Tips for Planning and Hosting an Employee Award Ceremony

Tips for Planning and Hosting an Employee Award Ceremony

Employee recognition is not just great for creating loyalty and making employees feel valued; it's also a great way to get to know co-workers and have a great time! These tips for planning and hosting an employee award ceremony will help your party planning team, organizers, and leadership design an event that your employees will be excited to attend.

Personalized Recognition Gift Plaques

Planning the Party

Planning an employee recognition event or award ceremony takes time, especially when many employees are involved. The amount of effort that goes into setting it up doesn't mean that the event shouldn't be fun, of course! Organizers will need to decide on a few things before picking out the more exciting aspects.

Food, Venue, and Time Off

One of the most critical aspects of planning and hosting an employee award ceremony is picking out the service. Choosing a venue and deciding what will be available to employees when there is the first step in setting up for a ceremony.

Convention centers, museums, and social houses can all be great options for company cultures, ranging from extremely formal to casual. These venues are perfect for larger companies that might not have a singular space to bring everyone together in the office. For small ceremonies, a catered lunch can be a fitting option, as well as a backyard gathering or family day event at a local park.

Leadership will also need to decide how to make ceremony attendance easy and worthwhile for employees. Events taking place during business hours will need to not severely interrupt their workload, while events in the evening may need more exciting amenities to motivate employees to attend.

Pick Out the Awards

Employee recognition is an incredibly valuable tool for business owners and leadership to celebrate accomplishments and motivate employees to keep growing. Work anniversaries, retirements, top sales, customer service, and safety awards all have a place at employee award ceremonies. By picking out awards that celebrate various successes, members of leadership can make their priorities clear to their company.

Crystal Central's expert team offers free customization of crystal trophies with the names and accomplishments business owners want to celebrate. These long-lasting, stunning displays tell employees how valuable their efforts have been and give them something to display in the office with pride. Personalized crystal awards are great to pair with gift baskets, cards, and company merch for employees who went above and beyond to contribute to the business’ success.

Create a Schedule

A schedule is an essential tool for any event, but it becomes truly vital for large companies looking to celebrate. Creating a flexible yet well-planned schedule can save the day with multiple teams, many projects, and several incredible people to acknowledge. Including start times, wrap-up times, when awards will be presented and setting aside time for setting up will vastly help keep things organized in the long run.

Event planners can choose to share the schedule ahead of time to build excitement about specific events and give employees the chance to plan their day or evening around the ceremony. Warn anyone asked to speak ahead of time and let them know when they will go on as well.

Hosting an Event

For a host or team of event organizers, making sure that the company stays on brand while celebrating their employees and inspiring them with the company mission is a difficult endeavor! However, we have a few tips to help ensure that the hosting side of the ceremony goes smoothly.

Choose a Style

Every company will tackle an employee award ceremony differently. This celebration is a chance to show new hires the company culture and motivate employees to continue making amazing progress in the next quarter.

If your teams spend most of their day unable to interact, a company potluck or outing can be a great style of celebration. Brief speeches and quick award presentations give employees a chance to relax and have a casual get-together. For more formal industries, on-stage award presentations and even speeches can genuinely set the tone.

Thank Every Level of the Company

One of the best opportunities a company award ceremony provides is the chance to acknowledge every team that makes the business possible. Awards can range from celebrating the daily efforts of associates to showing gratitude to the leads who keep the machine running. For employees looking to give back to their management, boss appreciation gifts and awards are also perfect for delivering at the ceremony.

Going Virtual for Remote Work

Working remote comes with many benefits for employees, but a significant downside is missing human interaction. Even virtual award ceremonies are great for employee recognition, however. Sharing in a video call to let the whole team or company see each other again and celebrate as one unit can serve as a significant morale boost for employees working from home.

Stick To the Agenda

For virtual ceremonies to succeed with as few issues as possible, it's important to set and stick to an agenda. The even can easily be bogged down by technical problems and side conversations, so doing a practice run beforehand and announcing the agenda can keep things running smoothly.

Shipping Awards Safely

For remote workers, receiving a package with their award can bring some of the positive energy of the office into their home. Including some company merchandise like a shirt or mug along with the award adds to the fun of unboxing! Ensuring that their award gets packaged safely, tracked, or shipped overnight can all help make an employee feel truly appreciated.

Employee award ceremonies remind your employees and co-workers that it takes every single person in the company to keep things running smoothly. Without them, customers wouldn't be as satisfied, and the company's success simply wouldn't be possible. Choosing to take the time to tell employees, leads, and management how vital they are to the team shows that the company's owners truly value the effort put in.

If you’re organizing a company’s employee award ceremony, our team at Crystal Central would be happy to help you customize premium crystal awards that not only look incredible but also honor the spectacular accomplishments of your team members.