Mark your calendars - Employee Appreciation Day is on Friday, March 6, 2025, and it isn't just a date on the calendar; it's an important opportunity to shine a spotlight on the remarkable efforts of your dedicated team. While a pat on the back is great any day, use this special occasion to amp up the gratitude.
What is Employee Appreciation Day?
Employee Appreciation Day serves to honor and value the contributions and efforts of your workforce. The story of Employee Appreciation Day begins in 1995, thanks to Dr. Bob Nelson, a visionary in cultivating cultures of recognition in workplaces around the globe.
Now a global phenomenon, this day is a powerful reminder of the impact that appreciation can have within any organization. Annually, we mark Employee Appreciation Day on the first Friday of March.
How to Celebrate Employee Appreciation Day (28 Ideas)
It's imperative to mark this day with meaningful activities that resonate with your team, making it a significant and anticipated event in your corporate calendar.
If you’re looking for ways to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day, we’ve got you covered.
Here are some in-office and virtual/hybrid ideas to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day:
- Recognition relay: One person recognizes someone and “passes the baton” to the next person to do the same. This would work great in a Slack or Teams channel or social media post where people can tag the next person.
- Cut + fold recognition notes (like paper fortune cookies!): Write down your recognition message, then cut + fold it (like a paper fortune cookie), and leave it on the recipient's desk.
- Recognition haiku/6-word story: Encourage people to write a short, meaningful shoutout in a haiku or a six-word “micro-story,” ideal for quick social posts too.
- Office lunch or breakfast: Cater a special meal for your team, offering a variety of options to accommodate different dietary preferences.
- Recognition superlatives: A yearbook-style page where you assign a few fun superlatives (Best Communicator, Best Smile, Most Likely to Succeed) and back each one up with a real example.
- Award ceremony (in-person or virtual): Host a fun award ceremony with unique categories that highlight each employee's special contributions or quirks.
- Appreciation bingo (about one person): A bingo card where each square is a real behavior you’ve seen (like “made a messy problem simple”), so filling it out becomes a concrete, shareable list of why they’re valued.
- Host a roast + toast (appreciation edition): Host a friendly roast and toast event, where people can give someone a small (but friendly!) roast, followed by a sincere toast.
- Wellness day: Organize a day focused on wellness with activities like group exercise, meditation sessions, or a massage therapist on site.
- Gratitude ping-pong: In a Slack or Teams channel: “I appreciate you for X” and then the receiver responds with “and I appreciate you for Y.”
- Team building activities: Plan team-building exercises or games that encourage collaboration and fun. 👉 Check out our free Team Building Activities.
- Appreciation postcard (digital): A postcard template with a “Wish you were here” vibe where you fill in what you appreciate about them, what you learned from them, and what you hope they do more of.
- Personalized gifts: Give out small, personalized gifts or thank-you notes to each employee, acknowledging their specific contributions.
- A day off: Allow employees to take a much-deserved day off or half-day off to rest, relax and enjoy their own activities.
- Surprise entertainment: Hire a musician, comedian, or magician for a surprise performance during the workday.
- The time-back gift: Give people an hour back: cancel a meeting, shorten meetings, or do a “no internal meetings” block.
- Two truths and a thank you: Say two true facts about how someone helped you and one thank you line that ties it together.
- Thank-you movie trailers: Everyone submits a video dramatizes a teammate’s contribution (“In a world where…”) and ends with a tagline that sums up their impact in a way people love sharing.
- Home office upgrades: Offer a budget for employees to upgrade their home office, improving their work-from-home experience.
- The appreciation menu: Create a menu-style fillable PDF that frames appreciation for someone as appetizers (small helpful habits), mains (big strengths), sides (support), and dessert (the extra magic they bring).
- Ecards: Send digital cards individually, to your team or company-wide.
- The “Legend Has It" one-pager: A meme-style page that starts with “Legend has it [Name] can…” and guides you to add the real story behind the myth (what they did, how it helped, why it’s impressive).
- Online fitness classes: Sponsor online fitness or wellness classes that employees can join from home.
- Digital escape room or trivia night: Organize an online game night with virtual escape rooms or trivia challenges.
- Subscription services: Offer subscriptions to services like streaming platforms, e-books, or meal kits.
- Recognition posts on social Media: Highlight individual employees or teams on the company’s social media channels, praising their hard work and dedication.
- Customer love roundup: Compile customer quotes and match each to the team members who made it happen.
- Appreciation time capsule: People write notes to teammates for “open in 90 days” (future encouragement + recognition).
These ideas can help create a memorable and enjoyable Employee Appreciation Day, showing your team how much their efforts are valued.
Year-Round Recognition: The Key to Organizational Success
While Employee Appreciation Day is an important day, ongoing recognition throughout the year is essential for maximizing organizational impact. Tools like Kudos facilitate easy and meaningful recognition, ensuring that every achievement, big or small, is acknowledged. With features like employee milestone celebrations, nomination programs, personalized rewards, eCards and pulse surveys, it becomes simple to maintain a culture of appreciation.
To help you stay on top of important dates for employee recognition, our 2026 Celebrations Calendar is a handy resource. It's never too early to start integrating recognition into your company culture, and we're here to assist you when you’re ready!
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