Employee Appreciation Day was created in 1995 by Dr. Bob Nelson as a way for companies to encourage conversation about daily recognition, not just an annual occasion for HR to provide doughnuts for the team. Employee Appreciation Day falls on the first Friday of March. This year it will be on March 2.
At O.C. Tanner, we recently asked just under 1,000 workers across the country about their experiences with Employee Appreciation Day. While 44 percent thought it was “extremely or very important” to recognize Employee Appreciation Day, only 8 percent knew when it was observed. Only 10 percent said that their current place of employment does anything to celebrate the day.
