Do you celebrate life events at work?

[Formerdarkhorse]

I work for a large corporate and have noticed there are no celebrations for colleagues for things like weddings, Mat leaves, promotions/leaving, big birthdays etc. No collection for a gift, card and not even any buns or a quick gathering in the kitchen. Is this weird or just the norm now?

I’ve had no major life events while I’ve worked there so not personally affected, however when one of my team had a baby a couple of years ago, I mentioned arranging to send flowers/gift to a colleague she looked surprised and said why wouldn’t I just do this myself. No official rules and we are all well-remunerated, so that’s not it either.

YABU- not the done thing
YANBU- let’s celebrate

we've never really gone big on such things. There's usually an online card for weddings / leaving /babies and sometimes a collection pot but that's all. Their immediate team might do something more. They used to send flowers if someone had a new baby but i don't know if that still happens.

At my work we do leaving cards, but nothing else. It's a good thing IMO.

Yes I should clarify I don’t mean big gestures, just thinking small things like cake/buns and a bit of acknowledgement. In my last team in the company, there were a few weddings and babies and not even a card was sent (and it wasn’t that I was excluded or anything like that). These weren’t within my own team so it’s not even like I would have been expected to get the ball rolling to organise.

If it’s your birthday you might bring in some cakes, but that’s a completely personal choice. I don’t really like it when others are expected to celebrate you as it puts pressure on people and the not so popular people tend to get left out. It also relies on having to tell people personal information (when your birthday is for example).

A card for babies/weddings/leaving and people sometimes bring things in for their own celebrations eg cake on their birthday. In large organisations it gets a bit much to have a collection every five minutes- it’s a lot of time spent and people dislike being bothered for donations all the time.

At my place we have sent cards and flowers for weddings and new babies. Every 3 months anyone who has had their birthday fall within those 3 months gets taken to the pub long the road for their lunch, paid for by the company.

Yes, generally there’s an online card / collection for things like weddings, new babies and leavers. Never any pressure to contribute, though, and it’s fine culturally just to sign the card and not put into the collection.

Nowhere I've worked has done this, thankfully. I have no idea when my colleagues' birthdays are. They have no idea when mine is. I don't intend to tell them when I get married. These are things I celebrate with my loved ones, not my colleagues.

Birthdays less so, as they are too frequent and as you say very personal. My last big birthday nobody even knew that it was my birthday at all.

This is what I was imagining- nothing too elaborate but not even a ‘yay for you, see you in 9-12 months’

Tbh you're not going to get the most objective responses on mn where there are a lot of extreme introverts who think a neighbour asking about your house extensive is incredibly intrusive, attending a Christmas party once a year is the 9th level of hell, and the ideal work relationship is one where you work alongside each other for 40 years and never learn their partner's name....

We still do collections for life events in my work. Probably not things like cakes for birthdays etc since covid because so many of them wfh.

I think as long as there's no pressure to put in it's a nice thing to do.

I agree that pre covid it could end up being a lot if you were in a large office -I used to feel a bit of pressure to stick a few quid in for everyone's new house/marriage/baby etc. Let alone the constant requests for sponsorship. Now it's all virtual it's fine - I tend to just put in more for people I actually work closely with and not bother for people I only see once or twice a year.

In my company we celebrate weddings, big birthdays 40 or 50), retirements, big work anniversaries like 20-25 years, babies and colleagues leaving, but it’s more of a team thing rather than a company organised thing.

It is a mixture in my place. We tend to go out for dinner together every few months. These are often timed around someone's birthday or leaving. People leaving we tend to also have a gift.

Yes we do.

I work in a corporate environment with probably around 20 people in our part of the office. Every time there is a life event our admin assistant organises an online collection and some cakes/coffees etc from the department budget. We have a half an hour appointment in the calendar, usually just after lunch, and we all hang around and eat cake and drink coffee together, and the person gets presented with a gift card for the value of the collection. We do it for weddings, babies and departures.

I find it really helps to boost morale.

We do birthday lunches, leaving lunches, baby showers, secret Santa and so on…

I know it’s most people’s idea of hell, but the entire team gets involved and it really is a lovely place to work.

Maybe it got out of hand? We only do leaving dos now, it was getting mad amounts of money and social pressure to contribute to collections, so I prefer it this way! And it's better for me not to have cakes around all the time.

A few people bring in cakes for birthdays still, but they're left in the kitchen and so soon get eaten - better than when they were in your eyeline all the time.

I work at a big corporate and my team have always celebrated bigger events. For me it’s been my 30th birthday, wedding and baby and I’ve always been given cards/gifts/flowers and usually go for a team lunch. The company did send lovely flowers after I’d had my baby as well. We usually do a collection in the team. It’s not mandatory and only a few £s usually. If it’s just a normal birthday we’ll just do a card.

HR send flowers/gift card for big life events like marriages, births, bereavement, retirement.

Leavers - very much depends on how long you've been there. Usually there would be a card/small gift for a long term member of staff organised by their immediate team. The card might go around other teams to sign but no expectation to contribute. If you've been there a very long time your supervisor gives a leaving speech in the office recounting stories etc and says you'll be missed but this seems to be pretty rare these days.

Teams also organise a small gift for births, again might pass the card to neighbouring teams to sign. No obligation to contribute. This might be a highchair or a book, depending on the size of your team.

Birthdays this very much depends on the team within my company. Never did before my current director but she likes to do it for our team. Usually something small like a box of chocs, handcream, book alongside a card. We all chip in a couple of £. Personally I think a card for this would be fine.

For Xmas, we exchange small token gifts (chocolate usually). Other teams the head of buys everyone a bottle of fizz at Xmas and in other's they do an advent calendar 'secret santa', other teams do a traditional secret santa. The firm also give a gift card.

If someone was off Ill for a significant illness HR would send flowers as a get well soon gesture, your team might also send a card/chocs. I had an op and was off for 1m for example.

We also bring in cake for our own birthdays to share with our team.

We all bring a treat back from big holidays to share in our team meeting.

I think it's nice, but I can imagine with big teams £2 here and there really adds up.

🤣 I’m a little introverted myself but not on the misanthrope level!
I worked for a different division of the company before transferring to this one (but it’s really like an entirely different company in many ways) and they usually celebrated these things on a normal level without massive expectations, so cards etc but no pressure/excess to sign or contribute if you don’t like/work with the recipient and the amounts collected were reasonably modest.

We celebrate retirements as an organisation, the company pays for leaving drinks and a corporate email will go around saying “David Jones is retiring after eighteen years with the company, we’ll be holding his leaving drinks at X pub, here’s a link if you’d like to add to the collection, Sarah Smith has his card to sign” but anything beyond that like ordinary leavings, weddings, babies and birthdays is informal and within individual teams only. I imagine it would get too much both in terms of cost to colleagues and the admin to organise it to do it any other way in a big corporate.

My colleague got engaged in a holiday to celebrate a special birthday. He came back to balloons, banners at his desk flowers and a bottle of wine with a card from his team. 21sts and birthdays ending in a zero, weddings and new babies are marked too. Never any pressure, people chip in if they want to.

I work in a small school and we do celebrate life events. So baby, little collection/hamper before mat leave starts, we had a wedding recently and decorated the staff room and had cakes/ a little buffet. Milestone birthdays tend to get recognised too. It's nice and never really any pressure. There aren't loads of us so it never feels too much!

Yes we do, birthdays, maternity leave, babies. There’ll be cakes or a small present. We are a very small team, there’s one grinch, but we try not to let him bring us down. I’ve worked in larger teams where it sometimes got a bit much. But it’s just part of working life isn’t it?

Nope, only birthdays are acknowledged and you get a smartshow 3d video card and a gift and that comes from the company itself. Everyone is really friendly in the office though, so things like maternity leave or weddings might get celebrated by those you work closely with.

We have birthday club.
everyone chips in £2 for each birthday (or £5 for a big one). We do a collection for wedding and babies too or if someone leave.
we also all chip in for a picnic style lunch or pizza on peoples last day, and for Christmas.

not everyone contributed but no fuss is made of it, they just dont benefit from it either.