Employee Appreciation/Recognition Days are an excellent way of thanking your employees and rewarding them for their contributions and adding to the company’s bottom line. Recognition and appreciation are always essential components in building a people-centric company culture, but especially now, appreciation impacts talent retention, and perceptions of job security, at work. Four in five employees say they’re more motivated to work hard when their boss shows appreciation for their work. After all, who wants to work if no one cares?
Gift of Gratitude: It’s good to give back and that is exactly the case when you express your gratitude to your team. They work tirelessly to make your team and organization grow. So, it is only right for you to acknowledge their efforts. Moreover, gratitude helps you be happier too.
Higher productivity: If you appreciate your employees, they will be motivated to perform better and will want to outdo their past achievements. The dopamine effects of appreciation are underrated and propel your employees to achieving greater heights within your organization.
Adding Inspiration: When employees see their peers being appreciated, they feel inspired to learn and get that appreciation for themselves. Inspire them to achieve the best they can be and grow within your company.
Please see below a few ideas on some great ways to foster Employee Appreciation and Team Building at your company when you are in the process of creating your Employee Appreciation day agenda:
Play Team Building Games & Socialize:
Team Games like Scavenger Hunt, Office trivia, or onsite games including Sports simulators are a great way to boost engagement and show some appreciation for their work. They also offer a great opportunity for your team members to get to know one another in the fun setting and environment. There is nothing like friendly competition amongst your employees as they get to know each playing team building activities designed to push their creativity and problem solving skills in a fun setting.
Escape Rooms (In-person & Virtual)
Is your team working remotely or onsite? Either scenario, you should try hosting an exciting Escape room for everyone to try to get out with the fastest time and solve the challenge as a team. The activity can divide teams of 5-10 to compete against each other- a great way to mix up the teams and include intra-office personnel friendly competition in order for people to meet each other from other departments of the company. There can be themes including a Holiday Escape Room as well, all requiring creativity, problem solving and team work to solve the challenge and are among some of the popular activities you can arrange for your employee appreciation day and add some event gamification to your Special event. You can even build teams within your company and see which team will win the escape room contest. What a great way of building team spirit while also fostering fun and a positive competitive spirit in your team!
Office Olympics
How about organizing an exciting Office Olympics with challenges & problem solving? Below are some ideas for activities to get you started. Here are some ideas for challenges at your Office Olympics: Push-Up Challenge -Have competitors turn their cameras down to the floor and do as many push-ups as possible until you have a winner! Math Challenge- Have someone at work create a math challenge with 10–20 questions. Give people a set time to complete the questions. Flags of the World Trivia- Create a simple PowerPoint with 20 flags from around the world. Start with common flags and progress to lesser-known countries. Flash the flag on the screen and have one member of each team guess the country it belongs to. Then, announce the country and move to the next round. See which team can identify the most.
Virtual Reality Experiences
How about experiencing something new with your employees together? Virtual Reality opens up new worlds of experiences with high engagement that fosters creativity and team bonding. After all, when your employees are working with tech for you all day, they deserve to get a taste of what the latest and most exciting technology looks like, right?
Highly engaging Virtual reality Experiences are a fun way of letting your crew blow some steam off through a fun day of games and escaping reality for a while. While arranging for a virtual reality day, you would either opt for VR games or short movies, whatever sailed
Volunteer Together
As a team, go out and volunteer at a homeless shelter, senior living community, or humane society. Or you can even plant trees, cook for those in need, bring joy to seniors, or take dogs for walks at shelters. Deloitte found that 70% of working Americans strongly believe “volunteer activities are more likely to boost employee morale than company-sponsored happy hours.”
If you’re not sure which opportunities or events to attend, just ask your team for some ideas.
The benefits? Everyone works together to help the community while creating amazing memories and getting to know their coworkers better.
Internal Awards Ceremony
Do you want to do something over the top to help your employees see how much you mean to them? You should arrange extravagant internal award ceremonies! When we say extravagant award ceremonies, the scale depends on your organization and your team’s comfort level. However, one thing is for sure – you will give them an evening of pure entertainment and appreciation.
In these Award ceremonies, whether both In-person and hybrid, you can set several awards that are enough to cover each team member. You will prepare some fun skits and introductory lines for everyone to add some spice to the event. The best thing about this event is that everyone will go home appreciated and thoroughly entertained. However, it might be important to remember that this is mostly a small organization-friendly activity.
Take Classes Together/Learning Opportunities
Give your employees extra opportunities to learn a new skill like cooking, crafting, card playing, etc…or specific business skills like graphic design, Sales training, digital marketing , Social Media Marketing and content production. One of the most positive things you can do to make your team understand they’re valued is helping them grow. No, we are not talking about general mentorship programs here. Instead, if you have a small team or large corporation, you can financially, emotionally, or intellectually help your teammates follow your passion and offer these classes as a thank you for their hard work.
Whether your senior engineer wants to start illustrating children’s books or your creative head wants to start their blog, lend them a helping hand with additional skills. Seriously, there is nothing more overwhelming than a leader who is not afraid of losing their teammate if it is for the latter’s progress and good!
Career Based Rewards
Offering a career-based reward is not only perfect for your employees but will also benefit your company. Send employees to leadership training, seminars, or allow them to choose an online class they want to take. Sometimes, it may not be directly related to the current job role but it does show you’re invested in their career. The benefits? It shows that managers are invested in their employees’ careers for the long haul.
In conclusion, an Employee Appreciation Day is a special day to recognize and reward your employees for their hard work and contributions to the company. By implementing these employee appreciation day ideas, you can encourage employee engagement, promote work-life balance, and create a positive work environment where employees feel valued and appreciated. Remember, a happy and appreciated employee is more likely to be engaged, productive, and motivated to continue working for your company.
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