Celebrating Special Events with Employees

Learn why you should celebrate special events and get some tips on how.

Building a healthy company culture is a series of small actions that compound to create the way your employees feel about your organization. Retain helps you build this culture by sending nudges when there's an easy action that will make a big difference.

One of these nudges is to reach out to employees when they reach milestones. Retain will notify you on the news feed and in your daily email summary when someone is celebrating a birthday, reaching a work anniversary, or has completed the first 100 days of employment.

You can send an email message congratulating them directly from your news feed, although we also encourage you to celebrate with your entire team and develop celebration traditions.

We've intentionally given you a blank email so that your employees will feel the sincerity of your message and not see the email as a canned message. We encourage you to personalize your messages, but here are a few prompts to get you started:

For birthdays:

"Wishing you a great birthday and a wonderful year ahead from all of us."
"Hoping your birthday gives you a hundred happy things to celebrate."
"Hope your birthday is relaxing, and we wishing you happiness in the year ahead."
"Our team wishes you a happy birthday!"
"Your birthday presents a great day to say that we are glad you're on our team!"

Keep in mind: be sensitive when celebrating birthdays. Everyone has a different idea of what birthdays mean to them, and not always positive emotions go along with birthdays. Some people don't celebrate for religious reasons. Employees can set their preferences on their profile.

For 100-day milestones:

"We feel so lucky to have you on the team and we're glad you joined us!"
"You're a great member of our team. Thank you for your hard work and your attention to detail."
"Even in the short time you've been here, you've brought energy and compassion to the job. We love having you here!"
"It's been a pleasure so far to have you on our team! You're doing a great job."
"We know starting a new job can present a challenge. But you're knocking it out of the park."

Keep in mind: Most turnover happens during this 100-day period, so it's a big deal and worthy of celebration!

Work anniversaries:

"You make work a good place to be! Thank you for all you do!"
“No one could do this job better than you. We appreciate you."
"It's a pleasure to have you on the team! Wishing you another successful year ahead."
"We appreciate your hard work and the compassion you've shown in the last year. We're glad you're here!"
"On behalf of the entire company, thank you for your hard work and dedication."

Keep in mind: Employees often naturally find themselves evaluating their job satisfaction on work anniversaries. Expressing your appreciation on work anniversaries can help reduce turnover.