No-Brainer Workplace Morale Booster: Marking Employment Anniversaries

This weekend is my 1-year wedding anniversary – wow, has it really been a year already?

As such, I thought I’d close out the work week with a related topic, which I don’t believe receives sufficient attention in the area of workplace morale: the importance of recognizing staff employment anniversaries.

It is, after all, the easiest workplace behavior to recognize, because it’s so easy to measure  – Employee X showed up to work consistently for X number of years. That’s far easier, say, than measuring productivity, performance improvement, teamwork or a host of other workplace criteria – even my beloved New York City corporate team building activities (incidentally, the success of corporate team building activities CAN actually be measured, if you know what to look for). But did Employee X stay gainfully employed within your company for a certain length of time? There’s really no arguing that, now, is there?

Especially in today’s economic climate, you would think employment anniversaries would be something which HR managers and business owners would pay more attention to – but for whatever reason, it’s not. Today’s knowledge workers are all about developing transferable skills, and finding the best employment deal – and why shouldn’t they? With companies forced to tighten their belts and watch their bottom like never before, the days of “employee for life” are out the window – today’s employees, especially younger ones, are certainly not expecting to spend the next 30 years with the same employer.

For companies who wish to retain their best talent through recognition and reward, marking employment anniversaries is about as low-hanging a fruit there is. Think about this for a second: what does your company typically do to mark an employee’s 1-year anniversary with the firm?

If you’re having trouble coming up with the answer, than you’ll hate the next question even more: do you even know when your employees’ employment anniversaries are?

Because I can guarantee you that they do – and when milestones such as 1, 2, 5 or 10-year anniversaries go unrecognized by management, it’s a slap in the face.

In order to keep your people happy and not let them down with what should be a real easy “win” for workplace morale, try the following:

• Mark your Outlook calendar with the starting date of each of your direct reports, and set an alert reminder for each year

• Make a plan to mark each employee’s anniversary appropriately – with recognition being the bare minimum

• Determine in advance what you can do that will “wow” the employee on their anniversary – chances are, it won’t take much, nor will it cost much, since they’ll be so delighted that you even remembered

Recognizing employment anniversaries is such a simple way to make employees happy. If you want to keep your staff motivated – especially your high-performance people, who you want to keep around for a while – make that special effort to remember, recognize and reward your people for their loyal years of service.