A company anniversary is celebrated by the people who were there and watched by the people who were not, and in most organisations the second group is considerably larger.
Twenty-five years in business means the majority of current staff joined during the last five. A celebration built entirely on founder nostalgia is, to them, a slideshow about strangers in an office they have never seen.
Include the recent majority
This is the design problem, and naming it solves most of it.
The history is genuinely interesting and worth telling. It just cannot be the whole event, and it cannot be told as though everybody in the room shares the memory.
Two things fix it.
Tell the history as a story rather than as a recollection. Explained for people who were not there, with context, rather than a series of in-jokes and photographs of people who left in 2011. The difference is whether a person who joined in March can follow it.
Put the present in it as well. The company as it is now, the people in it now, what they are working on. An anniversary that is entirely retrospective quietly suggests the interesting part is over.
Record the beginning while you can
The genuinely time-limited thing at a company milestone, and the one nobody does.
Founders, early employees and the first customers hold a history that exists nowhere else. Why the company started, what the first office was like, the deal that nearly did not happen, why the product is shaped the way it is. Most of that is never written down and it disappears when those people retire.
An afternoon with a recorder is enough. It is worth more than anything else on the day, it becomes the source material for everything you do at the next milestone, and it costs a fraction of a party.
The same argument applies to a family at fifty years, in 50th wedding anniversary gift ideas, and for the same reason: the window closes quietly.
What to do on the day
Designed around the person who joined in March, because in most companies that person and their recent colleagues are the majority in the room.
Something for everybody, equally
The commonest resentment at a company celebration is a tiering of who was invited to what. If there is a dinner for the senior team, there is a dinner for the senior team, and calling it the company anniversary is what causes the problem rather than the dinner itself.
Include the people who are not in the building
Remote staff, part-time staff, the night shift, the warehouse, the people on a client site. Anniversary events default to head office at five o'clock, which quietly excludes a large part of the company from its own milestone.
Say what the money is
Staff are quick to price an event and slow to forget it if the same year included a pay freeze. If the budget is modest, saying so is better received than pretending otherwise, and it removes the arithmetic everybody is doing anyway.
Two speeches, not six
The single most reliable improvement available. Two people, short, one of whom should be somebody who does the actual work rather than somebody who talks for a living.
Hand the microphone to somebody who joined this year
Ten years of history told by the founder is a recollection. The same history followed by two minutes from somebody in their first year is a company, and it signals that the anniversary belongs to the present staff rather than to the archive.
A timeline on the wall that people add to
Printed long, pinned up, with the official milestones sparse and plenty of blank space. People fill it with the things that are not in the official version, and it becomes the part of the event everybody stands around.
Photograph everybody who works there now, properly
The company at twenty-five will want the picture of the company at twenty, and almost nobody takes it. One photographer, one morning, everybody in it, names recorded.
Invite the people who have left
Not a slideshow of them, which reads as a memorial. Actual invitations to former staff who left on good terms. For most companies this is the single most popular thing on the list and it costs the price of a few extra drinks.
Go back to the first office
Or the first site, the first market stall, the first spare room. A visit for whoever wants to come, or a photograph if the building is gone. It is the cheapest possible way to make a number feel like a distance travelled.
Involve the customers who have been there longest
For a business with real longevity, the customers who have stayed twenty years are part of the story rather than an audience for it. Being asked to say something at an anniversary is also, quietly, the best account management there is.
A day of what the company actually does, given away
Whatever the business is good at, done for something that needs it and cannot pay. It marks the anniversary by using the thing being celebrated, which is a better argument than any slideshow makes.
The first office as one level, the current one as another
Staff painted in from photographs, products or services as things to collect, and the difficult years left in rather than edited out. Its advantage over the commemorative video is that people are in it rather than watching it, which is the whole problem with a retrospective. Photographs of staff need individual agreement, with an easy way to decline.
Instead of branded merchandise
The default anniversary gift is a branded item with the number on it, and it is received as merchandise because that is what it is.
Better options at similar cost.
Something with no logo that people actually want. The company paying for a good thing is the message; putting your name on it converts it into advertising.
A donation in the staff's name to something they choose. A vote costs nothing and makes the gesture theirs.
Time. An extra day off, given to everybody, on a date of their choosing. It costs real money and it is the one staff mention afterwards.
Something that includes them personally. Which is the category worth spending on if you are going to spend at all.
Commissioning something for a milestone
For a company anniversary, what works is a piece that carries the history and the present at once.
The first office as a level. The current one as another. Products or services as things to collect. Staff painted from photographs as characters, including the recent joiners, which is the part that solves the inclusion problem.
It has an advantage over the usual alternative, a commemorative video, which is that people are in it rather than watching it. Everybody looks for themselves, and everybody looks for the people they work with, which produces the thing an anniversary is actually for: colleagues talking to each other about the company.
The cast drives the tier, at £99 for a single level and £349 for a multi-level build with a proper cast. For a company piece, breadth beats depth: more people in it, shorter to play. And it should be genuinely short, because staff will feel obliged to finish it.
The same caution as any workplace commission applies: photographs of staff need individual agreement, with a straightforward way to decline that does not require anybody to explain themselves.
What to avoid
A slideshow of people who have left.
An event only the long-serving enjoy.
Branded anything.
A celebration that skips the difficult years. Every company that has lasted twenty-five years has had at least one bad one, and pretending otherwise makes the whole account read as marketing.
What this means
Record the founders now.
Design the day for the person who joined in March.
And if you give something, make it something without a logo on it.
For the seasonal equivalent, office Christmas party entertainment ideas, and for events generally, corporate event entertainment ideas.
