3 Great Ideas for Employee Appreciation Day

March 3rd is Employee Appreciation Day! You want to do something different to thank and engage your staff. Instead of a gift card, plaque, or free lunch, why not go deeper with a meaningful philanthropic activity that offers thanks to your staff with some fun downtime with a purpose? Choosing an event that gives back appeals to an employee’s sense of purpose and can increase their level of pride and loyalty in their employer and overall employee engagement.

According to a study by TINYpulse: “…corporate philanthropy programs drive employee retention, improve workplace perception, boost peer relationships and improve workplace perception…”. So where do you start?

• Determine the cause you want to support. For example, literacy, hunger, wellness, the military, homelessness, STEM education or other causes that tie into your company’s mission or something that can make an immediate impact on your community. Click here to see options for the types of causes you can support.
• Create an early morning event!. Start with an activity to begin the day with a positive tone. A 1-2 hour activity creates a sense of fun, brings the group together, and rallies the group behind a meaningful cause.
• Busy workplace and staff? Create an experience that employees can access on their own time throughout the day. In less than 20 minutes, participants can bake stuffed animals for children enduring treatment for illnesses in local hospitals, build a bike for a child who has never had the joy of his/her first bike, stuff a backpack with food items, and more. Take a look here at how one recent client created an all-day, at your leisure give back program with our help in Jacksonville, Florida!

Now is the time to start planning!