Whether you decide to celebrate on the day or dedicate a week to show your employees appreciation, here are some ideas for your Employee Appreciation Day 2025.
How to Show Your Employees Appreciation 2025
There are many different ways to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day 2025, such as Awards & Recognitions, Gifts & Treats, In-Office Events, and Out-of-the-Office Events.
Present Awards & Recognitions
By holding an awards ceremony, you can show gratitude to each individual employee. The awards can be tailored to your company, so you can choose to recognize specific skills, company-wide efforts or even soft skills which aren’t shown the limelight very often.
One way in which you can make this different is by asking employees to nominate peers for awards as well. This way, the appreciation is widespread across the team and makes the individuals feel even more celebrated.
Why not go one step further and announce the award winners on your digital signage? With Freespace’s Digital Signage technology, you can manage content through announcements to showcase your employees’ achievements.
An awards ceremony is a perfect idea for organizations with a hybrid working strategy as you can host the event in your workspace while remote workers can be invited to an online meeting.
Give Out Gifts & Treats
An alternative to employee-nominated awards is to organize a gift exchange where each employee picks a name of a colleague and sends them a token or message of appreciation. Depending on the size of your organization, this could include all employees or could be from managers to their specific team.
Maybe you could give your employees time off for this day of appreciation. A day off, an afternoon, or an extra day in the future can be enjoyed by every team member and is a meaningful way to reward them for their hard work.
You can also support your employees’ wellbeing by gifting them with spa experiences, yoga classes in the office or even bringing in a professional massage therapist. Not only will they feel relaxed and recharged, but they will feel valued and well thought of.
Organize In-Office Events
Other in-office events may not be suitable for remote workers, so try and organize them so everyone can attend. The simple act of having lunch together is a great way to show your employees appreciation.
Rather than everyone eating lunch separately with something they’ve made or bought, you can get everyone around one table at one time and treat them to a nice takeaway you know everyone will enjoy.
Instead of lunch – or in addition to – you could also organize some entertainment for the office which everyone can take part in. From ping-pong to video games, mini golf to board games, every can partake and when they’re not, they can cheer their peers on.
Arrange Out-of-the-Office Events
Go the extra mile and take your employees out of the office on Employee Appreciation Day 2025. Happy hours are regular occurrences in bars everywhere, so you can all go for a drink after work or even before finishing time to socialize. Also, as it always falls on a Friday, it’s the perfect opportunity for some drinks! Remember, you will have to cater for sober employees and remote workers too.
As well as happy hours, there are always concerts, comedy nights and other entertainment options available around. Organizing a trip to a local music event, comedy club or other venues such as bowling alleys, arcade game establishments or the cinema are a great way for all employees to get involved and be entertained.
You could even go further afield; jump in your cars or hop on a train to the nearest city and see what they have to offer. Go into the countryside to enjoy some fresh air and the outdoors with a picnic or some team sport games like rounders, cricket or football. There are lots of different possibilities, just choose one that’s suited to your budget and your team.
With our Employee Experience App and the My Teams feature, it’s even easier to organise team days out. Managers can organise team days and schedules to ensure everyone is available for the chosen event.
Why is Employee Appreciation Day 2025 So Important?
Employee Appreciation Day 2025 is only one day within the year which highlights the importance organizations taking the time to show their employees they are appreciated. However, it’s important to display this recognition all year round using a holistic approach. These ideas for one special day should be used throughout the year and this is why:
Company Culture & Values Are Strengthened
Company culture is an incredibly important factor for employees, whether it’s your existing team members or candidates for new job openings. Showing appreciation and recognition reflects your values and strengthens them, reinforcing them as the backbone to your organization.
Employee Wellbeing is Improved
It has been proven that by practicing conscious gratitude, you will experience more positive emotions. This goes hand-in-hand with receiving gratitude from external sources so; by showing your employees appreciation, you will encourage more positivity which has an impact on their mental health and wellbeing.
Employee Engagement is Reinforced
The two points above combined help to encourage employee engagement. By receiving recognition from their team, employees will feel more connected to company values and overall business success. This reinforces engagement and motivation within their role to work towards a shared mission.
Productivity is Increased
With employee engagement increased, productivity levels increase alongside. Employees that feel valued and recognized in a business’ success will want to contribute to this even more so which means not only will productivity increase, but employee retention will also rise.
One significant way in which you can show your employees appreciation is by asking them what they would like to receive from you. Although it is a thoughtful surprise for employers and managers to organize something on their own, being asked is also appreciated too.
At Freespace, we have a number of tools, like our new release DNAi, to help you improve employee engagement and our Employee Experience App is dedicated to elevating the workplace experience. Contact us today to find out more.
