5 Ways to Make Work Anniversaries More Meaningful, Virtually

In light of the current public health crisis, businesses all over the world have been experiencing massive turmoil. As a result, they are being forced to implement drastic and lasting changes. However, in this turmoil, it is the employees who have bore the brunt of the impact. According to research by Barnett Waddingham, more than 1/3rd of the employees feel that the pandemic has been damaging to their mental and emotional health.

On the bright side, businesses are starting to realize that if they want to come out of the crisis, they need their teams – employees and channel partners alike – on their side. This means ensuring that they remain motivated, committed, productive, and enthusiastic, which translates into ensuring their health and well-being as a key priority. 

However, with 2020 being the year of video calls, even the simplest of recognition drives, such as celebrating work anniversaries, looks and feels different. Therefore, businesses require creative solutions that can drive meaningful recognition experiences, virtually. Let’s explore how:

1. Give it due to importance

Recognition is an uplifting, enduring experience that forms the crux of positive workplace culture. It is now more necessary than ever. Therefore, it is important to create the expectation that loyalty deserves meaningful recognition. 

However, amidst the current uncertainty, it’s easy for leaders and peers to forget to reward this, dropping the morale and retention rates of the workforce. 

A good way to go about this would be to ask team members in advance and remind them that their peer’s’s anniversary or recognition event is coming up. This can be accompanied by simple instructions on what they need to do to prepare. 

A little bit of planning can go a long way in creating a great impact on the recipient’s experience.

2. Reinforce Purpose

Channel Partners require more than a paycheck to achieve in their respective roles, they need a worthwhile mission and a promising team to be a part of. While this was true in the earlier times, it is a definitive truth in today’s environment. 

Work anniversaries can be pinpointed as the key milestone when the leaders remind the person not only of the impacts that their work has on their teams, organizations, customers, and the world at large but also their personal motivations to do what they do. This can also be an opportunity to reinforce the company’s core values thereby encouraging channel partners to strive towards a certain standard of behaviours in their day-to-day lives.

This can be done by using a designated time and place for a virtual celebration with the employees and the person’s loved ones to not only fuel his/her motivation but also that of the team’s.

3. Personalize

While it is very important to be creative during such times, sending a random, generic message or greeting shows a lack of familiarity with the recipient’s contributions. That will not only prove to be ineffective, it could easily come off as insincere. Say and do all that you would have done in person, but online through a video call. 

Make sure the person feels valued, acknowledged, and appreciated. Don’t just say their contributions helped. Being specific about their skillset and growth over the past few weeks or months is a great chance to demonstrate an expanded skill set. This allows colleagues and leaders to learn about it and if necessary include them in upcoming projects.  

A quick way to gauge the effectiveness of your message or greeting is to check if it can be said to anyone else on your team. If the answer is a yes, then it is definitely not unique and it is very likely it won’t be meaningful to the recipient. 

Going all-out on personalizing the Zoom background is a great way to start.

4. Include Families

Including the family is always a good idea. Given that everyone is working from home, it offers a chance for everyone at home, whether human or fur, to join in. 

This also gives the family a chance to hear about their loved one’s contributions from their peers and their leadership. It makes all the hours spent in front of a screen more tangible for them.

5. Get Leaders to Participate

Anniversaries are a wonderful way to give leaders face time to bond with channel partners. With remote working taking over, they might not be interacting with or seeing the senior management regularly, however, due to the current situation, they are understandably anxious to see and hear from their leaders. 

Including the leaders in the events doesn’t just make for a more memorable event, it improves morale and channel partner engagement, as well. 

A good way to go about this would be to talk to the leaders in advance and remind them to block out the presentation time. 

Additionally, allowing the team and the leaders to come together to brainstorm the approach for work anniversaries gives them the room to mingle; making it more memorable and impactful.

How can Zaggle Propel Help?

Zaggle Propel is a simplified platform to work towards developing programs for companies to better serve their people across several areas during this period of transformation.  It enables effortless budgeting that simplifies planning, analyzing, and budgeting of activities effectively and efficiently based on organizational budget. With a multi-level hierarchy, managers have autonomy in directing proceedings. 

Its centralized dashboard allows you to track and analyze the rewards disbursed in real-time. In addition, it can be custom integrated with the existing systems as per your specific organizational requirements.

Sign up with Zaggle Propel today to reward your beneficiaries.