It’s traditional to celebrate service anniversaries. In the past, companies formally congratulated employees on their 5-year milestone and then celebrated key work anniversaries after that —10 years, 20 years and so on. With employees making more frequent job changes, first- and third-year celebrations have become more common, and, in some industries, even first- and sixth-month anniversaries receive deserved recognition. But what about all the other celebrations in employees’ lives? How are we recognising those key moments that happen in both their work and personal journeys?

The lines between work and personal life have blurred, with many of us working from home and giving our co-workers glimpses of our pets, children and dining rooms that double as desks. Those lines continue to intersect as many companies have a work from anywhere policy or an established hybrid model. And when we’re not together, it can become more difficult to stay connected and feel inspired.

We know from BI WORLDWIDE’s New Rules of Engagement® 2022 research that milestone award recipients feel more belonging and commitment.

The research also shows those who receive multiple types of recognition are happier, more engaged, committed and intensely performing.

In addition to this research, IBM surveyed its employee audience to find out what more it could do to connect and recognise employees from around the world. It discovered a gap in that the traditional service anniversary shout-out was only part of the employee story. IBM leverages technology to enable digital celebrations for teammates and co-workers, but they found employees wanted the ability to recognise additional moments that matter. As a result, IBM took this feedback and considered how to expand the programme to:

• Integrateinto their existing recognition platform to make it easy to set up and deliver celebration moments
• Recommend names of colleagues worldwideto invite to share words of congratulations
• Include social channelsharing capabilities so employees could share their moment on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
• Create a celebratory timelineso employees have a roadmap of their journey

This framework provides a modernised approach to both Years of Service and Celebrations, giving IBMers the choice to celebrate personal milestones such as birthdays, weddings or closing on a house, or special work-related milestones like onboarding or retirement.

Though this is a new approach, IBMers around the globe are busy connecting and high-fiving! They’ve already launched 34,000 social pages with 164,000 total contributions. As a result of the evolution of its Years of Service and Celebrations programmes, IBM has seen a 5% increase in their net promoter score.

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Both the research and IBM’s celebrations show that recognising the whole employee by highlighting key moments in their work and life journeys is making a difference. To hear the whole story, listen to our webinar in partnership with IBM on the moments that matter.