Work anniversaries vs. birthdays
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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. |
Okay on one level, this is really simple. Babies are awesome and parents are underappreciatedly awesome. Birthdays are actually much better than work anniversaries in the broadest sense.
But, that said, for the purposes of this blog post, the question we want to ask is, for an organization, it is much more valuable to invest time and money in celebrating work anniversaries than to invest that same money in celebrating birthdays?
This competition will have seven rounds, and then we’ll tally up the score at the end.
Acknowledging
Should work anniversaries be acknowledged at work? Absolutely!
Should birthdays be acknowledged at work? Yes, but perhaps with an asterisk. Friends acknowledge birthdays, and so no on at an organization acknowledging your birthday sends an awkward message that work is an unfriendly place. However, not everyone wants a lot of attention brought to their birthday, so acknowledging it in a low key, casual way is probably best.
Birthdays hit the uprights but bounce in and both birthdays and work anniversaries score. (score is tied 1-1)
Reflecting
Work anniversaries are a great time to reflect on what the employee has done over the past year and on what the next year might hold for them. In some organizations, this is institutionalized with work anniversary driven performance reviews and raises. But those aren’t the only ways to reflect.
One wonderful tradition is for managers to post a paragraph on a company-wide Slack channel (or whatever messaging platform your organization uses) the morning of each of their employees’ work anniversaries (or the work day before if it falls on a day off). The paragraph can recap some of the highlights from the employee’s work over the past year and express gratitude for their being part of the team. This encourages the manager to be on the lookout for the positive all year, it makes the employee feel seen and appreciated, and it helps employees get to know each other.
Birthdays aren’t really a time for colleague-driven work-related reflection.
Point goes to work anniversaries. (work anniversaries winning 2-1)
The day off
While not especially common, some companies give employees their work anniversary off and some give employees their birthday off.
We know the companies that do it are well-intentioned, but we think giving an employee their work anniversary off is a really bad idea. Work is where the people are who will celebrate the work anniversary. How will they do that if the employee isn’t there?
Birthdays are very much about family. What better way to support that than to give the employee the day off so they can spend time with their family?
Point goes to birthdays. (birthdays tie it up 2-2)
Going out to lunch
Team lunches are great for bringing a team together. Their’s something prehistorically deeply bonding about talking and eating together. But, it’s easy to not put the effort in when things get busy. So, a reason is needed to make sure it happens. The second Tuesday of the month just isn’t really all that fun. So, should it be work anniversaries or birthdays?
A team going out to lunch for an employee’s work anniversary is really special. Inviting others from outside the team who work closely with that employee can make it even more special and indirectly promote interdepartmental communication and understanding. If you’re all in, you can make it a tradition to have someone to say a few words about the employee having the work anniversary.
Birthdays are okay for this, but they really don’t quite fit. Most people have other people in their life that they’d really rather have a meal with on their birthday, and so going to lunch with coworkers can unhelpfully draw attention to the contrast. If you give employees their birthday off, like mentioned in the previous section, then you solve this problem with them being more able to have a meal with the preferred group of people.
Point goes to work anniversaries. (work anniversaries winning 3-2)
Baked goods
Not every team does work that enables them to go out to lunch. A much more time-efficient way for a team to occasionally eat together is to have cake or another baked good, perhaps at certain team meetings or in the break room. But what should the reason be for the cake? There can only be one winner, because if you do both, then employees will be eating a whole heck of a lot of sugar, which probably won’t be great for afternoon productivity.
Having birthday cake is done a number of places, and again, with good intentions, but it can be awkward. For one, many people don’t like having attention put on their birthday or age. And second, work will be competing with the employee’s friends and family, and in all likelihood the friends and/or family will have a better cake and a better get-together.
On the other hand, work anniversaries don’t have either of those problems. People are much less likely to be sensitive, and much more likely to be outright proud, about their number of years of service. And, while occasionally a parent or spouse will remember a work anniversary, generally speaking there is much less competition for best work anniversary get together coming from an employee’s home life. (for more check out the work anniversary baked goods blog post)
Point goes to work anniversaries. (work anniversaries winning 4-2)
Singing
Singing together is a scientifically proven amazing way for helping teams bond, though it’s sadly underused in the workplace.
If you’re having cake or going out to lunch for someone’s birthday, singing Happy Birthday is a rare opportunity to inject singing into work.
But sadly, if you’re celebrating a work anniversary, there isn’t a work anniversary song, yet. You can sing Happy Birthday with “work anniversary” substituted in for “birthday”, but the syllable count is awkward. (Note that if you write a work anniversary song, let us know, and we will heavily promote it.)
Point goes to birthdays. (score tightened up to 4-3 with one more round left…)
Gifts
Gifts are one of the five core love languages and can be a powerful way to express the bond between an organization and an employee. But which are better for an organization, work anniversary gifts or birthday gifts?
Getting a birthday gift right can be really hard, even for a person’s closest loved ones. And multiple different people will be getting a person birthday gifts, so even if you find something good, how do you coordinate with others who might find the same thing? And with all that competition from people who are closer to the employee, an organization probably won’t compare favorably.
Work anniversary gifts are still gifts, and so it can be hard to get something the employee truly wants, but the bar is much, much lower and there’s no competition, other than with the memories of past employers. (read how work anniversary gift giving can be made easier during onboarding)
Point goes to work anniversaries. (work anniversaries win, 5-3! the crowd cheers)
Final thoughts
For an organization, work anniversaries have the power of being uniquely about the relationship between the organization and the employee.
The analogy is:
Parents are to birthdays as organizations are to work anniversaries
Without the parents, there’s no birthday. Without the organization, there’s no work anniversary.
It’s hard to imagine a parent who doesn’t celebrate their children’s birthdays.
Don’t be an organization that doesn’t celebrate their employees’ work anniversaries!