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Employee Birthdays & holidays

Celebrate festive occasions with style

Automate celebrations, personalize rewards, and ensure no special occasion goes unnoticed—regardless of where your employees are.

 

Return on recognition

Why celebrate birthdays and holidays at work?

Recognition doesn’t always have to be tied to performance. Celebrating birthdays and holidays offers an easy, reoccurring, and impactful way to show employees they matter. These personal moments deepen engagement and help create a culture of care that resonates far beyond the workplace.

Performance
Stock market trading screen with financial graphs on laptop
69
%
of employees say they would work harder if they felt more appreciated.
69
%
of employees say they would work harder if they felt more appreciated.

It's simple, really: appreciation increases feelings of self-worth and personal value, which helps employees want to put in the effort. And it can be as simple as a "Hey, great work today."

 
Retention
Factory workers in safety gear discussing project during industrial meeting
31
%
lower turnover in companies with strong recognition programs.
31
%
lower turnover in companies with strong recognition programs.

Appreciation leads to greater loyalty. Why? Because when people feel seen and appreciated through recognition, they feel a stronger connection to their workplace. It's simple psychology.

 
Satisfaction
Smiling senior professional in blue blazer during office meeting
81
%
of employees believe personalized recognition improves their workplace satisfaction.
81
%
of employees believe personalized recognition improves their workplace satisfaction.

General appreciation is great, but personalized is even better, and it doesn't have to be overwhelming. Automation tools, integrations, and more make it easier than ever.

 

end-to-end flexibility

Never miss a chance to celebrate

Whether it’s birthdays, national holidays, regional celebrations, or company-centric events, make these meaningful moments unforgettable.

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Automated Recurring Events

Automate birthday and holiday rewards with customizable gifts, messages, or points based on the holiday, tenure, region, or other metadata.

Custom Catalogs

Build custom catalogs from millions of global gift options, so every birthday and holiday feels personal.

Custom Reward Point Amounts

Create flexible reward structures with customizable points to match your culture—perfect for both small wins and big celebrations.

Localization for Regional Traditions

Celebrate globally with localized holidays, cultural events, and recognition tailored to your diverse workforce.

 

Employee Birthdays

Meaningful birthday recognitions

Skip the generic card—and the hassle. Make every employee birthday celebration feel personal:

  • Celebrate peers in a dedicated birthday feed with custom messages
  • Share birthday shoutouts to Slack or monitors for (optional) company-wide visibility
  • Send points or curated gifts employees will actually love
  • Utilize user profiles to give thoughtful, interest-based gifts

testimonials

What customers are saying

All Access Staging and Productions
 
 
Awardco has helped us make recognition more worthwhile by improving employee morale and showing them that we care—recognition is more meaningful, so it's become more valuable to our employees.
Smiling man with dark hair and beard wearing a grey suit jacket and checkered shirt outdoors.
Mason Ongarato
HR Software & Employee Benefits Expert
Americare Senior Living
 
 
Caregivers want more than a paycheck—they want to feel valued. Recognition makes that possible.
Smiling woman with wavy brown hair wearing a white blouse and dark blue blazer in a bright office setting.
Sarah Mazzocco
Chief People Officer
Dubai Airports
 
 
Recognition is vital in a large, fast-paced, and dynamic environment like ours. It motivates our people, reinforces our corporate behaviors, and helps create a culture where everyone feels valued and engaged.
Portrait of a woman wearing a black hijab, with clear skin and natural makeup, looking directly at the camera against a white background.
Khulood AlMarzooqi
Director of Total Rewards & Employee Engagement, Dubai Airports
4Refuel
 
 
Through our work phones, we get an email when we’ve earned points, and then we can log in to see our total, explore reward options, and decide how we want to use them. It stays top of mind throughout the day—whether we’re driving or working at customer sites.
Christopher Whilsmith
Certified Refueling Professional
Dubai Airports
 
 
As a manager of a team of seven, I use High Flyer to recognize and thank my team each quarter. It makes them feel appreciated and motivated, knowing their efforts are seen.
Soosan Abidali
Office Manager, Strategy & Development, Dubai Airports
TD SYNNEX
 
 
Using Awardco, we received 122 nominations for 80 unique nominees in just 10 days. This is the most internal nominations we’ve ever gotten, and we've had so much positive feedback from our coworkers on the user experience!
Rebecca Wolff
Media Relations
NIBCO
 
 
We’ve always had some sort of recognition program, but never anything all-inclusive where all associates at every location were engaged in the same program—until Awardco.
Woman with long dark hair with auburn highlights, wearing a black top, smiling against a gray background.
Dawn Bloch
Chief People Officer
TaylorMade
 
 
When you have employees working hard from home juggling family responsibilities, and yet still being physically separate from their team, a simple birthday message and gift they get to pick out creates a meaningful touchpoint, and allows them to take a moment for themselves.
Rosie Scannell
Global HR
PMG
 
 
We’ve made myKudos [Awardco] a key part of how we work at all levels—whether you’re a people manager or an individual contributor. MyKudos is just as powerful when peers recognize each other, creating a culture of appreciation across the organization
Smiling woman with long wavy hair wearing a blue and white striped shirt with folded arms against a light blue background.
Mary O’Brien
Head of Programmatic
Alera Group
 
 
Colleagues have to choose a value from The Collaborative Way when they recognize, making our recognition feed daily proof of why our values are so important. It’s such a powerfully positive place. Leaders are really taking notice—they want to see their teams at the top of the adoption leaderboard because they know the impact our values have on employee performance and retention.
Smiling woman with blonde hair wearing a black blazer and white blouse against a gray background.
Pam Johnson
VP of HR
SEF Energy
 
 
Awardco allows everything to support our core values and our mission, which is very important to us because that strengthens our culture.
Lauren Long
HR Operations Manager
Crumbl
 
 
I’ve been able to see how much recognition has changed since we started using Awardco. From an admin perspective, it’s become so much more manageable and has saved me countless hours. Birthdays, anniversaries, and new-hire milestones are all automated through Workday, new hires get points at 30 and 60 days, and employees are recognized automatically for birthdays and anniversaries.
Shannon Martell
Employee Experience Specialist
Lockton
 
 
Talented, motivated, competitive people are just attracted to this brand. Humans are very similar. They wanna be seen. They wanna be recognized. They wanna be valued.
Smiling woman with long wavy blonde hair wearing a black top and a necklace against a black background.
Melissa York
SVP, Head of People & Culture
 
 
Awardco offers such a clean design, way ahead of its competitors, along with excellent offerings, great analytics, and wonderful customer service.
Anonymous
Designer
PMG
 
 
I really appreciate how myKudos [Awardco] offers different ‘classifications’ of shoutouts, so no matter how someone went above and beyond, there’s a way to recognize it. We work with some incredible people, and it’s important to celebrate them however we can.
Smiling young man with light brown hair and beard wearing a white checkered shirt against a dark background with circular wall decor.
Colby Green
Paid Social Senior Associate

Thought Leadership & Resources

Employee celebration resources

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Can organizations restrict birthday or holiday points to a specific catalog?
 

Where supported, organizations can restrict an award to a selected catalog or reward category. For example, onboarding or holiday points may be limited to company swag, while a birthday award may be available across a broader marketplace.

Catalog restrictions can help align the reward with the purpose of the program, the employee population, the company store, or the available budget. The restriction may apply to a specific award, point balance, employee group, or campaign.

The available catalog controls and employee visibility depend on the enabled product and setup. Organizations should confirm whether a catalog can be limited by country, population, category, provider, or event.

What types of birthday and holiday rewards can employees receive?
 

Depending on the configured marketplace and program, employees may receive or choose from:

  • Reward points to spend in an available marketplace
  • Gift cards or digital reward options
  • Company merchandise or a branded swag catalog
  • Curated holiday or seasonal reward collections
  • Travel, experiences, or local activities
  • Charitable donations or a campaign-specific giving option
  • Nonmonetary recognition, messages, or other configured experiences

The available catalog, country coverage, supplier inventory, currency, fulfillment, and point value can vary. Organizations should describe representative categories rather than guarantee a specific brand, item, event, price, or delivery date.

Can organizations choose which employees receive birthday or holiday rewards?
 

Organizations can configure eligibility around approved employee and organizational data. Rules may include location, country, department, employee type, employment status, hire date, or other supported metadata.

This allows a company to run one global program, separate programs by region, or different birthday and holiday experiences for selected populations. A seasonal program may also use different reward values, catalogs, or dates for different locations.

The available filters and rule behavior depend on the connected data source and enabled configuration. Organizations should define how new hires, employees on leave, transfers, terminations, rehired employees, and corrected data are handled.

Can birthday and holiday rewards be personalized?
 

Organizations can typically configure the message, branding, sender, reward value, catalog, visibility, notification, and other elements of the employee experience.

A birthday program might send a personal message with points or a selected gift. A holiday program might offer a broad marketplace, a seasonal catalog, company-branded merchandise, a local gift option, or a campaign-specific reward.

Personalization options vary by program. Organizations should confirm which fields, messages, branding elements, delivery channels, and recognition experiences can be customized before publishing detailed product claims.

Can Awardco automate birthday and holiday recognition?
 

Yes, where the applicable programs and employee data are enabled, organizations can automate birthday recognition and schedule recurring holiday rewards or campaigns.

Birthday automation may use an approved employee birth-date field to identify eligible employees. Holiday programs can be scheduled around a specific date, season, campaign period, or company calendar and may distribute points or another reward to a defined population.

Automation can reduce manual administration, but organizations should validate the source data, trigger timing, employee eligibility, campaign start date, and exception process before launch.

Celebrate any special day

Make birthdays and holidays stand-out events that employees will love.