Curious to know how (and if) you all honor birthdays in the office. It’s been a long-standing acknowledgement in my mid-size company and I’m interested in shaking things up.
From giving shout outs in all-company stand ups, to a group celebration each month, I’d love to hear them all!
Thanks for the input!
At the last company I was at, we sent a company wide email around on the day of the birthday and then did a celebration at the end of each month for everyone.
At Deputy it’s more done on a team / informal level, but we do shout outs at our weekly lunch as well. We’re looking to formalise this a little further and seeing what swag we can design for people to have a little gift bag for them on their day with a balloon.
Thank you for sharing, Chloe!
At Culture Amp, we have “Cake Day” every month where we celebrate birthdays, work anniversaries, and more! The office supplies cakes, cupcakes, pie, or ice cream and will read off who is celebrating a special occasion that month. It’s a great time to satisfy your sweet tooth and have some time to chat with your coworkers. I love that we take the time to acknowledge everyone’s special day, but it’s still in a way that is sustainable.
Hey there,
We also do the same as Sahra has mentioned - birthday cake each month to recognise those who have birthdays during that month. We also decorate the employees desk with balloons and streamers to make it extra special. We are a small start up but feel these are a nice way to make birthdays special and cost effective as you scale. Some employees will choose to go out for a birthday lunch with their team or the company also. For our remote employees we send a birthday card in the post to them with wishes from each of the team.
Goodluck,
Irene
We have around 200 employees, and celebrate birthdays 1x/month at the end of the month. We have it at a recurring time (1pm, 4th Wednesday of the month), so people can plan and look forward to it. Funny spin is that we actually sing happy birthday, and sing off the names of all the folks we are celebrating. When we sang this month, there were 20 names we sung in a row together. It’s a bit silly and ridiculous singing all the names, but when I asked if folks wanted to stop, there was a resounding “no.” We’re a quirky group, so singing everyone’s names in a train wreck happy birthday song is very much part of our culture. Sadly, we will probably need to stop this as we grow. Teams have slowly begun celebrating amongst themselves, and we use Pingboard to display birthdays and anniversaries on a TV near our cafe.
Thank you all so much for sharing! I think a group celebration is the way we are heading. Transitioning to this model from an individual celebration can be tricky, but I also know that not everyone enjoys receiving a shoutout on their birthday. I think we are better off celebrating anniversaries individually.
Thanks again!