How companies can get employee appreciation day right
Employee appreciation day is this Friday, and employers are turning to a variety of tactics to make staff feel like they’re recognized and valued. It comes amid employee engagement and retention troubles — and strikes at a time when many companies have said they’re financially strapped and not providing raises or other compensation.
Corporate gift giving can be tricky and employers sometimes miss the mark — like Sephora last month when it hit $10 billion in revenue and sent packaged cookies to employees, which staff shared and criticized online.
A “bad” gift can actually have the opposite effect of a “good” one, making employees feel unappreciated and undervalued. But a good gift can help boost morale, performance and retention, especially as job-hopping becomes more normalized, particularly among the youngest members of the workforce.
“The point I can’t stress enough is to make the message meaningful, and make it just really heartfelt,” said Dana Rogers, vp of people at O.C. Tanner, an employee recognition platform. The key thing to remember when recognizing staff through praise or gifts is to not give the perception that you’re just checking off a box, she said.
Some companies are still able to spend on actual gifts for employee appreciation day, and they’re making them increasingly personalized, either by surveying staff in advance to ask what they’d like or allowing them to choose from several gift options, said Archer Chiang, CEO of corporate gifting company Giftpack. And some are turning away from physical gifts and moving toward offering staff new experiences, he said.
The most novel experiences he’s seen companies offer include a helicopter trip from JFK to Manhattan, and a trip to a speedway to drive race cars, he said.
Some other experience-based gifts include renting out movie theaters to take staff for a special screening of new releases while they get the afternoon off work, said Tim Abraham, senior director of people operations for Espresa, an employee benefits platform.
Other ideas for employee appreciation day include simply giving employees a surprise day off, or rolling out or revamping employee recognition programs, Abraham said.
Espresa’s platform allows employees to give coworkers praise and points they can build up and redeem for gift cards to various stores. Executives too can give shout outs to staff and give them points. Abraham said his wife used another recognition platform through her employer and was able to redeem points for a brand new espresso machine a few years back. “Four years later, it’s the most valuable thing in our house,” he said.
Another way employers are trying to make staff feel better recognized and supported is by offering new services or tools to help make their jobs easier. New AI tools that help eliminate more tedious tasks are one example. Providing employees with access to those tools ultimately gives them the gift of having some time back, said Patrick Matlack, chief commercial officer at Mindgrasp, an AI platform that combs through large sets of documents and summarizes key points and information.
It’s important to note that employee appreciation day is just one day of the year though, and regular praise and recognition is necessary to keep staff motivated and engaged, Abraham said. In Gallup’s employee engagement surveys it conducts, a key question asked staff whether they’ve received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past week. In January 2024 about 30% of employees said they received recognition in the past week at work, according to Gallup’s latest survey.
“A huge part of it is just to make sure people know they’re appreciated every day, and if you can at least reach out weekly, that can be something very positive,” he said.