Staff birthdays are a fantastic way to bring everyone together to celebrate a special occasion and let the person being celebrated know just how much they’re valued in your enterprise. Celebrating staff birthdays is also a great way of humanising members of your team to each other and encouraging interpersonal relationships between all your team members, potentially even aiding in bridging gaps between different departments.
There are also countless ways to celebrate a staff birthday. If you’re wondering how to go about doing this, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll go over some of the best ways to make a member of your team feel special on their birthday.
Join us as we explore some staff birthday ideas and look at how you can make these birthday plans a reality.
Write Birthday Cards
Birthday cards are an essential part of any birthday celebration. They’re the most personal thing you can give a friend or an officemate, and there are now tools that let you design a custom card online, so there’s no excuse not to give your colleague a beautiful card on their birthday.
The most important consideration when making a birthday card is that it’s authentic. Often, working in a fast-paced startup forces you to interact with your colleagues in a mostly professional capacity, especially if you’re an authority figure. Birthday cards are a rare chance for you to let members of your staff know how you feel about them on a personal level.
You should consider sourcing birthday cards from the entire company, or at least the entire department, before a staff member’s birthday. Your colleague will appreciate the chance to receive personalised messages from all over the company.
Buy A Birthday Present
No birthday celebration is complete without birthday presents. Buying a member of your staff a birthday gift is one of the best ways to let them know how much you appreciate and value them. Choosing a personalised present also demonstrates that you took the time to get to know them and what kind of things they like.
If you don’t think that each member of your team getting an individual gift is feasible, you can consider all chipping in to buy a larger present. Often, people will appreciate receiving a single gift more than many small ones.
Birthday presents aren’t limited to physical objects, either. You can also consider getting the member of your staff whose birthday you’re celebrating a gift card to a shop you know they regularly buy from. This gives them more flexibility to choose something they’ll actually use.
Similarly, subscription gifts have also become increasingly popular in recent years, walking a really interesting line between material gifts and experiential gifts. So pool some gift-buying funds together with your team, do a little shopping and research, and see what great birthday gift you can give on the next staff birthday in your company calendar.
Arrange A Team Outing
Salary isn’t the only factor that determines employee satisfaction. It’s important to create a holistic employee experience and consistently supportive office environment for all members of your staff – and making work fun is one of the main ways to do this.
When it comes to birthdays, there are few more exciting ways to celebrate than by organising a company outing. Going out as a team is also a great way to make the celebrant feel special. When choosing the place, the main consideration should be what they like doing. If the birthday celebrant likes history, you can organise a trip to the local museum. If they’re a sports fan, you can get tickets to a game.
Of course, it might not be practical to schedule a day out every time someone has a birthday. A nice meal during lunch hour that everyone in the company or your department is invited to is a great alternative.
Throw An In-Office Birthday Party
An in-office party is a great alternative to a day out. Get together with some other members of your team to plan the party. This can involve getting everyone to bring a particular dish, decorating the office and getting people with close ties to the celebrant to prepare speeches.
If you’re throwing a party in the office, you should definitely make games a part of the proceedings. Besides helping set the atmosphere for the birthday, games are also fantastic for team building. The opportunity to work together and compete against each other in a friendly environment can foster bonds between team members that day-to-day work simply can’t. Some ideas for games include Minefield, charades and Monopoly.
Consider throwing the office party at the end of the workday so that people can fully enjoy themselves without having the rest of the day’s work on their minds.
Birthdays are special occasions and should be treated as such in the office. Celebrating your staff’s birthdays is a great way to show that you value them and boost their morale. It’s also a great way to bring the whole company together and makes for some great team bonding.
In this article, we’ve looked at some creative yet doable ways to celebrate staff birthdays. Of course, every company, and individual, is different, and you want to tailor your birthday celebrations accordingly – both for your team and of course, for the birthday person!
What are you waiting for? Mix and match the celebration tips in this article to create a truly memorable birthday party both for the celebrant and the rest of the company.