Four Ways to Communicate Your Employee Perks on Appreciation Day

Employee Appreciation Day carves out time on the calendar to recognize, reward, and celebrate all that your employees do. Make the most out of this year’s celebration by elevating the perks, benefits, and rewards that your organization offers. By showcasing your unique employee perks, they become a useful, valuable benefit that conveys your appreciation in a meaningful way.

1. Show Your Gratitude with an Employee-Perks-Inspired Event

Extravagant work events have been lost to the decades, but an Employee Appreciation Day celebration event is fresh and relevant. Do more than update the marquee with a “thank you” and show your people what appreciation in action looks like.

Transform the idea of a trade show or benefits fair into an employee appreciation event. Block off everyone’s calendars throughout their workday to ensure they have ample time to attend the event without sacrificing their schedule. Ship in the planning process and departmental managers and influencers. This way, you’ll gain valuable perspective into each layer of the organization and have insights into what employees want to hear.

Reserve space in your employee cafeteria, biggest meeting room, or unused corner of the warehouse and transform it in style. Situate tables to facilitate interaction, exploration, and discovery among employees and the top-tier employee benefits you offer. Go beyond fliers, brochures, and QR codes to your perks site and bring the perks to the people.

Invite restaurants that participate in your discount program to offer samples during the event. Vendors can bring menus and specials lists that create excitement. Have a team member ready to answer questions about your work perks program.

Offer sign up assistance on-site to remove one less to-do from your peoples lists. The easier you make engaging with your work-life balance benefits program, the higher utilization rate you can achieve. Plus, once you show employees how valuable these perks are to their total compensation, they’re more likely to use them.

2. Launch a Refreshed Employee Benefits Portal

Sometimes it takes an event or upgrade to inspire change in an organization. Consider an off-cycle update to your employee benefits portal and modernize it for your current rewards programs.

Employee Appreciation Day occurs outside of the typical open enrollment window, so now is the time to elevate evergreen benefits. If you use an intranet, redesign the platform using feedback from employee engagement surveys, best practices, and insights.

Look beyond your current layout and explore ways to share stories and get specific about employee benefits. Interview employees who have used your work perks program for restaurant discounts, vacations, and experiences.

Gather the stories in video and written form and create an engaging case study. These methods are fun for employees to interact with and establish social proof that these perks really are valuable. Sometimes, just knowing that a colleague has had success using them encourages employees to explore and use them as well.

3. Embark on an All-Employee Tour

Workplaces are not created equally, and your type of work and the work conditions will influence how you celebrate. Teams working in warehouses or on assembly lines can’t step away for an event quite as easily.

Get creative and determine how your work environment impacts your options. In workplaces where employees are stationary, bring appreciation to them. Set up space in the employee break room and staff it with your most enthusiastic team members.

Kick off the day with treats from a restaurant participating in your employee discount program. Prepare materials that are easily distributed for short visits from employees. Pre-package information about your perks program, including information about signing up and take down employee information for follow up.

When team members have short break opportunities, it’s important to maximize your interaction. Prepare talking points and prompts for team members staffing your table to maximize the interaction opportunity.

Outline enthusiastic responses and those for employees exhibiting skepticism about the program. The valuable and immediate savings opportunities for your employees are real, so communicate them effectively. By supplying your team with these talking points, you can improve their confidence and improve the effectiveness of your on-site campaign.

Ensure your team is able to have representation for every shift so all employees are included. Second and third shift staff will feel even more appreciated, especially because they otherwise would be left out of typical events. By showing up for every shift, you build trust with your employees and convey your appreciation through your actions and presence.

4. Package Up the Best Perks for Off-Site Teammates

Distributed teams collaborate effectively, but they miss out on opportunities to interact in person. Take a look at your employee distribution and determine the best way to celebrate their contributions. You’ll need to plan ahead for these events as team members may be working in different time zones.

If possible, utilize and existing all employee meeting time for digital connection and celebration. Additionally, you can utilize an online break room on your intranet to showcase work perk materials, and content. Share stories of employee utilization and savings and highlight exclusive discount opportunities through your Working Advantage platform.

Package materials about your work perks program and useful swag for your remote team. A coaster branded with your company name and employee perks resource information can boost engagement. This useful gift is visible every day and is relevant for everyone.

Time shipment so it arrives in plenty of time to reinforce this special appreciation day across your workforce. Focus on creating items that earn a place in a workspace, like a calendar or portfolio.

Track employee engagement utilizing these materials by embedding special links and monitoring intranet traffic and email engagement and new program utilization. Track your effectiveness to learn from this year and translate these insights into ongoing engagement strategies, and next years’ celebration.

Reinforce Your Appreciation Day Efforts All Year Long

A date on the calendar can do more than inspire a one-time promotion – it can translate into an ongoing campaign. Boost your employee engagement and retention efforts by bringing your Employee Appreciation Day work into your annual plans.

Use your day of work as the kick-off to something bigger that offers advantages for your organization and your people. This longer runway gives employees time to learn, test, and adopt desired behaviors, like program utilization, while earning their loyalty. This year, find inspiration in your Employee Appreciation Day strategy to boost engagement, retain top talent, and elevate your culture.