Recognising Employee Milestones

What counts as an employee milestone?

There are many milestones that you can recognise and celebrate within the workplace.

Work-related employee milestones and team achievements

These can be work-specific, such as work anniversaries or promotions. You may also wish to mark specific achievements, like the completion of a course, receiving a charter ship or gaining an award.

You can also mark overall business success, such as winning a new contract, completing a big team project or having a ‘best performing’ quarter or year – and thank each staff member involved with a small gift.

Milestones in an employee's personal life

Employee milestones can also extend outside of the workplace, celebrating and recognising significant events in an employee’s personal life. This can include birthdays, engagements, marriages and births of their children.

No one wants their employee to feel like they need to wear a ‘workplace mask’, so if they are comfortable sharing their successes or happy events, from both inside and outside of work, it is nice as an employer to be able to recognise them.

Why is it important to recognise employee milestones?

Presenting a gift should always bring joy. Purchasing a gift should always come from a place of wanting to make the recipient feel special and certainly noticed.

As HR News states, “Marking milestones shows that you appreciate the efforts made by your staff, leading to loyal and content employees.”  Therefore, purchasing employee milestone gifts is important for employee engagement and recognition, as well as morale. It can also improve staff retention.

A gift marking a significant milestone in their work or personal life shows your people that you pay attention and notice their commitment to their role, as well as appreciating that they have a life outside of the workplace too.

There are many options available when it comes to an employee milestone gift.

From an individual’s perspective, it is important to take a little time to consider what would be both appropriate and appreciated by the employee.

From a business perspective, it is important to consider which of each of the employee milestones will be celebrated, how many and what budget can be made available for a set number of gifts, each year.

You may also assign a recommended amount or value to different types of milestones, for fairness, and to help budget for this expense.

As for the types of gifts, there are many to choose from. You may consider organising a special lunch or drinks, offering time off or bringing in coffee and cakes, as an example of using ‘downtime together’, as a way to mark the achievement or celebration.

In terms of a more traditional gift, non-cash alternatives often have a much better impact than a simple monetary gift A  bottle of wine or sparkling wine, is very common, if you know they do drink alcohol, or perhaps some flowers or chocolates, if not. However, these ideas can seem a little impersonal.

For something a little more unique and tailored to an individual taste, a food and drink hamper is recognised as a more personalised or bespoke gift. The selection means they make great employee milestone gifts. 

Hampers can be easily ordered online, delivered to a work address or multiple home addresses and can cater for a range of different dietary requirements. 

Take a look at our range of best-selling corporate gift hampers.