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

Kodiak
 
 
Awardco makes it really easy to select colleagues that you want to recognize, whether it's one, whether it's multiple. Recognition helps build trust with teammates and leaders.
Smiling man with short hair and beard wearing a dark collared shirt in an outdoor setting.
Brett Miller
VP of Creative
Amur Equipment Finance
 
 
We recently pulled an in-platform report to check on usage, and then we reached out to people individually to improve adoption—especially managers. Since then, engagement has been significantly higher, and our culture of recognition is growing—even our executives are recognizing.
Smiling woman with straight brown hair and glasses wearing a blue top against a blue and purple blurred background.
Hannah Fagan
Human Resource Leader
Dubai Airports
 
 
The scalability of the Awardco platform makes it the perfect partner for Dubai Airports. It evolves as we evolve—allowing us to introduce new efficiencies and features while keeping recognition simple and user-friendly.
Portrait of a woman wearing a black hijab and light makeup against a white background.
Khulood AlMarzooqi
Director of Total Rewards & Employee Engagement, Dubai Airports
Sorenson Communications
 
 
As an evolving company, I like to ask myself if we're better than we were a year ago—and with employee recognition and employee engagement, the answer is absolutely.
Dan Higbee
Senior Director of HR
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
Greenfield Global
 
 
Employees are awarded a certain amount of points every month to give out to their peers. We encourage people to recognize not just within their team, but across the company—anyone who goes above and beyond or makes your day a little easier.
Young woman with long black hair smiling against a plain beige wall wearing a gray checkered top.
Paula Useche
People & Culture Manager
Crumbl
 
 
It's a very fast paced environment. There's a lot of rapport between people and everyone gets along really well and we can joke about the things that are maybe stressful, but we also really celebrate the big wins together.
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Alejandra Caceres
Senior Vice President of Marketing
America First Credit Union
 
 
After COVID hit we had over 1800 employees go remote. Our HQ campus became a ghost town. We couldn't do the high touch thing anymore, but still wanted to engage our workforce. Because of the nature of remote work, we didn't even know which employees were where, and there was no way we could use our old system of bi-annual distribution. We had gotten so much positive feedback with our service anniversary program that we reached out to Awardco to see if they could do something to help us with our bonus program.
Smiling woman with dark hair and bold winged eyeliner lying on a black textured surface.
Jodi Gonzales
HR Manager
 
 
I love how simple Awardco is to use, both the main platform and the admin side, with how many reporting features it has to offer.
Anonymous
HR Generalist
Kodiak
 
 
The emphasis that Kodiak puts on people and employees first is really unique. We're always looking for opportunities to acknowledge the important and special and above and beyond work that our coworkers are doing.
Black and white portrait of a woman with long wavy hair smiling gently at the camera.
Cassidy Barsdoff
Director, Project Management Office
Kodiak
 
 
This integration to our Slack channel… makes it very easy and seamless. There’s this running log of all of these shout outs, which I think is really powerful.
Smiling man wearing a blue Patagonia fleece jacket standing outdoors with snow-covered pine trees in the background.
Zach Makoutz
Sr. Manager, Category Sales Product
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
Cinemark
 
 
Awardco significantly enhances employee engagement and helps our employees feel valued and appreciated, leading to higher morale. Offering customizable recognition programs for Cinemark and a wide range of awards helps align with our employees' interests and ensures that all employees, from theatre staff to management, feel valued and appreciated.
Ann O'Keefe
Director of Benefits
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
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

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.