Ten Ideas for Employee Appreciation Day

Employee Appreciation Day is all about your employees, so a theme that reinforces their value all while having a little fun will be a very effective way to make them feel appreciated. Treat the entire team to some silly snacks in the afternoon - try Skittles, Gummy Worms, Sour Gumballs, Mike and Ikes, or Red Hots! Then, invite them to try their luck at a classic card game of Crazy Eights. Set up a few tables for teams to play and have a selection of prizes for employees to win, like gifts from our Gratitude With Attitude theme. 

One of our most popular Employee Appreciation Day celebrations at Baudville was our Winter Olympic Games. We put teams together from across the organization, so employees from all departments were represented on every team. Teams competed in six different events for the honor receiving a gold, silver, or bronze medal. For gifts, employees got a bandana in their team colors and a plastic coffee mug that we customized with our own Olympic art. Download our Guide to the Office Games ebook to organize your own Office Olympics for Employee Appreciation Day.

 

3. Random Acts of Kindness
Make your  Employee Appreciation Day about kindness this year with a Helping Hand theme. During the week leading up to Employee Appreciation Day, encourage employees to practice kindness. Download our new 75 Random Acts of Kindness eBook  from our Recognition Resource Center and cut out each of the 75 ideas. You may want to add some of your own ideas, too! Place all the ideas in a bowl and have employees pick an act of kindness to do every day. Give everyone five Tokens of Appreciation that they are to pass on to the person who received their act of kindness. 

5. Spring Fever
I don’t know about you, but in Michigan we’re already getting spring fever. Provide a break from the winter weather with your  Employee Appreciation Day theme. Decorate the office with pictures of spring flowers, beaches, and even baseball to give your staff something to look forward to. Make lunch for your team on the grill and create a picnic with all the fixings– hot dogs, burgers, potato salad, and fresh fruit. Create a trivia or matching game of pictures of spring flowers and annual spring events. Be sure to check out our new flower-in-pot pens, to add a little spring time to your desk, too!

6. Company Dessert Buffet
Dessert buffets are all the rage in the event planning world. They’re commonly found at weddings, birthday parties, and showers, but your employees will go crazy for them, too. A dessert buffet is filled with delicious treats in colors that all coordinate with the theme. Send invitations to all your employees informing them of the time and place your buffet will be open. Create a dessert buffet in your company colors for  Employee Appreciation Day! Cupcakes, M&Ms, licorice, jelly beans,  and whoopee pies can all be found in a variety of colors. Display your treats in glass bowls, jars, and tiered plates for a sweet Employee Appreciation Day treat!

 7. Office Cheer
They say that laughter is the best medicine, and it’s true. Laughter has been shown to have many positive physical and psychological effects, so why not focus on laughing during Employee Appreciation Day? Write every employee a personal note using our new slider note sets and let them know how they bring cheer to your office. Email jokes to the entire team during the day and show a work-appropriate comedian during lunch. You can even host your own open mic stand up comedian hour. Ask employees to share their favorite comedies and publish it. Give away popular comedies on DVD in a drawing throughout the day. Your employees will be able to keep laughing all weekend! 

8. Smells like Team Spirit
Employee Appreciation Day is about employees but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a team activity. Encourage a little friendly competition by creating cross-departmental teams and letting them face off in a couple of games. At the end of the day, ask the teams to create an award for every person on their team. They can print specific award titles on certificates and present them to the individuals in a fun team award ceremony. This is a great way to encourage everyone’s participation and practice recognition, too.

9. Our Employees are Out of this World! 
This theme directly expresses your appreciation for employees, and it creates an opportunity to integrate Star Wars into your event – always a popular choice! Our star shaped LED Lapel Pin will reinforce your theme with the star in the artwork and bright blinking lights. Put together goodies bags of “space candy,” such as Milky Way candy bars, moon rock candy, and astronaut ice cream, to give every member of your team a super boost. 

10. Get Your Hands Dirty!
Employee Appreciation Day should be about fun, so feel free to be a little silly with your theme. This you rock theme is more about geology than rock and roll. Start the day by putting a You Rock rock on every employee’s desk to start the day with a smile on everyone’s face. Treat everyone on the team with individual dirt cake cups – a delicious dessert that looks like dirt but tastes like chocolate. For a fun game, show your employees an old episode of The Flintstones and quiz them on the many different uses for rocks in the episode.