Employee Appreciation Day is March 2, 2012, so you have one month to plan a celebration for your team. If you’re looking for theme ideas, register for our upcoming Recognition TV webisode. Lindsay, Baudville Product Manager, will share her favorite Employee Appreciation Day themes in a video broadcast on Wednesday, February 15. She’ll probably share her picks for Employee Appreciation Day gifts this year, too. Don’t miss it!

Employee Appreciation Day is all about your employees. Celebrating the value they bring to your organization as individuals is a great way to increase employee engagement, commitment, and motivation.

But how do you do that? We have a few low cost ideas for this year that will get your employees talking!

 Friendly Competition. Engage your team with a little friendly competition. Host a Minute to Win It contest in your department or create your own game of Team Bingo. Offer a small prize to the top achievers and watch the fun that follows! You can find over 60 activity ideas for Employee Appreciation Day in our new Team Up! eBook now available in the Recognition Resource Center.

Take it Outdoors. Thanks to our mild winter weather, you can take your team outside for Employee Appreciation Day! A little fresh air will invigorate your team, and expands your activity options. Bust out one of your summer yard games out of the garage for a short recess your team will enjoy.

Random Acts of Kindness. Make your Employee Appreciation Day about kindness this year by encouraging employees to practice kindness the week leading up to Employee Appreciation Day. Download our new 75 Random Acts of Kindness eBook from our Recognition Resource Center and cut out each of the 75 ideas – you may want to add some of your own ideas, too! Place them in a bowl and have employees pick an act of kindness to do every day. Give everyone five Cheerful Change coins  that they are to pass on to the person who received their act of kindness. 

Celebrate the end of the week – and your many acts of kindness – with a team lunch on Friday. Conversation will inevitably lead to the Random Acts of Kindness from the week. This is a great opportunity to remind your employees that they make a difference both inside and outside work. What a great recognition moment!

For more Employee Appreciation Day ideas, use these additional resources:

Baudville on Pinterest
Recognition Resource Center
Employee Appreciation Day on the Baudville Recognition at Work blog

 

How will you celebrate Employee Appreciation Day this year? Tell us here!

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

There I was sitting at an intersection…just patiently waiting for the red light to turn green and then inspiration hit. I reached to the backseat to grab my padfolio to jot down this light bulb moment and just then something else hit me – the cacophony of a fellow driver’s horn. Now this was no courtesy toot – this was a six-second blast. I mean, I had time to look in the rearview mirror and see a normally kindly gentlemen with a look on his face like I had just insulted his grandmother. And for what? Five seconds of inconvenience?
 
You probably know that here at Baudville we try to promote frequent and sincere appreciation of our fellow team members as a way to boost camaraderie, engagement, and motivation in the workplace. But my little brush with a fellow human’s short fuse got me thinking perhaps I need to widen my focus a bit.

 
Do you need ideas to give appreciation and kindness? Try our You are Truly Appreciated recognition theme and new Random Acts of Kindness ideas eBook!

Well, it just so happens that Random Acts of Kindness Week is coming February 13-19, and for me the timing couldn’t be better. Perhaps our country at large is in need of a little love as well? Just think about all the people we interact with on a daily basis: the store clerks, letter carriers, public servants, fellow commuters, and complete strangers. What can we do to send some goodwill their way?
 
We can start by laying off the horn – figuratively and literally. 
 
If you need ideas or free tools to join this mission, visit our Recognition Resource Center. There’s a new free download all about Random Acts of Kindness and a whole lot more there as well. Go ahead, give it a try!

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Brad Darooge is President and CEO of Baudville and a positive mojo aficionado. He brings the positive mojo to work every day along with his bike. In addition to leading Baudville, Brad is also an amateur triathlete.

Employee Appreciation Day 2012 will be here before you know it! This year, Employee Appreciation Day is Friday, March 2, 2012. How does your organization plan on celebrating? Need a few ideas? We’ve listed some of our top resources below, and stay tuned to the Recognition at Work blog! We’ll have more posts for Employee Appreciation Day coming soon!

Employee Appreciation Day Ideas  on the Recognition at Work blog
We’ve created an entire category on this blog dedicated to Employee Appreciation Day. Browse ideas from our previous celebrations here at Baudville and pick up tips that will help you plan a memorable day.

Special Event Ideas in the Recognition Resource Center 
Our new Recognition Resource Center is your first stop for ideas for special events, like Employee Appreciation Day. Browse articles, videos, and eBooks that will give you great ideas for this year. 

Special Event Videos in the Recognition Resource Center 
We’ve created several videos filled with Employee Appreciation Day ideas in the past two years. But don’t forget about the Customer Service Week, National Nurses Week, and other event videos you’ll find on this page. They also have great employee appreciation ideas you can use for Employee Appreciation Day!

Employee Appreciation Day Gifts
I suggest that you include a small gift in your Employee Appreciation Day 2012 celebration. At Baudville, we always have a surprise during the day. Last year, we each got a Star Performer Twist Top Tumbler  as part of our Hollywood themed day. Employees still use their tumblers every day! A gift serves as a lasting reminder that helps your appreciation stick long after Employee Appreciation Day comes to an end. 

Send a Free ePraise
Want to acknowledge Employee Appreciation Day but don’t have a budget? Send a unique ePraise card to each of your employees. Take the time to write a personal note about the many characteristics and contributions you appreciate about the individual. ePraise is a great example that when it comes to appreciation, you don’t have to have a big cost to have a big impact!


What are your favorite Employee Appreciation Day ideas? Share them here!

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

Valentine’s Day may be over a month away, but in my opinion it’s never too early to start planning! Although the holiday is typically celebrated between couples, I think it’s a great opportunity to have a fun day with your team. After all, we used to have Valentine’s Day parties in school. Why not bring them to the office?! 

Your celebration should be focused on fun, boosting team morale, and employee appreciation, which is a great thing to do in mid-February. By then, the holidays are long behind us and most people (like those of us in Michigan!) are in the middle of a long winter. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot. These low cost Valentine’s Day ideas will give you plenty to do on February 14th without breaking the bank!

First, an absolutely free Valentine’s Day idea: send an ePraise card. Choose a card to send to the entire team and say “Love your work” or “Way to put your heart into it.” Using ePraise, you can make Valentine’s Day a day for employee appreciation!

It’s estimated that more than 58 million pounds of chocolate will be purchased during the week of Valentine’s Day. Bring some chocolate goodness to the office on Valentine’s Day with a dessert potluck. Invite the entire team to bring in their favorite dessert to share. Elect judges to taste the different dishes and hand out awards, like the Stole My Heart with One Bite Award, and present certificates to the winners. What other awards would you give out?

Everyone loves food in the office, so give each of your team members a small treat on Valentine’s Day. Whether it’s a small bag of Tootsie Rolls or Sweet Treats full of jelly beans, your employees will love that you remembered them. Add a personal note to each piece of candy to make this an effective employee appreciation gift.

One of my favorite Valentine’s Day ideas is having an old fashioned card exchange. Create mailboxes for your employees out of paper bags or shoe boxes, and ask everyone to bring a Valentine’s Day card for each of their teammates. I think this would be a blast at Baudville. We’d have some really creative cards floating around!

Finally, I love the creative Valentine’s Day ideas on Mud Pie Studio blog. They posted 101 Valentine’s Ideas for under $5, and a lot of them would be perfect to give in the office. The valentine using the Pop Rocks is one of my favorite because it has an employee appreciation message. 

Do you have any Valentine’s Day ideas for the office? Tell us what you’ve done in the past!

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.

We have officially ushered in 2012 at Baudville, but before we jump into all the *new* and *exciting* things happening, we wanted to recap your favorite blog posts from 2011. It looks like you are very interested in recognition events and recognition themes! Even though we wrote these posts last year, they have great ideas you can use in 2012. We’ll be bringing you new ideas for all the 2012 events, but first take a moment to revisit these blog posts and get your creative juices flowing!

Want to start planning for 2012 recognition events? Get dates for all the major events on our Recognition Event Calendar.


Mark your calendar with key dates for 2012!

1. When is Employee Appreciation Day 2011? 
Employee Appreciation Day is coming up March 2, 2012!

2. Summer Team Event Contest Winners
Get all the ideas from our winners in our Team Building Ideas: Summer Team Events eBook .

3. Seven Employee Appreciation Day Ideas for 2011

4. More Employee Appreciation Day Ideas

5. Top 10 Recognition Themes for National Volunteer Appreciation Week

6. Three Easy Steps to Giving Award Certificates

7. Employee Appreciation Day Theme Ideas

8. Customer Service Week Themes for Your 2011 Celebration

9. Happy Employee Appreciation Day!

10. When is National Volunteer Appreciation Week 2011 
National Volunteer Appreciation Week is April 15-21, 2012!

11. Six Tips for Volunteer and Administrative Professional Appreciation

Give us your feedback! Which blog posts were your favorites? What do you want us to write about in 2012? Post your comment here!

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Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.