Celebrating success at work isn’t an indulgence – it should be an integral part of your company’s work culture. Taking time to celebrate successes is helpful in a number of ways.
- It’s great for employee appreciation, which leads to higher morale and lower turnover.
- It reinforces an overall positive attitude, which makes people more resilient and easier to work with.
- And it helps prepare employees psychologically when a new challenge arises.
Take a look at these top companies that celebrate successes and the various ways that they utilize employee recognition in their businesses:
At Groupon, the online deal company makes a point of celebrating the work anniversaries of every last employee. When you’ve worked at Groupon for a year, you’re honored with a personalized bright green track jacket, and for each additional year, you get a star patch added to your jacket. It’s sort of like a letterman’s jacket, and employees wear theirs as badges of honor.
At Pandora, the internet music company, employees are encouraged to celebrate not just their successes but their diversity. Three community groups called Mixtape, Pride, and Pandora Women let various employees at Pandora find community and celebrate together both in and out of the office.
At Zappos, the online shoe company, employees have the opportunity to award bonuses to one another without any management sign off. When an employee sees a co-worker going above and beyond, they have can reward that employee with an extra $50.
In addition to celebrating successes, some of the biggest companies out there also make a point of celebrating failures. Google sees rewarding failures as a way to reward creative thinking and to encourage risk taking. At Intuit, the company holds “failure parties” where they hand out awards for the Best Failure, because failure is a great teacher that can lead to the next great idea.
How and what you choose to celebrate at your company is less important than the act of celebrating and doing so publicly and often. Give your managers opportunities to call out their teams. Give employees opportunities to call out each other. Whether you enlist the help of a team recognition service – there are many – or rely on tried-and-trued methods like team lunches, thank you emails, and gratitude boards, just remember to celebrate. You may be amazed at how much of an impact a bit of celebration can have on attitude, commitment, and productivity.
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