Today is our annual employee appreciation day where I close my office early and take my staff to dinner to celebrate our completing another busy season in the office. We don’t file tax returns, but we are always busy with bookkeeping, sales tax and payroll reporting, business license filings, and 1099 processing the first few months of the year. We not only have the regular monthly workload for current clients, but the additional burden of completing 1099 processing and annual payroll returns by January 31st.
We also begin to get new bookkeeping clients during the first few months of the year who need assistance with their prior year (or sometimes years) bookkeeping in order to file income tax returns. I am thankful for those who referred clients to us so we can give them peace of mind knowing this task is handled. But as you can imagine, these additional accounts make our job even more busy than usual. So once this very busy season passes I enjoy rewarding my employees for a job well done.
This annual event originally started as a quarterly dinner out with my family when I was the only person working in the business. Every 3 months, the filing deadline for sales and payroll tax returns brought in clients needing the prior quarter’s work completed. Because I worked alone and had LOTS of work coming in, I worked from early morning until late night for that month. Once the filing deadline passed, I’d go to dinner with my family to celebrate that I had survived a very busy season and would be able to see them on a regular basis again.
A year after taking over accounts from a business person no longer interested in this type of work, I hired a part-time employee and changed the due date for work to be completed to monthly instead of quarterly making it easier on me and my family. But I didn’t want to give up the appreciation dinner, thus it became an annual dinner each May so I could thank my (at that time) one employee for her dedication to the business.
My business has continued to grow and now I have five employees who currently work in my office. I’m glad I have this opportunity to show my appreciation to them by closing the office early and taking them out for a nice meal. Of course this isn’t the only time I show my gratitude, but it’s something we all look forward to each year.
What do you do to show appreciation to your employees? I’d love to hear your ideas. Share below!
