The EA guide to just-in-time work anniversary reminders
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by Rick Joi Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries. |
Executives have a lot on their minds. There is both a lot of complexity and a lot of stress involved in all that they’re responsible for. It is a very rare executive that is going to remember work anniversaries of employees multiple levels down in the organization. Just remembering names is a win, which is often not won.
But yet, a timely in-person acknowledgement of a work anniversary can be enormously powerful. That’s where you come in.
You can be the cause of some really special moments by scanning both the work anniversaries for the day and the people who will be in the executive’s meetings for the day and then giving the executive a heads up right before the meeting. And by really special moments, I mean moments that the employee will mention to their loved ones when they get home. A lot of executives will come to treasure these moments, too. You’ll know what you’re doing is working when they ask how they’ll get reminded while you’re on vacation. ;)
If your organization has multiple locations that your executive visits, that’s another opportunity.
Often, the executive will fly in and will have a bunch of planned meetings with the same people they always meet with. They’ll want to get to see the location and be visible to the front-line employees, but just walking around can be awkward. What you can do is look up all of the employees at that location that will be having work anniversaries during the executive’s visit and provide them the list. They then can make a point of asking about how to find the employees and going to visit each of them on their work anniversary day. Each interaction will only take a few minutes, but will be talked about by not only the employee having a work anniversary, but also by any nearby employees who witnessed it.
And, I think it’s helpful to point out at this point that this works far better with work anniversaries than birthdays, particularly for executives with larger organizations under them. A powerful person you don’t know mysteriously knowing intimate details about your personal life and trying to use it to strike up a conversation will come across as disingenuous at best, and very likely as creepy, for many employees. But work anniversaries don’t carry that same creepy baggage. An executive you don’t know remembering your name and hire date feels like the executive cares in a very role-appropriate way. For more info check out the Work anniversaries vs. birthdays blog post.
👉 Check out more work anniversary blog posts for executive assistants! 👈
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