It always makes sense to celebrate employees, and Employee Appreciation Day 2023 may be the most important Employee Appreciation holiday in many years.
Employers—and employees—have been through quite the journey over the last several years. The classic office-based work culture of many companies abruptly shifted from five days a week in the office to full-time remote work after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic brought its own stresses and changes, such as the so-called Great Resignation of 2021 which saw a 20-year high in voluntary resignations.
In the last six months, the state of the workforce has shifted toward hybrid work—with employees in the office on some days and working from home on others. A June 2022 Gallup poll predicted that 55% of all workers would be following a hybrid schedule by the beginning of 2023. Some employers, like Goldman Sachs and Disney, have gone further, requiring employees to return to the office at least four days a week. Employees have consistently indicated a preference for in-home work, with almost 87% taking advantage of the ability to work from home where available.
In short, what do employers need to know about this Employee Appreciation Day—which this year, falls on March 3, 2023?
- Employees are stressed
- Employees are burnt out
- Employees want to feel valued
- Employees want to be able to be part of their workplace both at home and in the office
For those reasons, Zeel has expanded its workplace offerings for 2023. Always available (and enjoyed by over 1,000 workplaces to date) is Zeel’s chair massage, which brings a licensed massage therapist to the office for rejuvenating, back pain-diminishing chair massages (which makes employees feel appreciated for resuming their trek to the office.)
Now, for those workplaces that have many employees on a hybrid schedule or, like LinkedIn and GitLab, allow full remote work, Zeel offers employers the option to award employees credits toward massages at their new workplace: their own homes. No longer will remote employees feel excluded from the cherished chair massage benefit for Employee Appreciation Day (and beyond).
With the right rewards (and, we think, massage), you can make 2023 the Employee Appreciation Year.