Total rewards Glossary
/
Service Awards

Service Awards

Service awards are a type of employee recognition that acknowledges and celebrates employees for their dedicated years of service to a company. These awards are typically given on milestone anniversaries, such as one, five, ten, or twenty years of service, and can include gifts, plaques, or certificates.

Personalized plaques
Trophies
Certificates commemorating milestone anniversaries
Monetary bonuses
Extra vacation days
Gifts such as watches, jewelry, or electronics

Ready to elevate your recognition game?

Total rewards can be intimidating—but Awardco makes it easy to build culture, drive behavior, and recognize the good around you. Learn more about how we help enhance your total rewards today.

What is the impact of service awards?

After a full year (or years!) of work at a company, employees need to be recognized with a years of service award. By recognizing and celebrating employees for their years of service, companies can demonstrate their appreciation and commitment to their employees. This, in turn, can boost employee morale, satisfaction, and loyalty, leading to increased retention rates and a more positive company culture.

How do service awards drive employee engagement and motivation?

Service awards for employees show appreciation for an employee’s hard work and dedication. This helps them feel valued and cared for, which increases motivation and engagement. Additionally, really awesome service awards can get people excited, motivating them to stay with the company and reach the next milestone anniversary.

Best Practices

Best practices

‍

How often should you give years of service awards?

Determining the right frequency for service awards for employees is important to keep employees engaged and appreciated. Most companies recognize employees at major milestone anniversaries, such as 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20 years of service. However, some organizations give employee service awards more frequently, offering smaller awards for every year or even every six months to show ongoing appreciation.

What are some best practices for giving service awards?

Make service awards for employees meaningful and impactful by:

  • Making the awards meaningful and personalized to the employee.
  • Celebrating milestone anniversaries in a timely manner.
  • Celebrating in a way that’s comfortable for each employee (public/private). 
  • Using the awards as an opportunity to reinforce company values and culture.
  • Incorporating employee service awards into a broader employee recognition program to recognize and motivate throughout the year.

Awardco Simplifies Employee Service Awards

Awardco’s user-friendly platform allows employers to personalize service awards, send timely reminders for milestone anniversaries, and publicly recognize employees in a variety of ways. Click here to request a live demo of our rewards & recognition platform.

Ready to see Awardco in action?

See how Awardco will build culture, incentivize performance, and power engagement in your organization.

 
Build culture, incentivize performance, and power engagement. All in one place.
English (US)
Platform
OverviewRecognitionCelebrationsIncentivesBenefits & PerksRewardsIntegrationsReportingAwardco Intelligence
Solutions
OverviewUse CasesRoleBusiness SizeIndustry
Why Awardco
Why AwardcoAmazon BusinessCenter of ExcellencePlatform SupportCustomer StoriesAwardco AdvocatesSecurity & CompliancePlansRequest for ProposalGet a Demo
Resources
Resource LibraryBlogResearch & ReportsNewsroomTotal Rewards GlossaryKnowledge BaseACO CommunityROI CalculatorBudget CalculatorCompetitor GuideContact Support
Events
Upcoming EventsOn-Demand WebinarsSHRMRCGNZ Summit 2025
Company
About UsCareersRecognize the GoodCorporate ResponsibilitySustainabilityDEIPrivacy PolicyContact Us
© 2025 Awardco
Your Privacy Choices
*A-Pay® card Visa Commercial Credit cards are issued by Celtic Bank.

Privacy at Awardco

We value the trust you’ve placed in us when you provide us with your personal information. We use that information as detailed in our Privacy Notice

You can make certain privacy requests, but those options vary by state. We will fulfill these requests as determined by your state of residence.  

Creating a Privacy Request

What request would you like to make?
We need some information about you to authenticate your identity and process your request.

Thanks for your message!

We will reach back to you as soon as possible.

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
No actions available at this time

We are committed to consumer privacy and provide choices where we can about opting-out of marketing messages or using web browsers with privacy functionality built into the service. Download here.

At this time, additional requests are not available in your state of residence.  Should state or federal law change, we will evaluate how to offer more privacy choices to you in the future.  

We use cookies to improve your browsing experience, personalize content, and measure traffic.
‍By accepting all, you consent to the use of cookies for marketing, personalization, and analytics. You can manage your preferences and withdraw consent at any time. Learn more in our Privacy and Cookie Policy.

PreferencesRejectAccept
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Preferences