Engagement Activities, Planning, and Calendars

 

January is full of forecasting, goal-setting, and looking forward to a successful new year. It’s also National Thank You month, which is why it’s the perfect time to plan ahead for acts of gratitude and appreciation.

Not sure where to start? We’ve got you covered! Check out these gratitude resources that will inspire and help you build and maintain a culture of appreciation and employee celebration ALL YEAR LONG!

We have a wide variety of FREE RESOURCES to help you
build your own employee engagement calendar.

 

2023 Day-to-Day Employee Appreciation Calendar

It is our tradition to publish a day-to-day appreciation calendar tailored to people who are committed to celebrating employees. This popular guide helps you plan for holidays as well as your own anytime celebrations; it offers tons of ideas to keep employee appreciation front-and-center all year long.
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gThankYou 2023 Employee Appreciation Calendar NOW AVAILABLE!

We are excited to once again share our annual gift with you — the Day-to-Day Employee Appreciation Calendar! It’s FREE and downloadable, as well as extremely helpful, insightful, and FUN!

We work all year to create this annual employee appreciation calendar for YOU, the people focused on employee engagement and appreciation; those who are actively building vibrant, loyal workplace cultures.
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Believe it or not, the holiday gift planning season is here! Here are some details you should know as you prepare to celebrate employees for a year of hard work. The good news? We can handle the heavy lifting for your holiday gift planning.

Many gThankYou customers are faced with the daunting task of distributing gifts to a large number of locations, employees working from home, or to clients across the country. With dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of offices and associates nationwide, it can be challenging and very time-consuming. Let us help. (more…)

Hopefully you are already aware that July is National Ice Cream Month! This is the month to celebrate our love of all things ice cream, including sorbet, Popsicles, sundaes, floats, shakes — we could go on and on. It’s a lot like a good employee engagement program: it brings people together, makes everyone feel happy, and is endlessly creative.

That doesn’t mean you can drop off a tub of vanilla in the break room with a scoop and expect (more…)

Organizations often shy away from celebrations when on a tight budget. We’ve all been there! But a small budget shouldn’t impede employee appreciation and recognition. Never forget that a “thank you” is free! But there are many ways to share gratitude that don’t end up costing a fortune. We have many ideas for how to celebrate with little time or money.

Volunteer Together

A wonderful idea is to organize a service opportunity for teams. By partnering with a nonprofit, there is often very little prep work to do but to bring people to help! Public Service Day is June 23, providing an excellent reason to start (more…)

Learning how to engage transportation workers in your industry is key to increasing retention and reliability, keeping workers happy and improving overall customer service.
Retention and an aging workforce are challenges for the trucking industry in particular, according to FleetOwner.
“As the ‘traditional’ make-up of the U.S. truck-driver population is rapidly aging and heads for retirement, new efforts must be made to attract younger and ‘non-traditional’ candidates to the job of piloting commercial vehicles for a living,” Sean Kilcarr writes for FleetOwner.
The potential for automation in long-haul trucking is making current employees nervous about their long-term prospects and adding to an overall feeling of being undervalued and under-appreciated. (more…)

The dog days of summer are here, and your staff could use a little extra engagement. Now’s the time to bring the team back together from their summer distractions with a late-summer employee cookout.
Why now?
Workplace productivity drops 20 percent during the summer months, team projects take 13 percent longer to complete and workers are 45 percent more distracted, according to Entrepreneur.
Push back against those disengagement tendencies by embracing summer fun in a way that reinforces and builds team dynamics. (more…)

Make it a goal this summer to check out employee engagement books that will inspire and challenge you, whether you’re planning a major “think week” or just have 15 minutes a day to read over lunch.
Get a head start on engagement planning for this year by exposing yourself to fresh ideas and perspectives. Spark your creativity!
According to Kevin Kruse, consultant and NYT bestselling author of “Employee Engagement 2.0,” employee engagement is often misunderstood.
That lack of understanding is holding back (more…)

Marc Flanders, principal at consulting firm WC Solutions Group, sees a common mistake in workplace safety engagement.
The mistake is in how incentives are targeted, Flanders tells EHS Today. Companies may think they’re checking off all the right boxes by incentivizing safety, then reward the wrong employees.
“I see some companies put all their budget into the people who are safe for a year,” Flanders says. “I tell them, ‘Wait a minute. You’re spending all your money on the people who are safe. What are you doing to change the behavior of people who aren’t safe?'”
Successful safety incentives programs need to have an “everybody wins” mentality. After all, a workplace isn’t (more…)

Are your employees caught up in election distraction? Don’t worry! Election Day is actually a great opportunity to engage distracted employees.
This presidential election cycle has been more distracting and contentious than most — and it’s causing problems in the workplace, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Bosses are put in a position to mediate political disputes between coworkers and are “struggling to keep employees civil and productive,” John Simons and Rachel Feintzeig report.
At the same time, there’s no denying that (more…)

June is National Safety Month. What is your workplace doing to motivate, recognize and reward safe behavior?
As safety recognition programs become standard for many companies, best practices are emerging.
Swingle Lawn, Tree & Landscape Care in Colorado reduced safety incidents by more than a third since it introduced an incentivized safety program in 2009. The program focuses on public recognition in front of peers and sharing meaningful gifts with employees who stay safe.
“Essentially, we felt like money comes and goes,” Kelly Gouge, Swingle’s director of operations, tells Lawn & Landscape Magazine for a “Spotlight on Safety” feature in the May issue.
“But if we provide an item that means something to them — whether that’s (more…)