A Personalization Strategy for Celebrating Team Birthdays

When first stepping into a management role I wanted to make a big deal out of birthdays in the team, as a way to highlight our value for teammates on (what I assumed was) their most special day of the year.

It turned out my unconscious leap-of-faith-assumption (LOFA) that one’s own birthday is one of the best days of the year was not so universal. As I started chatting with members of my team I discovered that although some folks like a big birthday recognition and/or party (i.e. ME!), others don’t want much attention, and some don’t want anyone to know it’s their birthday.

I thought I might have to scrap the whole idea altogether when finally it hit me—we preach personalization strategy all the time, so let’s apply it to celebrating team birthdays.

I sent out the following email to the entire team:

I have been knighted the instigator of birthday celebrations for the entire Product Design team, to live out our team value of 'Fun,' and because a birthday is an opportunity to celebrate you as a person and give thanks that we have the pleasure of being on a team with you. That said, I am committed to celebrating your birthday in a way that is personalized and meaningful to you. If you want the whole team to go bananas for your birthday, we can go bananas for your birthday (to a point!). If you'd like us to pretend it isn't your birthday, I can discreetly send a card and not tell anyone else on the team it's your birthday. Many may be out of the office on your actual birthday, but I'm happy to adjust for that. Please let me know how you'd like yours celebrated!

I attached a link to a Google Forms survey, and just to ensure 100% response rate I hinted that I would err on the side of “massive celebration” for anyone who didn’t respond.

There were only 2 questions in the survey:

1) On the below scale, how celebratory and public do you like your birthday to be? 1 = Don't make my birthday into a 'thing,' please; 5 = Please make my birthday into a 'thing'!

2) What would your perfect birthday at work look like? (long answer text field)

Everyone responded to the survey, with multiple people expressing how awesome it made them feel to get such a personalized approach to their big day (or not so big day). Since that survey, each person’s birthday has been completely personalized per their request. One person didn’t want any recognition at all, so on his birthday I sent a DM saying, “This is me NOT recognizing that today is different than any other. But I do hope it’s an especially good one for you,” and that was it. We’ve had donuts or cupcakes delivered to teammates’ front doors, we’ve prepared Happy Birthday Zoom backgrounds celebrating teammates favorite video games, bands, visual designers, sports teams, and Birthday Happy Hours. It’s been a great delighter in our team culture to get to celebrate each other in unique and individualized ways.

So, don’t lock yourself into the false choice of whether or not to celebrate team birthdays, and don’t celebrate birthdays the way YOU like to be celebrated—give everyone on your team a personalized birthday celebration, however private or public that may be.