Holiday Programs: Planning and Implementing an Employee Appreciation Week

The end of the year is the perfect time to show employees some love for all of the effort they put in over the past months. Not only does this boost motivation to close out the year, but it can help you start the next one right.

The reason Q4 is the perfect time for employee appreciation is the many existing holidays around that time. Yes, there’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Hanukkah, and those are great to celebrate! But for international organizations, there are some great worldwide holidays to take advantage of, too:

World Smile Day - first Friday in October
World Mental Health Day - October 10th
World Kindness Day - November 13th
Human Rights Day - December 10th

No matter what holiday you choose to celebrate, consider an Employee Appreciation Week to make your celebration stand out in a more meaningful, long-lasting way. Whether you call it a Gratitude Week, a Spirit Week, Spooky Week, Festive Week, or some other name, these week-long programs are a phenomenal way to build culture, boost engagement, and spread appreciation.

And don’t worry—a week-long recognition program isn’t as intimidating as it sounds.

Employee Appreciation Impact

Employees crave appreciation more than ever before, especially the younger generations. One study found that Generation Z and Millennials are much more likely to feel dissatisfied at work, but giving recognition boosts their sense of fulfillment, increases retention, and helps them feel 79% more loyal to their employer.

Employees want to feel valued and cared for. Genuine praise builds trust, purpose, and work quality, and recognition makes employees feel 5X more connected to their company culture.

However, a recent study shows that only 27% of employees feel recognized, and nearly 50% of them feel undervalued!

Let’s review. Showing employee recognition and appreciation:

Reduces turnover by 31%
Increases productivity by 14%
Boosts employee loyalty by 3X
Increases employee connection by 5X
Makes employees 4X more likely to be engaged

Instead of running one of the organizations where 27% of people feel recognized, use an end-of-year program to offer personalized employee appreciation to boost that number and reap the benefits of an appreciated workforce.

Employee Appreciation Week—What You Need to Know

Let’s break down everything you need to know about planning and implementing your own Employee Appreciation Week this year.

This type of program is built out over a full week and involves activities, recognition, gifts, food, or other fun and rewarding things for the organization to show their appreciation for their people. Daily activities or events don’t have to be extravagant or take all day—a small but genuine, meaningful, and employee-centric activity is all it takes.

Planning and Implementing an Employee Appreciation Program

These steps are the best way to plan and implement a program to show employees more appreciation this year:

Form a planning committee. One of the best ways to plan the program is to form a committee of diverse employees who have bought into the idea. Brainstorm ideas and let them give input into the activities.
Set a budget. Depending on your initial plans, figure out a budget that will work for the activities, prizes, gifts, and outside guests you want to include.
Communicate early and often. Once you have a program in place, market it! Create flyers and put them around the office, send emails, and announce it during meetings.

Once your appreciation week is over, it’s a great idea to send out a survey to learn what employees liked, what they didn’t, and what they’d like to see next time.

Examples of Appreciation Week Programs

So what should you plan for your week of employee appreciation? That’s just it—there’s no right answer! Organizations should plan activities, events, and games that they think their employees will enjoy. It doesn’t to be elaborate or time-consuming.

We know that the “there’s no right answer” response can be frustrating, though—so to help you brainstorm, here are some simple examples of employee appreciation programs.

Example of a Spirit Week

Monday (Swag Day). Employees that wear swag are entered into a raffle to win a prize.
Tuesday (Pass a Note Day). Set up thank you card stations for employees to write cards to their colleagues.
Wednesday (Free Lunch Day): Give employees a free lunch, and have the executives serve it if possible!
Thursday (Game Day): Host some games or activities around the office or outside if the weather permits. Offer small prizes for the winners.
Friday (Movie Day): Rent out a theater for the company and let everyone leave work a little early to see a movie together.

Another great idea for spirit week is an employee or team spotlight each day. Send out a company email with a spotlight that introduces an employee (or each employee on a team), explains a little about their life and interests, and compliments them on their work.

Example of a Halloween Week

Monday (decorate desks). Give each team a few hours and supplies to decorate their work stations
Tuesday (costume day). Let employees dress up in costumes for the day. Take pictures and hold an employee vote for the best one!
Wednesday (family trick-or-treat). Let employees bring their families into the office and pick up treats from leaders.
Thursday (pumpkin decorating). Bring in mini pumpkins for everyone to paint or carve during a break in the day.
Friday (desk decoration voting). Let everyone walk through the office to experience the decorations of each team and vote on their favorites!

Halloween is a great holiday for fun around the office. For those who celebrate it, a week-long program based around letting employees build relationships and celebrate with each other is a great way to boost morale and show employees that you care about their wellbeing.

Example of a Wellness Week

Monday (step challenge). Announce a week-long step challenge with prizes for crossing certain thresholds of steps taken throughout the week.
Tuesday (massage day). Bring in a massage therapist to offer employee massages throughout the day.
Wednesday (mental health day). Schedule a time and place for a meditation session for anyone interested. Provide other mental health resources employees will appreciate.
Thursday (physical health day). Have outdoor activities, bring in fitness instructors, or offer free gym memberships for the month.
Friday (financial health day). Bring in experts to provide guidance for saving, investing, and managing personal finances.

Employees will love any help you can give them to help them hit their wellness goals. And showing them that you care about their personal goals and wellbeing is a great way to recognize them as individuals with lives outside of work.

Example of a Professional Development Week

Monday (day of skill sharing). Allow employees to teach new skills or hobbies to each other.
Tuesday (day of job shadowing). Have each employee choose another position they’d like to shadow for a short time.
Wednesday (day of workshops). Host workshops for different skills that employees can attend throughout the day.
Thursday (day of guest speakers). Bring in experts in different fields to speak to employees.
Friday (day of 1:1s). Have each employee meet with their managers to discuss their career path and set goals for the coming years.

These are just four examples of an employee appreciation week that you can host in Q4 this year. Pick a program that will speak to your employees and plan activities that will be meaningful to them.

A Real-Life Example of an Employee Appreciation Week

One Awardco client, New American Funding (NAF) had such a successful experience with what they called their Season of Gratitude Campaign that we felt like we had to share it. We hope seeing a real-world example will help you see that it’s easier and more rewarding than you think to create an employee appreciation program.

NAF launched with Awardco in August of 2022, and they wanted to drive adoption for their new recognition platform with something exciting and meaningful. To that end, they decided to incentivize adoption with a Season of Gratitude program. However, they didn’t have a big budget for this, so they knew they’d have to get creative.

Here’s how the program worked.

For each week of the month before Thanksgiving, they sent out prompts to help their employees get started with recognition:

Week 1: Recognize an unsung hero at work
Week 2: Recognize your work bestie
Week 3: Recognize an inspiring leader

Each time someone recognized someone else, both the giver and the recipient would be put into a drawing for 15 points, incentivizing participation without blowing the budget. This instantly drove engagement and created a chain reaction of people being recognized and recognizing in turn.

And to keep the program top-of-mind and to maintain high engagement, they sent weekly emails announcing the results from the previous week and the prompt for the upcoming week.

If employees participated in each week’s prompt, they were entered into a grand prize drawing for 100 points—bringing their spend to only 145 for the entire program!

Is that enough incentive? Well let the results speak for themselves. In just 15 workdays, they had over 400 recognitions in this program alone, kickstarting their culture of appreciation and excitement around employee recognition.

Make This Holiday Season Special With an Appreciation Program

Whether you want to do a Season of Gratitude, like NAF, a Spirit Week, or any other special program, these fun employee appreciation ideas are great ways to boost employee engagement, show support, increase productivity, and reduce turnover. This year, boost the creativity of your holiday recognition programs and watch as the festive feelings roll in.