When your employees reach milestones such as working a certain number of years or exceeding a set performance level, the occasion calls for something special. But it can be challenging determining what types of employee milestone gifts are perfect. Costs, company culture, and individual preferences are just some of the considerations. Fortunately, your company can nail a great idea every time — and deliver recognition that goes beyond a paycheck — if you have the right strategy.

Celebrating employee milestones isn’t just something you do because you feel like you should. It’s a great way to improve employee morale, engagement and retention: 

• Retention: Employee retention is a key goal for any company. Recognizing employee milestones can provide a great return on investment. SHRM notes that the loss of an employee costs about 6 to 9 months of their salary to find and train a new hire, which is time-consuming and expensive. Employees who receive regular recognition are more likely to stay instead of looking for sunnier horizons elsewhere.

• Engagement: Providing effective employee recognition helps your company increase employee engagement numbers. Gallup reports that only about a third of employees at the average company are fully engaged with their work. The survey notes that employee recognition is a common feature among corporations with a higher rate of engagement.

• Motivation: Just like that cup of coffee from your favorite shop gives you the incentive to get out of bed in the morning, employee milestone gifts give employees the motivation to keep going. The Incentive Research Foundation argues that the right kind of employee recognition given at the right times can give your employees the oomph they need to meet stretch targets and other goals.

• Building a Positive Company Culture: If you are trying to change your company culture for the better after years of lagging outcomes, or just hoping to continue along a positive path, recognition goes a long way to helping you achieve it. Gallup notes that changing company priorities can make employees feel adrift or unsure of themselves. Establishing a positive company culture starts with ensuring that each employee feels valued for their loyalty to the organization despite changes. 

If you want these benefits, work anniversary gifts for employees are a small price to pay. You don’t have to break the bank, but you should plan to invest at least a small percentage of what your employees bring in.

Just remember that you need a strategy for employee recognition, just as you would any other part of the business. Giving the wrong gifts at the wrong times can work against you. By comparison, a thoughtful gift given at the appropriate moment can help cement your employees’ loyalty.

Importance of Recognizing Employee Milestones

In a world where too many people just go to work so they can get through the day and collect a paycheck, you want employees who feel like they have an investment in the company. You can do that by investing in them and their lives.

A pattern of established employee milestone gifts gives your employees something to strive for. In a difficult year, when the workload is high or your employees’ lives outside of work are particularly challenging, they crave familiar incentives.

These employee milestones could create a great opportunity to give your employees a little extra dopamine:

• Work Anniversaries
  When your employees pass a certain anniversary, be sure to acknowledge it. The BLS reports that the average employee only stays at a company for about four years. If that seems true for your business, be sure to step up with some work anniversary gifts prior to that point.

• Life Milestones
  Everyone has milestones that they pass throughout life, such as getting married, having a baby or even a birthday. Gallup claims that employees need to know that their employers care about them, not just their productivity to the company. Highlighting these life milestones can help to achieve that.

• Performance Benchmarks

  As a company, you’ll have performance benchmarks that you want the employees to meet. When you ask for workers to perform more accurately or efficiently, recognize them for doing a good job at it, especially if you just changed the targets and they had to scramble to meet them.

• Compliance Targets
  Many organizations must show compliance to certain regulations for safety and other aspects of a functional workplace. If your employees just won the competition for safety or beat their own records for the longest period without an accident, you should make a big deal out of it.

• Career Milestones
  Just as people have milestones at work, they meet milestones for their career goals in general. Getting an advanced degree or completing a difficult certification is worth celebrating. Whether your employees plan to spend the rest of their work lives at your company, or they will be moving on within a year or two, it’s important to recognize these accomplishments. As an added plus, it incentivizes your other employees to work toward those goals.

• Major Project Completion
  At the end of a long project, everyone deserves recognition for their contributions. Major projects often lead to increased revenue generation for the company, so it’s natural to reward employees for the improvement. Gifts for achieving certain goals, given at the time of completion, can motivate employees to see things through.

• Company Milestones
  Employees want to feel like they are a part of something that they believe in, as if the company and its milestones are something they can share. You can celebrate the winning of a major award, the placement on an exclusive list or even just the company anniversary.

• Promotions
  Promotions are a big part of career advancement for employees, so this achievement deserves recognition. Promotion gifts acknowledge your workers for taking initiative to grow within the company. The right option can motivate them, and others, to continue doing just that.

• Retirements
  When your employees decide to retire, they deserve to go out with a bang. Giving them a great sendoff tells them that you care about their achievements and shows others that you care about your employees’ lives outside of work.

How to Integrate Employee Milestones
Integrating milestone rewards into your company’s retention strategy isn’t as hard as it looks. You don’t have to celebrate all of them, although you should stick to the ones that have the most relevance to your company goals. And whatever you choose to do, be consistent about it. If you follow the adage that you need to spend money in order to make money, rewarding your employees makes much more sense. (And makes it easier to persuade the C-suite.)

Before you choose which milestones to celebrate, ask your employees which ones they think are the most important and motivating. For example, if your company is academic-adjacent and most of your employees are working on their doctorates, rewarding that achievement might serve as a great motivator. That accomplishment looks good for your business, too.

Creative & Unique Gift Ideas for Different Milestones

If there’s anything we know about the modern work world, it’s that employees expect you to know them. You can show that you’ve been paying attention by giving them employee gifts that represent the values of the company and cover their interests. Take these employee milestone gift ideas for a spin to see what works best in your organization.

Practical Gifts for Frequent Milestones

The recent trend toward minimalism has a lot of people thinking about what they need, and leaving out what they don’t. Companies can reward their employees by taking the practical to the next level:

• Leather planners with customizable pages

• Personalized drinkware

• Upgraded devices

• Basket of their favorite treats

Monetary Options for Annual Milestones

They say that cash is king, so it’s not a bad idea to throw some money at your employees when you see that they deserve some recognition. If you already have a structure to provide monetary bonuses, consider these gift card ideas:

• Popular restaurants in the employee’s area

• Large chain stores or online shops, such as Target or Amazon 

• Food delivery, such as Grubhub or DoorDash

• Prepaid gift cards that can be used anywhere

Experiences for Bigger Achievements

Some people respond better to a gifted experience, rather than items they need to store. These experiences work great as a 5-year employee anniversary gift, to help your staff members relax and refresh from a competitive work schedule:

• Gift certificates to the local escape room or arcade

• Weekend getaway for two, or for the whole family

• All-expense paid outdoor activity, such as a rafting trip or backpacking experience

• Basket of their favorite treats

Personalized Gifts for Company Occasions

When you need to buy gifts for whole teams (or the entire company), you can still personalize it. Custom corporate gifts can meet your employees’ aesthetic preferences and fill practical functions, such as:

• Monogrammed beverage cups or planners

• Personalized company gear, especially for those work trips with the whole team

• Creatively designed lifestyle items, like a custom surfboard or record player

• Customized company merch with employee names printed

How to Choose the Best Gift

Choosing from this list of employee gift ideas takes some research and creativity. You want to make a choice that will be relevant, appropriate and most of all, appreciated. Use these categories to help you determine the best place to put your investment:

• Longevity: Milestones that only happen once every few years, or that require more effort, might call for more luxurious gifts. You should still reward your employees for making it through the year but save the bigger selections for the 5-year or 10-year work anniversary gift.

• Impact: Consider the impact of the milestone on your company’s bottom line. If your employee just saved you hundreds of thousands of dollars, or landed you a million-dollar contract, the recognition should be proportionately greater than it would be for a smaller accomplishment.

• Employee Preferences: Always, always, always choose an employee anniversary gift that they will like and be able to use. Make it a point to get to know your employees’ habits, hobbies or interests. That way, when you present them with some top-shelf liquor or a getaway for two for the weekend, you know they’ll be anxious to use it.

Budget-friendly vs. Luxury Gift Options

Finding room in the budget for employee recognition isn’t always easy. But you can see how it can be worth the effort in terms of employee happiness. The Incentive Research Foundation recommends that organizations set aside about 1.5 to 2 percent of their operating budgets for employee recognition, including bonuses and employee gifts. Whether you choose to give your workers their choice of promotional merch or a weeklong trip to somewhere sunny, you can show them that you care about their well-being.

Gifts for Tight Budgets

When nearly four in five people who leave companies say they do so due to a lack of gratitude, according to O.C. Tanner, you know you need to find some room in the budget for employee milestone gifts. The good news is that you don’t have to spend your last dime. These work anniversary gifts cost much less than the benefits they can provide:

• Catered lunches from good restaurants

• Extra time off

• Inexpensive gifts that contribute to your employees’ interests

• Career development opportunities, such as in-house training from experts

Small gifts don’t have to have small impacts. Be sure to dress the recognition in a big way, by presenting it at a company meeting or highlighting your employees’ contributions on social media.

Luxury Employee Gift Ideas

When you’re looking to spend a bit more, you can find luxury gifts at almost any price point. Try these executive gift ideas:

• Expensive wine from a limited vintage

• Gift cards to high-end furniture or technology stores

• Dream trips to foreign locations

Remember that the gift should relate to the employee’s goals, interests and lifestyle. A well-researched and considerate gift is more likely to be received graciously, regardless of the price point.

Celebrating Employee Achievements Virtually

With a growing number of companies allowing remote work (or operating completely remotely), you might need a way to reward your remote or hybrid employees. While research from McKinsey & Company shows that many remote employees see remote work as the reward, it’s still important to acknowledge them for their accomplishments. Here are a few ways you can do that:

• Invitations to participate in company social activities online, with shipped packages so everyone can join in the fun

• Compensation to travel for in-house team-building events

• Cocktail kits or meal gift cards, to replace meeting at a local restaurant for happy hour

• Vouchers or gift cards for a home office makeover

Make sure that you prioritize the experience of these employees, as much as you would for the ones working in-house. Pick a time that is reasonable for the activity; be sure to sort out the Zoom issues before the meeting starts.

Consider Milestone Gift Ideas from Stran

When you give an employee a gift, you want to be sure that the gift is going to be useful, appropriate, and suited to the needs of the modern worker. Employee milestone gifts are a key component of your employee’s compensation package. This kind of recognition can improve your employees’ engagement, retention and overall happiness with their jobs.

That’s where we come in. Our inventory of corporate gifts is designed to solve problems for your staff members or simply delight them with a gift that fits perfectly with their lifestyle. We focus on creating quality products that your employees will love. We continually innovate to ensure that we stay ahead of the latest trends in employee promotion gifts and more to suit the changing dynamics of today’s workplace.