eruthros

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/i-manage-a-struggling-team-how-should-i-handle-workplace-celebrations.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=38689

A reader writes:

I manage a small office that is struggling with both morale and performance. I’m currently the only supervisor and I’m trying to turn things around, but the office is still in a rebuilding phase. Most employees have significant performance issues.

I generally don’t organize workplace celebrations, including birthdays, holidays, or personal milestones. In a prior position, I found that gestures like cupcakes and cards often felt like empty managerial labor. It also feels awkward to highlight personal milestones in a group where most employees are facing performance counseling and/or discipline. I do recognize professional achievements; for example, I recently sent a brief team-wide email congratulating someone who won a workplace-wide award.
Recently, employees have started bringing in more personal celebration items themselves. One departing temporary employee was well-liked personally, and everyone was openly sad about his departure. But from a supervisory standpoint, I had concerns that he may not have been keeping up with expectations; after he left, we discovered much of his work was unfinished. For his departure I held a meeting, said a few appropriate words of thanks, and presented him with the same standard tokens we provide to everyone who leaves. During that departure meeting, another employee unexpectedly produced balloons, flowers, and a card. Separately, an employee who described herself as a “big celebrations person” mentioned that she’s bringing in a cake because she and another coworker reached the same educational milestone.

I don’t want to discourage kindness, but I’m unsure what good management etiquette requires. Is it acceptable to stay largely uninvolved while employees handle optional celebrations themselves, or does my silence make me look ungenerous or not fully in control of office norms?

You shouldn’t feel awkward about celebrating personal milestones like birthdays because someone isn’t doing well in their job. Separate those into two completely different things in your thinking! If someone is part of your team, they’re not less worthy of celebration for a birthday/new baby/new degree/etc. just because they’re struggling in their job — and you will have a stronger, more cohesive team if people feel personally supported regardless of how well they’re performing.

That’s not to say that you, as a manager, need to be organizing celebrations for those things. Some managers do and some managers don’t, and either is reasonable. But “it feels awkward to do this for someone whose performance is bad” is the wrong way to look at it.

As for the celebrations themselves: there is value in having times when the team can come together and eat cake and celebrate something. Maybe it’s a work victory, maybe it’s someone’s promotion, maybe it’s the fact that it’s Thursday. There’s inherent value in doing it now and then.

But if those celebrations are going to be for birthdays and departures and other personal milestones, they need to be consistent. If some people get balloons and flowers when they leave and others don’t, people will notice that disparity and feel bad about it. It will harm morale, which will weaken your team overall.

You might figure there’s nothing you can do about that because you’re not the person organizing these things, but you absolutely can — and as the manager, you really need to since you’re charged with looking out for the morale and overall health of your team. So: talk to team members, point out that it doesn’t feel great when some people’s milestones are recognized and some people’s aren’t, and say the team needs to switch to a different system.

Given everything you’ve described about the situation, I’d recommend that that system be that anyone who wants to celebrate their own milestone is welcome to bring in a treat for the team. If someone wants to observe their birthday or their graduation or whatever it is, they can bring in a cake or bagels or an old-timey Jell-O mold or whatever they’d like, and that way people who want to celebrate with their colleagues will ensure it happens, people who don’t like celebrating that stuff at work can skip it, and no one has to feel bad that their coworkers celebrated Jane’s new baby but not theirs.

(Also, I know this isn’t what you wrote in to ask about, but what’s up with most employees having significant performance issues? If you just came on as the manager and are in the process of dealing with it at all, that’s one thing — but if that’s not the case, that’s a pretty untenable situation. Discovering employee who left hadn’t done a lot of his work is a sign that you probably need to be managing more closely so that you’re not learning something like that after the person is gone. With a team like this, you really need your hands pretty deeply in everything until the problems are resolved, including replacing people if training and coaching don’t work.)

The post I manage a struggling team — how should I handle workplace celebrations? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/06/i-manage-a-struggling-team-how-should-i-handle-workplace-celebrations.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=38689