Celebrating Birthdays Is Essential To Building A Millennial-Friendly Workplace
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Exactly one year ago I turned 23 years old. I woke up, went to work as usual, and managed to get through an entire day with less than five coworkers wishing me a Happy Birthday. The best part was probably spending my lunch “hour” (20 minutes) eating an iceberg lettuce (ick) salad at my desk by myself.
Compare that to this year at a new company - I took the day off today, but that didn’t stop my team from decorating my desk with streamers and inappropriate but funny balloons yesterday. For lunch, we went to one of my favorite Thai restaurants and no one complained about splitting the bill. We played an extra round of Wii Bowling for my birthday, which I’m thankfully better at than actual bowling. And of course I got a few of the “So you’re 19 today?” jokes because I’m still one of the youngest workers at my office.
Looking at these two birthdays, you would never guess I had good relationships with my coworkers at both jobs. The difference was the culture on my old team was such that we didn’t celebrate birthdays, while my new team loves any excuse for a party, or at least a few hours out of the office. And what a world of difference it makes.
Want to keep millennials engaged? Celebrate them. Birthdays are important milestones for young people, so don’t miss the opportunity to let them know they are valuable to your company.
If you want to help me celebrate my 24th birthday, consider leaving a comment or, if you haven’t already, subscribing to Twenty Set by feed or email. I’ll be publishing some great stuff next week you won’t want to miss!
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Monica O'Brien is the founder of Twenty Set, a website about personal and professional growth and development for the Millennial generation. She has been a blogger since 1998 when blogging was still in its “Dear Diary” form and in May 2007 began blogging for personal branding and profit.
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Happy birthday!
My good friend just started working for a company where they get their birthday off, as a paid holiday. Hows that for a celebration!