of CEO. Being supportive of work anniversaries comes easier to some than others. But there are many ways in which work anniversaries can make their jobs easier. To whatever extent you can get your CEO on board with your work anniversary efforts, it will help things go easier with everyone else.
Executive assistants – CEOs are busy, and sometimes the best path to the CEO is through their executive assistant. Great executive assistants are trying to make their executive successful and look good along the way. There are many ways that work anniversaries can help make that easier, but it’s not something that they’ll naturally think of on their own without you pointing it out.
A graphic designer – There are a number of aspects of celebrating work anniversaries that can benefit from design work that emphasizes the specialness of being part of your organization, rather than just being something generic that could happen at any organization. And, the higher the quality of the design, the more it conveys that work anniversaries, and thus employees, matter.
IT support – The person who oversees the budget for computers and any other equipment maintenance and upgrades can play a really big role in making work anniversaries special in a productivity enhancing way. You’ll definitely want to share the IT ideas from this book with them (or their boss) and see if they’re open to it.
Marketing – While you’ll definitely want to see if you can involve IT, marketing only makes sense for some organizations. Check out the marketing chapter first to see if you think it’s right for your organization.
Fun committees and culture committees – If your organization has a fun committee or a culture committee, then they can play a helpful supporting role in keeping work anniversaries fun and supportive of a strong workplace culture.
Front-line employees – What about all the people who don’t fit in any of the roles above? There’s also lots, they can do!
And if work anniversaries are a team sport, then maybe workiversary.com is the coach?
If you have any questions or there’s anything we can do to help you improve your game, please reach out to us — we’d love to help!