Top 10 work anniversary mistakes to avoid

by Rick Joi
Rick Joi is the founder of The Workiversary Group and author of the award‑winning book, Inspiring Work Anniversaries.

Don’t let the fear of making mistakes prevent you from taking action.

But that said, having some fear of these ten things is healthy.

#10 Asking for Glassdoor reviews in work anniversary emails

Imagine getting a generic automated email acknowledging your work anniversary that has a request for you to leave a Glassdoor review if you like your job.

They want you to take the time to write up something kind and heartfelt about the organization when the organization couldn’t be bothered to do the same? And, what little gesture they made was accompanied by a self-serving request?

Don’t be the company who did that.

The work anniversary moment is about the employee, not the organization. In the same spirit, don’t try to sell stuff or hire people on social media posts celebrating work anniversaries either. The moment is about the employee, not you.

#9 Giving lottery tickets

Don’t ever give lottery tickets as work anniversary gifts.

Lottery tickets are the universal symbol of employees hating their job and are desperate enough to waste money gambling on a tiny, tiny chance of being able to quit.

Most employees will lose, which is disappointing.

If one of your employees does win big and quits their job, that will become a really lousy, culturally corrosive story.

#8 Sending work anniversary gifts to fired employees

Firing employees is awkward enough, don’t make it worse.

Somewhere, your organization has a termination checklist. If any part of your work anniversary program is automated make sure that turning it off is a step on the termination checklist.

And note that while sending gifts to their home is the worst, turning off other automations is important, too. If you send automatic emails, then they’re going to get forwarded to whoever their email forwards to, and that, too, is awkward, especially if the person getting the emails doesn’t understand or agree with the firing.

#7 Forgetting the person who runs the program

Why is it so universal to put out milk and cookies for Santa?

Those who give need taken care of, too.

If you are the manager of the person who runs your organization’s work anniversary program, then you need to make sure you know what they do, and put a reminder on your calendar to do whatever that is for them.

#6 Doing more when people leave than on their work anniversary

What message are you sending if you celebrate the people leaving more than you’re celebrating the people staying?

Do you go out together when people leave? What if you did that for every year (or at least every five years) that they stayed? Do you put a lot of energy into retirement parties? What if you redirected a lot of that energy into 25th anniversary parties instead?

#5: Using a photo the employee doesn’t like

If you post photos of employees as part of acknowledging their work anniversaries, then you should make sure each employee is okay with the photo you’re choosing. You have some process for getting all the photos. Make part of that process checking in with each employee when you get their photo.

If you want to avoid this step, you can use their LinkedIn photo, since that is something they chose themselves and made public

And more broadly, you want to avoid anything that will truly embarrass them. It’s okay if they’re a little shy about getting so much attention, but don’t say things about them that they wouldn’t want shared, or force them to make a public speech they’re not prepared for, or anything else that might make embarrassment the most memorable emotion from their work anniversary.

#4: Appearing like you’re “trying to quickly check it off your list”

Work anniversaries are about acknowledging the value of the employee being part of the organization for one or more years. The goal is for the employee to feel like they matter and that the organization cares about them.

If the people involved in celebrating the work anniversary appear disinterested, hurried, and/or generally just trying to complete a task, then they may end up doing harm rather than good.

As part of this, beware the automations and time optimizations. Sure, if you get everyone plaques without their names or number of years, it will be easier, but is it even worth it at that point? And yes, you can send automated emails, but is there any meaning in that?

#3: Going over the top for one employee at the expense of others

Employees are very sensitive to any sort of favoritism when it comes to work anniversary celebrations.

The same effort should be put into all employees. Bigger milestones can of course be celebrated bigger than smaller milestones, but every employee reaching a specific milestone should be treated the same. This includes the CEO, who should not receive any special treatment.

It is true that some employees contribute more than others, but that should be expressed with salary and bonuses and any other recognition system you have, not with work anniversaries.

#2: The wrong date, number of years, spelling, or pronunciation

There are three pieces of information you need to get right with a work anniversary:

the date
the number of years
the employee’s name (spelling and pronunciation)

It’s very important that you get them right. The goal of celebrating a work anniversary is to make the employee feel like their time at the organization has been valued. If you get the number of years or their name wrong, you destroy that.

If you are using a template for anything, be very careful and check it three times. It’s better to start from the template each time rather than from the last one you did. Starting from someone else’s is the path to getting the number of years wrong and not noticing. But even with the template, you need to make sure you actually replaced all the parts that need to be replaced. Blank templates have been sent to employees, and it’s bad.

Also, if you’re announcing someone’s name, check how to pronounce it ahead of time. And whatever you do, don’t pre-apologize that you’re going to say the name wrong. Say it confidently. Even if it’s a little wrong, that’s more okay than announcing to everyone that you’re going to get it wrong because you didn’t check.

#1: Not doing anything

There are many ways to do nothing. They include:

Not doing anything for anyone
Pausing because you’re busy
Completely forgetting someone
Being late, which is also doing nothing from that employee’s perspective until you do something, which will be after they’ve already had all the negative thoughts you want to avoid.

Not everyone thinks about their work anniversary. But many people do.

For those people, when nothing happens, their head is filled with some variation of the thought, “this feels horrible, they don’t care I exist.”

Sometimes people’s friends will remember, but the company doesn’t. Ouch.

You don’t want that to happen. There’s some idea in this blog that your organization can do.

And, you can find a way to do it for everyone, on time.

The best way to avoid mistake #1

Want to go all in to make sure you don’t forget, and if you do, it be a good thing?

Then, put a large “bounty” on forgotten work anniversaries.

That is, publicly declare that work anniversaries are so important to your organization that if anyone’s work anniversary is forgotten, then:

they get a conference room named after them
(or machine or whatever makes sense for your organization)
they get a free trip to Bermuda for them and their family!

Everyone involved in on-time delivery will take on-time work anniversaries much more seriously after that!