Birthday's do seem like an easy way to recognise people and to create a culture or value system based upon caring. It sounds like you have had a fantastic experience of seeing this work in your workplace. That is great!

Depending upon ones current work culture this could be a great idea. The way that we try to celebrate at my work is to have a monthly potluck. At this potluck we ask all staff to contribute if they can, and we also bring in speakers to motivate and inspire our staff. We also try to put together group tasks that force people to work together in a fun way. For example we just performed a dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller at our student Talent Show last week.

Another way that we try to celebrate with each other is that we do something called shout outs. Basically what we do is give everyone a stack of post it notes and tell them to write quick thank you notes (4 or 5 words) to someone they appreciated over the past month. As the supervisorit is my job to make sure taht everyone gets at least one. What happens in this exercise is that coworkers anonymously recognise their peers for big and little things that they have accomplished over the past month. A fun exercise that leaves everyone smiling.

The trick is to make sure that you and your leadership team each write a thank you note to all of your team members, the last thing you want is someone to leave this exercise with 1 or 0 shout outs. That creates other problems that you don't want.

I'm interested in hearing about other ideas that I could use to celebrate and build community in the work place.

Ideas?

The development community at the University (that means the folks who raise and manage private financial support on behalf of the University in collegiate units and at the UM Foundation) celebrate achievements through our intranet site -- our daily log on site -- called "the Net". It changes at least weekly, but sometimes more often, and it has columns for birthdays, work anniversaries, promotions, vacancies -- all with a photo of the individual and a link to their email address so you can send them a message. The Net also includes a column of current issues in philanthropy and press coverage with links to articles in NYT, WSJ, etc. It provides space for us to celebrate births, special achievements (like completing a marathon or climbing Kilimanjaro). The Net is maintained by a variety of people -- HR, IT, communications.

The beauty of this homepage is amazing and it's secure so we can be more casual in our stories. I wish I could take some credit for the idea, but I can at least share this successful virtual community idea with you! - nan

At work, I tend to be a Thinker. That means that I'm usually very uncomfortable with recognition or praise at work. That also means that I've overlooked opportunities to give recognition and praise to my colleagues, even though I often think about what a great job my colleagues do. My office conducted a Myers-Briggs assessment so everyone was able to better understand the way each of us thinks and works. It was refreshing and a helpful reminder that we don't all have the same needs. I think we work together better now, because of our ability to simply recognize our diverse needs.

It's imperative that leaders try to understand how each individual person wants to celebrate their victories and be recognized, and try to adhere to individual needs as much as possible.

I would like to start off by saying that it is important for a company to offer individual recognition and rewards. I think it is even more important for a company to realize not everyone enjoys the same thing. I personally have never been a big fan of celebrating my birthday at work. That being said it puts me in an uncomfortable position in a work environment. People think you’re a 'scrooge' if you don't want to celebrate your birthday with others in the office. What I feel is important is that management understands (in general) the likes and dislikes of its employees and not blanket on item for all. I am not saying not to have birthday celebrations what I am saying is that companies should find out peoples feelings about them and not assume. I just think that sometimes these rewards do seem superficial and also, sometimes the reward given with good intentions back fires.
Just to illustrate; in one company I worked for we got gift cards at the Christmas holidays. Everyone at first was happy at the thoughtfulness, after all there were about 50+ employees in the office and gift cards for $25.00 each really adds up. Then we saw where the gift card was for; The Outback Steakhouse. At that time I had not eaten there but for me and my husband it ended up being around $50.00, which may or may not be expensive to some. The point was basically that the event (over a few months as people used their card) went from ‘wow, that’s great, thanks’ to ‘hmm, I have to spend my money in order to enjoy your gift’, or go and eat by myself or really limit my choices to only the appetizers and water. It is not that anyone one of us was ungrateful, it was simply most of the employees were married and of those that were married most had children. So in order to truly enjoy yourself for the evening you generally ended up spending more then the value on the gift card. The following year the company learning from this experience, instead offered people the choice of where they wanted their gift card from, choices of establishments such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com etc. These places had more items with a range of value options. This change made an overall more positive response to the gift cards.
I simply wanted to illustrate that a company can accommodate people with different likes by just taking sometime to think about options. The company itself did not have to spend any more money the second time around then they did the first time, in fact they spent less time and money because everything was done on-line the second time and no one had to go to the establishment and buy the cards.
irene

Hey Bette Jo - I love the question about culture. The same questions came up in a conversation I had earlier today ironically, so I've been thinking about this today.

I can't say for sure, but I suspect any leader who reached out to a member of a culture other than their own to ask a few questions, would take a long stride toward an understanding that will be rewarding to both leader and employee. Here are a couple of questions that come to mind from my conversation this afternoon:
--In your culture, do you recognize X, Y or Z? Why or why not? If yes, how?
--In your culture, what does recognition look like?
--In your culture, what are "work expectations?" (From K&P chapter 11 about recognition and motivation.)
--What "no-nos" should I know about?

Just some thoughts...

--scott marshall

My department went through a period of celebrating birthdays, some colleagues liked everyone knowing; however, I've always asked not to mention mine. While I did grow up celebrating birthdays, I have personal reasons why I haven't celebrated mine for some time. And I appreciate my wishes are respected.

Also, I have a very diverse team at work, everyone but me was born outside the United States. I ask them about their cultures all the time, both out of curiosity and also to find out their traditions and comfort in certain celebrations, like during "the holidays". I agree with Scott. I think it's appropriate to ask. I've found out interesting taboos from handshakes to restaurant choices when we eat out as a group. We all respect each other and I make sure all team members are ok with location and food choices before scheduling a place to go celebrate our victories.

Thanks for all the comments... They have helped me do some more reflecting and I have come to a conclusion how I would handle this in my company if I have one.

I agree some may not want to be recognized for their birthday. I only offer the birthday because of my value system. My position is that I appreciate and value others for who they are, not necessarily what they do. I accept them with all their strengths and their weaknesses. If I hire them, I will work with them and not give up on them over every little hurdle that comes along on our journey together.

With that said, I want to let them know in a formal manner, once a year, of my appreciation for them as a member of my work family. I would want them to know I will never give up on them. I accept them completely and will work with them to accomplish the common goals to make the company productive.

I am thinking to span cultures, one of the suggestions, was to ask what they would want or how they are comfortable being recognized. Recognition could be done on their hire anniversary with the company in a manner they are comfortable with.

If they refused to accept this tradition, I think I would then question if they were the right member for my team? Are they as committed to valuing people as I am? Do they have the same appreciation for the human spirit and tenacity to supporting the individual as I do? If not, then perhaps there is another place they should be searching for rather than employment with my company.

I enjoyed Bette Jo's posting and the responses to it. While I agree that celebrating people's birthdays might help build a "spirit of community" in a workplace, I think that falls short of the chapter's larger (and I think more important) message of finding ways to instill organizational value into celebrations - having the dual purpose of recognizing accomplishments while reinvesting workers in the organization's goals. In Bette Jo's workplace, it seems like there is a value at work in celebrating birthdays, that is recognition of that individual for the day. I just feel like in a workplace there ought to be more recognition for an individual's contributions, and that ought to be integrated into the culture in a more significant way than just on a birthday, which really has nothing to do with the organization.

Maybe I'm a little cynical because of the way in which my workplace celebrates birthdays. Everyone who has a birthday in the month of, say April, is celebrated by the rest of the staff with cake and ice cream at a staff meeting. So, it isn't really an individual acknowledgement. The birthday hosts each month are 2-3 other staffers who have to purchase the treats and organize the party themselves. It's spread out so that each staff member hosts one birthday per year and, while that's not unreasonable, it's certainly not the leadership making an effort to recognize the individual.

A friend recently shared a story with me about a woman at her workplace who got a surprise party for a major achievement. The company flew her parents in from out-of-state to be there, which caused the woman significant surprise and embarrassment. On top of that, an expensive piece of art was selected as a gift for her, that seemed to my friend to elicit very little enthusiasm. In all, the party cost the agency over $2,000. As well-meaning as it was, it really missed the mark. My friend and I agreed that we'd rather have the cash than the all the hoopla. K&P say that "Leaders realize that recognition needs to be well thought-out, purposeful, and genuine." I would add to that, to solicit feedback from others, including the recipient of the recognition. What's considered fun by one (ie. a surprise party), may not be considered fun by all.

This topic is very interesting to me because recognizing people is my job. I am an event planner for the Academic Health Center and I plan events for various celebrations - "Thanks for being Interim-Dean," "Good luck in Milwaukee...," "Welcome to the University," "Thank you for your x number of years of service," "Happy Holidays," etc. I plan a lot of events and 98% of the time the recipients are overwhelmed and pleased with the event in their honor, especially if it is an individual event, meant just for them.

However, this is not the case for events that are meant to celebrate a group of people. One of the holiday parties that I help plan usually costs the office that hosts it well over $13,000... yes $13,000. For three years now, I have gone to this holiday celebration and the feedback I continue to receive is that the individuals would rather see that money go into the salary budget... questions are asked: "how can we spend all this money on a holiday party and yet I'm told there is a raise freeze?" I have gone to my client with these concerns but they don't seem to be considered valid. Jackie identifies the importance of soliciting feedback and I agree. However, don't ask for people's thoughts on the topic if you don't plan on considering it for the future.