Work anniversary celebration events after work
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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. |
Having a work-anniversary-only event is not especially common, but for some organizations, it can be extraordinarily meaningful and memorable. ✨
What kinds of organizations is this for?
Specifically, if your organization is large and prestigious to work for, then you may be able to pull off an after-work event that employees won’t find to be a chore to attend.
How do they work?
Generally, these events are for employees who are celebrating one of the “fives” (5 years, 10 years, 15 years, etc.) and a guest. They typically involve fancy dinner, speeches, and gifts.
They’re generally more formal and held at the kind of place you might have a wedding reception. Also, the gifts are generally on the fancier side. Generally, these are events are for organizations with money to spend on them.
Why wouldn’t you do it?
However, even if your organization has the money for it, this really isn’t for all company cultures:
Bringing a guest can be awkward for many. Consider the experience for your divorced employees, widowed employees, single employees, same-sex relationship employees who aren’t out at work, and employees with strained marriages.
Drinking can also get awkward. Some of your employees don’t drink, some are recovering alcoholics, and some are prone to drink too much and doing things that are inappropriate for work.
A nighttime work event can be awkward for many. Some of your employees might have very long commutes. Some have kids and might not easily be able to find a babysitter (and might want to use their babysitter budget on a better time than a company party). Some will also have other caregiving commitments beyond kids.
Are you still interested?
But, if your company culture is such that none of those warnings have scared you away, then an after-work work anniversary celebration is probably a great fit for your organization.
Just follow the instructions from the How to celebrate big work anniversaries at your company holiday party blog post, but for a work-anniversary event, the speeches will be the primary attraction — and thus will have more time to shine.
And because the speeches will be such a big part of the event, you’ll want to make sure to do them well, so check out our How to write a great work anniversary speech blog post. After you’ve read that post, you can also download customizable work anniversary speech-giving guides to give out to your employees who will be giving speeches.
We’ve talked to hundreds of people in dozens of countries about their work anniversaries. Know that done well, a speech at one of these events could be the most memorable highlight of some people’s careers! ✨