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

NIBCO
 
 
People like to be recognized for what they’ve contributed. They’re proud of their work—and they should be.
Smiling woman with blonde hair wearing pearl earrings and a dark V-neck top against a gray background.
Ashley Martin
President & CEO
PMG
 
 
When employees feel seen and appreciated, they’re more engaged and engagement drives performance. Using Awardco helps leaders and managers recognize impact in real time and that momentum drives continued and lasting success.
Smiling woman with blonde hair wearing a black blazer and a delicate gold necklace against a white background.
Monica Gunderson
Talent Management Lead
Crumbl
 
 
It’s much more personalized for the person celebrating their anniversary. From an operations standpoint, it’s helped us recognize employees on the actual day it matters most, instead of long after the moment has passed.
Smiling man with short dark spiked hair and beard wearing a black shirt against white background.
Josh Olofson
Vice President of Employee Experience
Lockton
 
 
We created ‘Celebrating Culture’—a program where we reward engagement at everything from costume contests to lunch-and-learns. Awardco makes it easy to motivate and recognize employees both in person and remotely.
Smiling woman with shoulder-length dark wavy hair wearing a green textured blouse against a black background.
Tisa Penny
Engagement & Events Lead, 2025 Recognition Rockstar Winner
Lockton
 
 
We used to give everyone a trophy at our annual event. Now, we reward true top performers. Awardco enables smarter, more meaningful recognition and spend.
Smiling woman with long wavy blonde hair wearing a black top and a pendant necklace against a black background.
Melissa York
SVP, Head of People & Culture
The Nest Schools
 
 
Automation is something that is really important for us—we try to automate as much as we can so that we can focus on what's important. And Awardco's automation and integrations have fit in perfectly.
Brittany Madonna
Senior VP of Marketing & Communications
Greenfield Global
 
 
As we try to build a strong culture, we want to take a more modern approach. Partnering with Awardco helped us to put that together. So even though we are spread out, we do get to feel like we are One Greenfield.
Smiling woman with long dark hair wearing a purple cardigan and black top with a pendant necklace.
Ashley Cato
Vice President People and Culture
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
Greenfield Global
 
 
Recognition can mean different things to different people, but for everyone, you want to feel seen and valued for the work you do. We were able to launch our first global recognition program, STAR, with the help of Awardco.
Smiling woman with long dark hair wearing a purple cardigan, black top, and a white pendant necklace, standing with hands on hips.
Ashley Cato
Vice President People and Culture
Dubai Airports
 
 
High Flyer has given us a framework to consistently and meaningfully acknowledge employees, boosting morale and reinforcing the behaviors that drive success. Recognition now feels natural and embedded in our culture.
Smiling man wearing a blue suit jacket, white shirt, and orange tie against a white background.
Kan Ni
Vice President, Airport Operations Control Center, Dubai Airports
Southern Oregon Head Start
 
 
For us to onboard a staff member, it's probably close to about 5,000 to 6,000 dollars. As a nonprofit, I feel like going to Awardco has been a huge cost-savings advantage.
Smiling woman with long dark hair wearing a black and white striped turtleneck sweater against a light background.
Amber Lease
Human Resource Director
Children's Nebraska
 
 
Being a nurse, I know that oftentimes it's hard to keep coming back day after day. It often goes without recognition or gratitude, but Sunshine has given us the opportunity to empower our team and our leaders with the ability to recognize others. We're proud to have seen such high engagement from our team members submitting recognitions on the platform.
Madeline Quinn
Employee Experience Manager
NIBCO
 
 
Awardco has definitely helped us do recognition even better. Recognizing someone you work with, even if you don’t see them every day, has been empowering.
Smiling woman with blonde hair in a dark blue blouse against a gray background.
Ashley Martin
President & CEO
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
 
 
Awardco offers such a clean design, way ahead of its competitors, along with excellent offerings, great analytics, and wonderful customer service.
Anonymous
Designer

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.