Create Your Own Holiday—Ideas for an Employee Appreciation Week

Q4 is full of holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Diwali, Yuletide, Giving Tuesday, Hanukkah, Dia de los Muertos—it’s enough to make any HR professional’s head spin! With so many celebratory options, how do you plan the right celebrations for your people?

We have an easy solution. 

Many Awardco clients have seen great success creating their own Q4 holiday celebration centered around gratitude. Think of these like an employee appreciation day celebration, but in the fall instead of the spring. These programs spread feelings of appreciation and festive joy, and they allow organizations to customize the awards, gifts, and activities to fit their people and culture.

Click the button above to download assets you can use for your own program, including:

• Email graphic
• TV graphic
• Social post

What Is an Employee Appreciation Program?

An Employee Gratitude Week is a recognition program that focuses on gratitude and appreciation. The program can include different activities, incentives, charitable causes, or games to spread festiveness and feelings of goodwill.

The goal of an employee appreciation program is to help employees feel recognized and valued—and this can be done through many different ways. In fact, Awardco clients have done this through various different customized programs. The key is to plan activities, gifts, rewards, and opportunities for recognition that fit your culture and your people.

To help you start planning your own…

When to Plan an Employee Gratitude Week?

Because an employee appreciation celebration isn’t tied to any specific holiday, you can plan it whenever works best for the company! To fit it into the holiday season, here are some ideas:

• National Gratitude Month is November, so anytime during that month is a great idea.
• World Gratitude Day is September 21st each year—this is a great time for global workforces.
• Lead up to the end of the year with an employee appreciation week during early December.

Examples of an Employee Gratitude Celebration

Planning a week-long recognition program can sound daunting, but we have a few examples to help inspire you.

Spirit Week

• Monday. Swag day, where employees are all encouraged to wear swag. If they do, they’re entered into a raffle to win prizes.
• Tuesday. Cook off day, where employees compete in a cook off of some kind (think chili, soup, salsa, etc.) and then everyone else gets to enjoy the food and vote on their favorite.
• Wednesday. Pass a note day, where employees can use company-provided pens, paper, stickers, etc., to write thank you notes to their colleagues or loved ones.
• Thursday. Activity day, where the company hosts different activities around the office (or virtually for WFH employees), complete with prizes.
• Friday. Movie day, where the company rents out a movie theater and lets employees bring their families for a show.

Wellness Week

• Monday. Meditation day, where someone leads those who are interested in a meditation session during lunch.
• Tuesday. Step challenge, where employees track their steps and are rewarded for hitting their goals.
• Wednesday. Financial wellness day, where the company brings in financial advisors to run workshops and give personalized advice to employees.
• Thursday. Massage day, where the company hires a massage therapist to provide massages to employees who sign up.
• Friday. Give a day back with a free day of PTO for everyone!

Week of Giving Back

• Monday. Day of service, where employees can go and volunteer some of their work day in a company-sponsored service project.
• Tuesday. Donation day, where employees have the chance to donate a small portion of their paycheck (or points on the Awardco platform) to certain charities.
• Wednesday. Lunch-time service, where employees can use their lunch hour to help with a service project at the office, such as building kids’ bikes or blanket tying.
• Thursday. Day of gratitude, which lets employees write thank you cards to the most important people in their life.
• Friday. Make a Wish day, where employees can donate to the Make-a-Wish Foundation

Professional Development Week

• Monday. Day of job shadowing, where employees can shadow other teams to learn more about skills or responsibilities they’re interested in.
• Tuesday. Day of skill sharing, where employees can share their interests and hobbies with each other.
• Wednesday. Day of workshops, where the company brings in various professionals to host workshops that employees can sign up for.
• Thursday. Day of motivation, where the company brings in a motivational speaker, and employees are incentivized to attend.
• Friday. Day of future planning, where managers have 1:1s with their employees to create a professional development plan.

Gratitude programs are meant to give employers a chance to show gratitude to their employees. So mix and match these ideas, create some of your own ideas, include some employee appreciation gifts, and plan a week that employees will love.

A Real-Life Example of an Employee Gratitude Week

One Awardco client, New American Funding (NAF), ran a program called Season of Gratitude, which focused heavily on encouraging genuine employee recognition. This program did a great job spreading feelings of appreciation to employees and strengthening culture. And the best part is, they created this program with a minimal budget.

Here’s how their program worked:

For each of the three weeks of November leading up to Thanksgiving, NAF created special recognition programs for their employees to participate in:

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

Each time an employee recognized someone else, both the giver and receiver were entered into a drawing for 15 points ($15), which incentivized participation without a big budget. For employees who participated in each of the three programs, they were entered into a drawing for 100 points! 

With a budget of only a few hundred dollars, NAF saw over 400 recognitions go through their Awardco platform in 15 days. This employee appreciation program kickstarted their culture of recognition and appreciation.

Build an Employee Gratitude Program Today

The recognition experts at Awardco can help you plan, design, and implement a custom recognition program for the holiday season. You’ll enjoy full customization and branding capabilities to build a program that fits your culture and budget, too!

Download our celebration kit assets by clicking the button above, or get one-on-one guidance by requesting a demo here.