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

Dubai Airports
 
 
One month later, when we received the High Flyer, it was such a nice feeling—a true appreciation of our work. It felt good to be recognized.
Smiling man with dark hair and trimmed beard wearing a black shirt against a gray background.
Barkin Ozdemir
Content Development Manager, Brand & Communications, Dubai Airports
Lockton
 
 
As we’ve scaled, we’ve lost the day-to-day visibility into our people. Awardco fills that gap. Peer recognition surfaces contributions that would otherwise go unnoticed—especially from introverts or quiet top performers.
Smiling woman with long blonde wavy hair wearing a black top and pendant necklace on a black background.
Melissa York
SVP, Head of People & Culture
PMG
 
 
Our recognition was all over the place before. Awardco brought everything into one centralized, impactful platform.
Middle-aged woman with brown hair wearing a red cardigan and black top, smiling against a white background.
Pam Buyers
Head of Culture at PMG
NIBCO
 
 
When we implemented Awardco, we refreshed everything and synced all service dates to our HRIS. It works flawlessly now—and the person who used to manage that spreadsheet is very happy.
Smiling woman with long dark hair with red highlights, wearing a black top and silver jewelry, posing against a gray background.
Dawn Bloch
Chief People Officer
Hertz
 
 
Everybody wants to come to work every day and feel as though they're making a meaningful contribution to the business. So, when you finally get to hear that what you've been working so hard on has made an impact, it's incredibly rewarding.
Chris Berg
Executive Vice President, Fleet Management
4Refuel
 
 
We were doing recognition even before we adopted this platform, but this platform made it so easy for our frontline leaders and middle managers to run the recognition program.
Professional headshot of a man with short black hair wearing a gray blazer and light blue shirt, smiling against a gray cloudy background.
Roshan Varghese
Sr. Director, Environment, Health & Safety
Paramount
 
 
There are so many [reward] options, and everyone is already used to Amazon and knows what they can get. In the past, we had a catalog of items, and it didn't feel like it would fit with our new demographic.
Shaye McCoy
Manager, Global Total Rewards Experience
Crumbl
 
 
For most companies, purpose, mission, and values can end up feeling like just words on paper. That’s why we were so interested in Awardco. It gives us an authentic way to bring our values to life. Every time someone recognizes a teammate, our purpose and values are right there, reinforcing what they look like in action every single day.
Smiling man with short spiked hair and a trimmed beard wearing a black t-shirt on white background.
Josh Olofson
Vice President of Employee Experience
Crumbl
 
 
The product that we're putting out is a lot of fun, but it is not easy to do what we do every single week. People are working really, really hard, and if they feel like just another cog in the machine, that can get disheartening really quickly. Taking that extra time to show appreciation for above-and-beyond effort is really important and reinforces good relationships.
Smiling woman with long dark hair in black top against a pink textured background.
Alejandra Caceres
Senior Vice President of Marketing
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
Alera Group
 
 
Awardco has allowed people to recognize their coworkers in a public way, and we see it every day. Collaboration is in the DNA of Alera Group, and appreciation is absolutely central and core to effective collaboration.
Kristie White
AVP, Change Strategy & Organization Development
Dubai Airports
 
 
The implementation was effortless. The Awardco team was incredibly supportive and proactive throughout the journey, offering guidance and expertise that led to a smooth and successful launch of our High Flyer program.
Maha Salem
Senior Manager, Rewards & Recognition, Dubai Airports
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
Utah Valley University
 
 
Before Awardco Nominations, we had to piece everything together manually. Now everything lives in one place, making the process much easier and more intuitive.
Smiling middle-aged woman with wavy blonde and brown hair wearing hoop earrings and a cream turtleneck sweater against a light green background.
Brenda Betteridge
Business Development Manager
McCormick & Company
 
 
The exciting part isn’t just that people love being recognized—it’s how eager they are to recognize their peers. That enthusiasm speaks to our culture. There’s a real appetite for recognition because it matters, because they care, and because they want others to feel appreciated.
Smiling woman with blonde hair wearing a floral jacket and white top against a textured wall.
Sierra Capone
Director, Wellbeing & Employee Experience

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.