Fun and Unique Ways to Celebrate an Employee or Colleague’s Birthday

Employee birthdays can sometimes feel like a minefield. It can be difficult to know exactly how to approach the occasion as a professional, and your instinct might even be to focus on the work at hand rather than put any time into a personal celebration. But celebrating occasions like birthdays can have a measurable impact on staff moral

Employee birthdays can sometimes feel like a minefield. It can be difficult to know exactly how to approach the occasion as a professional, and your instinct might even be to focus on the work at hand rather than put any time into a personal celebration. But celebrating occasions like birthdays can have a measurable impact on staff morale – not only directly through the activities afforded by the occasion, but also through the recognition of colleagues beyond their work performance.

Going a step beyond a morning birthday greeting can ensure the office is a joyous place to be and can act as an incentivise for your team to give it their all. With this in mind, here are some unique ways you can celebrate employee birthdays and keep your team on board.

Desk Decoration

A particularly quirky way of celebrating a colleague’s birthday can be found in the ‘re-decoration’ of their desk to suit the occasion. There are a number of ways you could go about this, from the straightforwardly heart-warming to the delightfully devilish. For example, while they’re out for lunch you could fill their desk with polaroid pictures of the team together, personalised decorations, and even a gift or two. Alternatively, you could take the opportunity to gift-wrap absolutely everything in, on, and around their desk – right down to their keyboard and mouse.

Birthday Lunch

For a more conventionally fun form of birthday celebration, you could offer to take your employee to lunch with the team. An extended lunch shows that you value your team members and gives you the opportunity to reward work well done alongside another year around the sun. The birthday lunch could be followed by a group activity, such as a gin tasting.

Office Card

There isn’t anything quite as quintessential as the office birthday card when celebrating a colleague’s birthday. Pick a nice floral birthday card from an online vendor, have everyone on your team and around the office sign it in secret, and present it to the birthday team member along with a token of the office’s appreciation. The personalised messages on the inside will make for a supremely sentimental touch!

Team Gift

Speaking of team participation, having your employee’s colleagues team up to collectively choose and buy a gift can be an excellent way to celebrate the occasion and a powerful demonstration of the positive team dynamic in your office. The gift could be as simple as a voucher for them to use as they choose, or as personalised as an item they’ve mentioned wanting in the office before.

Decoy Meeting

For a sneaky way to celebrate a birthday, you and some colleagues could secretly arrange an in-office birthday party in a conference room. Then, you could call an office-wide meeting under the auspice of discussing important business – whether company performance, a new client or something even drier. The surprise is revealed when the birthday employee arrives, and the afternoon can instead be spent enjoying cake, playing party games, and generally hosting an afternoon to remember at the office