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Human Resources Remote work

Celebrating Employee Birthdays and Work Anniversaries in Microsoft Teams

Recognizing and celebrating employee milestones, such as birthdays and work anniversaries, is crucial for fostering a positive work culture and boosting team morale. With remote work becoming increasingly prevalent, it’s important to adapt to virtual environments and find innovative ways to celebrate these special occasions. In this article, we will explore creative ways to be celebrating employee birthdays and work anniversaries using Microsoft Teams in 2023.

  1. Create a dedicated channel
    Establish a specific channel in your Microsoft Teams workspace solely dedicated to celebrating employee milestones. This allows for easy organization and ensures everyone has access to relevant information.
  2. Collect employee information: Gather essential details such as birth dates and work anniversaries for all team members. Maintain an updated record to ensure accurate recognition.
  3. Virtual Birthday Celebrations:
    • Send personalized messages: Encourage team members to send personalized birthday messages via direct messages or within the designated celebration channel. This creates a sense of personal connection and shows that colleagues care.
    • Virtual parties and games: Organize virtual parties where team members can join a video call to celebrate the birthday. Incorporate fun activities like virtual charades to engage everyone and make the celebration memorable.
    • Digital gifts and e-cards: Encourage team members to send digital gifts or e-cards using Microsoft Teams’ integrated features or third-party apps. These small gestures can make employees feel valued and appreciated.
  4. Commemorating Work Anniversaries: Use the designated celebration channel or a dedicated Teams post to publicly recognize employees reaching work anniversaries. Highlight their contributions, accomplishments, and years of service. If you want ideas for good messages, check out our article about the best work anniversary messages.

Want to simplify this process ? Install Billy, the birthday bot for Microsoft teams


In the virtual work landscape of 2023, celebrating employee birthdays and work anniversaries in Microsoft Teams offers an excellent opportunity to strengthen team bonds and promote a positive work culture. By following the steps outlined in this article, you can ensure that your team members feel valued, appreciated, and connected, regardless of physical distance.

Categories
Human Resources

7 Best Slack communities to join if you’re an HR or People Ops professionals in 2023

In this article we’ll go through a list of must-have communities when you are working in HR or people-related roles. These communities were vetted by us to make sure they are relevant. Please be aware that some of them are created by companies also to promote their own software. Before listing the groups you’ll find a quick list of advantages of joining such communities, then you’ll find the 7 Best Slack communities to join if you’re an HR or People Ops professionals in 2023.

Advantages of joining Slack communities

  • Enlarge your network, build relationships
    Joining Slack communities is a great way to grow your network. It allows you to reach out to people have a common interest.
  • Find experts in your niche
    Slack groups bring together all people related to certain subjects. Joining a group around a specific niche gives you access to the very best person in this subject. Usually these are also pro-active people wanting to share their knowledge. You can also find mentors.
  • Contribute by sharing your knowledge to the community
    Joining a community is also about contributing to it and helping other members.

List of best Slack communities

  1. #People
    On top of the Slack community they also offer a newsletter and a podcast worth checking out.
    Over 6000 people ops, human resources and talent management professionals are involved in a 24/7*365 conversation about anything to do with people.
    Join #People community
  2. People Geeks (by CultureAmp)
    The People Geek Slack community brings together diverse individuals and skilled thought leaders from around the globe.
    Join People Geeks community
  3. People People
    Join other recruiting experts, HR game-changers and talent people to talk about humans-at-work issues and share smart ideas about our changing talent landscape.
    Join People People community
  4. Hacking HR
    With learning, community and collaboration. We are a community of business and HR leaders, HR practitioners, technologists, entrepreneurs, consultants.Join The Hacking HR Community Now!
    Join Hacking HR community
  5. Secret HR Society
    You’ll need to connect with a current member to join this Germany-based community.
    The Secret HR Society is a member referral-only society to evolve Human Resources and connect thought leaders globally.
    Join Secret HR society
  6. Resources for Humans (by Lattice)
    19k+ HR leaders are in the community. This one is a very wide and dynamic community.
    This community is designed to help HR professionals connect, share advice, and ask questions.
    Join Resources for Humans community
  7. The Shape of Work community (by Springworks)
    A networking avenue for People Managers, HR Leaders and People Ops professionals to shape the Future of Work by discovering the best practices, resources, tools and accessing exclusive experiences.
    Join The Shape os work community

Let us know your thoughts on any of these communities, we’d love to have more insights from the inside to see which of them are more relevant after a while. Also if you have a community to recommend, leave a comment under this article 🙏 Thanks for reading us.