Say goodbye to the office birthday party (thank goodness)

Well, say goodbye to all that.

Bosses used to see office parties as a simple way to build culture and show appreciation for employees. It was also a little break away from the desk (with some snacks, no less). But times are changing, and office birthdays are getting passé.

Then came Covid, and a huge change in business culture. After several years of remote work, many people don’t want to drag themselves into the office any more than they have to. Younger workers, who may have spent their whole careers on Zoom and aren’t used to office socializing in the first place, are particularly down on the idea. And for older workers? Do they really want everybody to know just how old they are?

On top of that, more employees were sensitized to mental-health issues during the pandemic, and feel freer to speak up about how much they dislike big to-do’s in the office. So, their bosses—who also got more sensitive to mental health—are trying to give them the low-key acknowledgment they really want.

“Socializing for birthdays has never been less attractive to knowledge workers in a hybrid environment," says workplace expert Nathan Manuel.

No fuss, please

For a lot of people, office birthdays raise conflicting feelings. They like having their birthdays remembered but hate parties—acknowledgment, just not with a big production. (Be honest: Do you really, truly like wearing a cone-shaped hat on your head? Or spending an hour answering questions about how old you feel?)

Many companies are trying to square that circle by simply sending people digital notes or gift cards for their birthday.

Patty Devlin, for one, likes that setup. In her previous job at a large professional-services firm, colleagues decorated her cubicle, brought in dessert and sang. She hated the attention so much that she started taking her birthday off to avoid the hoopla.

So, she was thrilled when she joined Dallas-based Revenue Edge, a revenue-management company, as a remote administrative-services manager and learned there are no public birthday celebrations. Instead, the company does things like send birthday messages via Kudoboard, a site that helps employers recognize workers.

Devlin started in November 2021, and when her birthday rolled around in April, she received a note with heartfelt messages from colleagues she had worked with for only about six months, and a $50 gift card she used on Amazon.

“I felt seen and appreciated, but I didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of having people sing to me," says Devlin, of Winter Springs, Fla.

Gianna Driver, chief human-resources officer at the global cybersecurity firm Exabeam, fondly recalls the days when employees would hide a card in a manila envelope, then pass it around the office for everybody to sign. But as the companies she worked for grew, there would inevitably be “four birthday celebrations in a two-week span."

“That becomes a lot of cake and a lot of time away from desk," she says.

At several of her previous jobs, the companies moved to monthly celebrations—everyone having a birthday that month gets acknowledged at the same time. At Exabeam, employees get digital cards where colleagues around the globe can write messages, along with audio or video, if they want. Recipients can open the messages privately, without any dog-and-pony show at their desk.

Skip the age

Some companies are trying to make office celebrations more palatable by cheering work anniversaries instead of birthdays. Employers say people are a lot less likely to feel sensitive about their years of service than their age, and can feel acknowledged for their loyalty and service.

Twitch’s chief people officer, Lauren Nunes, agrees that birthdays have “lost their luster" in favor of work anniversaries. Last year Twitch, a livestreaming company focused on gaming and esports, held a companywide video stream where employees, both remote and in person, wore crowns with their years of service written on them. The company held a Twitch trivia game and a competition to build the best birthday cake out of children’s modeling clay.

This year’s celebration has the theme Twitch Prom. Employees are encouraged to wear tuxedos and gowns, and will write their tenure on sashes. Ahead of the party, there will be activities like a corsage-making event.

Says Nunes, “It’s a simple yet inclusive event."

Is that all there is?

Some companies are trying to tackle another criticism of office birthday parties—that they can be unfair.

Earlier this year, the digital-marketing firm Kepler Group emailed its nearly 500 U.S. and Canada-based employees explaining they are moving from team-based birthday celebrations to monthly officewide in-person ones. (The handful of remote employees are acknowledged in a channel on Slack.) The company also addressed the other big birthday-party divide: Some like them, others don’t. So to be included in the list of birthdays, people must opt in. More than half did.

Before this, the celebrations could get lopsided. Some teams brought in desserts and decorated the person’s desk, for instance, while others didn’t do anything, says Jane Camp, Kepler Group’s chief of staff. Holding a companywide monthly celebration establishes a baseline to ensure everyone feels the love—if they opt in, of course.

Carolyn Frey, chief people officer at the grocery-delivery service Hungryroot, recalls her previous job where individual teams decided how to celebrate birthdays. That left some employees jealous that other teams held more-extravagant celebrations.

Now that Hungryroot is fully remote with an option to work in the office, leaders decided the best way to celebrate and keep things equitable is a universal approach: saying “Happy birthday" on the Slack celebration channel at the beginning of each week and gifting the celebrant with credits for free groceries from Hungryroot.

“It’s quieter and feels more inclusive," Frey says, noting that employees can opt out of having their birthday acknowledged, and few do.

Some workers, meanwhile, would rather just stick with old-school parties, warts and all.

Daniel Groner didn’t always like office celebrations. While Groner was working as a marketing manager at Shutterstock several jobs ago, his department grew to nearly 50 people, and it seemed as if there was a never-ending stream of cake and singing, interrupting his workflow and concentration. (Not to mention expanding his waistline.) He became such a curmudgeon about it that his wife pranked him with a furry-costumed singing telegram on his birthday to lead his co-workers in “Happy Birthday" and a bit of dancing.

Now that he is part of a hybrid office, commuting into Manhattan a few days a week from the suburbs, he misses the interactions and impromptu conversations that birthdays fostered, while acknowledging that these celebrations can sometimes seem “cringey" and perfunctory.

These days he is a marketing director at a global media company and when he is in the office, it is usually with about 10 others who are there for a group meeting or, yes, a celebration. The office manager programs the celebration into the team’s calendars and lavishes them with their favorite treat (in Groner’s case, doughnuts). He says he cherishes these times.

“Pretending that this dedicated time together doesn’t drive any business value is wrong," Groner says. “More so now when casual gatherings and greetings are less commonplace, we should embrace birthdays and any other reason to come together."