There’s almost nothing I love more than celebrating the birthday of someone I love! My husband and I have celebrated five birthdays together and each year, I try to plan something more and more elaborate.
Multi-location scavenger hunts, a full day packed with all of his favorite things, a surprise party with friends he hasn’t seen in years—I know I’ll have to scale it back at some point but for now, the bigger the better.
And since 89% of people enjoy celebrating their birthday and 90% say that getting a gift on their birthday makes them feel valued, there are infinite opportunities to celebrate the people around us. Your coworkers or employees might not be the first people you think of when it comes to birthday celebrations, but making the people you spend 40 hours a week with feel valued should be high up on the list!
Think about it this way too: employees who feel respected and valued work harder and stay with your company for longer. So not only are you making someone feel loved, but you’re also contributing to a positive work environment and increasing employee retention. It’s win-win.
But with the rise of remote work, celebrating birthdays in the office has become more challenging. You can’t surprise your coworker with a homemade cake or decorate their desk with balloons and streamers.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still make them feel special on their birthday. Here are some ideas from Lemonade Stand birthdays that you could use for your own remote employee birthdays.
Steal Ideas From How Lemonade Stand Celebrates Remote Employee Birthdays
Managers, team members, and executives at Lemonade Stand team up to make everyone feel valued during employee birthdays. Here’s how we celebrate.
Specific Gifts
We love to send our employees a personalized gift that we know they’ll love. We act as sleuths and get the information from other team members, keep notes during personal and group conversations, or use our Interest Board in the Build Then Bless app.
It looks like this and each of your employees can fill it out with whatever information they want team members and management to know so you can send a gift you know they’ll love.
Another great feature in the BTB platform is the ability to set reminders for upcoming birthdays so no one ever feels left out. You can set reminders weeks and days in advance and have the employee’s interests sent to you so you can order a curated gift.
Whole Company Shoutouts
Every week in our team meeting with the whole company, we highlight upcoming birthdays and team members send birthday messages in the chat. It helps employees feel recognized and appreciated by everyone in the company, not just their immediate team. It’s also a great way for new hires to get to know their coworkers and feel more integrated into the team.
Day-of Chats
On the day of someone’s birthday, we encourage everyone to send messages in their department chats and one in the whole company chat, usually with a wild assortment of birthday-themed GIFs. People get creative and send messages with inside jokes, GIFs specific to the person who is celebrating, or heartfelt messages of appreciation.
Sending Money on the Build Then Bless Software
We mentioned Build Then Bless (BTB) earlier and there’s another feature that’s perfect for employee birthdays. At its core, BTB is an employee development and recognition software. This main page is the team dashboard where people send team members shoutouts and recognize them for a job well done.
On birthdays, employees can shout a team member out and even send them some money from their $10 monthly giving fund to show how much they’re appreciated.
Content Team Takes It a Step Further with Birthday Traditions
I’m a proud member of the Content Team and the happy recipient of two birthday song celebrations. It started with Braden McDonald, who decided he wanted every content team member to have some sort of virtual celebration during our Content Team meetings.
Over the past three years, he’s created over 15 coworker-specific birthday songs based on their personality or the overall “vibe” they bring to the Content Team. He takes his own time outside of work to make something just for them and perform it or show the recording during Content Team meeting! If that’s not a thoughtful employee birthday celebration, I don’t know what is.
We’ve also branched out and included other team members and the instruments they can play (or can pretend to play). They’re always silly but every content team member who has had a tailor-made birthday song performed for them has shared how much it means to them.
Here’s a collection of some of our favorites over the years!
What’s better than a personalized birthday song, you ask? A lengthy explanation about the creative process and the intention behind it. A little spoken word if you will.
Your co-worker’s birthday is the perfect time to learn how to play the harmonica! Abby did not come to play with this rendition of Happy Birthday.
Playing a song for the Birthday King himself requires dusting off your trombone after almost a decade!
Nothing like welcoming a new member of your team with a personalized birthday song. This one is an all out symphonic masterpiece by Braden himself!
But has the coolest person on your team ever played the bass guitar for your birthday? When Jillian is famous one day, Braden will be able to brag that she rocked out for his birthday.
Listen to our favorite groovy beat and the best failed-attempt at kazoo we’ve ever heard. Trust us, you won’t want to miss the public humiliation in this one.
Build Then Bless Makes Employee Birthdays Memorable
There are so many ways to make your remote employee feel appreciated on their birthday, and Build Then Bless is just one tool that can help. With features like Interest Boards, team shoutouts, and the ability to send money from your giving fund, it’s a great way to bring the team together and show someone how much they’re valued.
Schedule a demo to see how Build Then Bless could change your employee development and recognition.
