10 Occasions to Send Ecards at Work

Workplace communication doesn’t have to be all business. Digital ecards are a fun and engaging way to strengthen relationships with your employees, while making them feel valued.

The question is, when should you and your team send ecards to each other?

We’ll answer that in this article! Keep reading to learn 10 times you can (and should!) send ecards at work. Then stick around as we explain why Kudoboard is the best tool for the job.

1. Employee Appreciation

Want to increase employee engagement and retention? Recognize them for their contributions. This deceptively simple strategy will keep your team motivated, productive, and successful.

When it comes to your employee appreciation strategy, you can’t go wrong with Kudoboard. Our platform will help you create online cards that make a lasting impression. Even better, you can customize said cards to include personalized messages, images, and videos.

So, create a Kudoboard today. Then use the solution to recognize individual contributions to a project. If possible, invite the rest of your team to participate too. While a recent Gallup study suggest that the most memorable recognition comes from managers, peer recognition is also valuable.

2. National Holidays

National holidays represent a fantastic opportunity to connect with your team.

How so? By giving you the chance to send online cards for each special day. It doesn’t matter if it’s Easter, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas… You can even send electronic cards on National Ice Cream Day if you want. (It’s always the third Sunday in July—don’t miss it!)

Here’s what we suggest: use Kudoboard to create a group ecard for every holiday you want to celebrate as a company. Then invite your employees to contribute to the card by sharing best wishes, favorite holiday traditions, tasty holiday recipes, or anything else you deem appropriate.

Don’t forget, Kudoboard can be used to send written messages and multimedia content. So, feel free to add pictures, memes, and videos to your group cards if and when you want.

However you decide to celebrate national holidays, a group card will give you the chance to engage your team, build stronger bonds between them, and brighten up the workplace.

3. Individual Birthdays

Pro tip: All of your employees have birthdays.

This is important because birthdays are best celebrated with ecards. (And cake. Lots and lots of cake.) So, plan to create an ecard for each of your employees on their special day.

Of course, an ecard from one’s boss is nice. But an ecard from everyone in the office is even better. That’s why we suggest using group cards that your entire team can contribute to.

Once again, Kudoboard is the solution. Make an online group card using one of our tool’s many professionally designed templates. Then ask the rest of your team to write a heartfelt message, share a funny memory, or post a recent photo that includes the person of honor.

Bonus: one of the best things about ecards is that they can be used by in-person and hybrid or remote teams. This is especially true for birthday cards. While members of your team might live in different countries, and therefore celebrate different holidays, each has a birthday to recognize.

4. Life Milestones

Milestones don’t happen every day, which is why each deserves recognition.

Now, there are two kinds of milestones you can celebrate: career milestones and personal milestones. Career milestone examples include work anniversaries and promotions. Personal milestone examples include weddings and newborn babies. All deserve to be recognized.

Guess what—you can celebrate these momentous occasions in your employees’ lives by sending them an ecard. If the occasion is truly special, include a gift card as well.

Kudoboard makes this process easy. While collecting personal messages, photos, etc. from your team, ask them to contribute a monetary gift as well. Then turn the funds into a gift card to your recipient’s favorite store or restaurant. Kudoboard offers hundreds of options in this regard.

5. Welcoming New Hires

Think back to your last first-day-on-the-job. It was nerve-racking, right? You had a new office to arrange, new colleagues to meet, new projects to start and finish… it was a lot.

Imagine how much better your first day would have been if you received a group card.

Kudoboard includes templates for this exact scenario. You can fill it with personal messages, specific instructions, important contact information—it’s up to you. The point is, greeting cards of this nature make new hires feel welcome and improve their onboarding experience.

This last bit is important. Research shows that an effective onboarding process can increase retention of new hires by 82%. Employee turnover is expensive, so this is a big deal.

6. Company Celebrations

Top companies celebrate their wins, big and small.

Whether you’re celebrating a new product launch, the completion of an important goal, or the simple fact that you and your team made it through the week, you can do it better with an ecard.

Kudoboard is especially suited to this task. For example, you and your team can use the digital space that Kudoboard gives you to reflect on the journey you took to achieve your latest goal. Ask each employee to post their thoughts—or better yet, record a video of themselves recollecting. This will make the entire process more fun and memorable.

7. End-of-Year Awards

We talked about consistent employee appreciation. Your business will improve by leaps and bounds when you simply acknowledge your team’s efforts on a regular basis. But that doesn’t mean you should skip the occasional grand gesture.

With that in mind, consider giving end-of-year awards to your employees. And when you do, include an ecard for each award recipient. This will do two things:

First, it will personalize the award. Recipients won’t just receive a trophy or fancy title. They’ll receive a card that details exactly what their company appreciates about them.
Second, they’ll receive praise from their coworkers. This will make the award process more fun. It might drum up a bit of friendly competition too, which will benefit your brand.

As mentioned, Kudoboard makes it easy to send digital cards for any occasion. From daily recognition to end-of-year awards, use our platform to acknowledge and motivate your staff.

8. Personal Hardships

Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We all go through tough times. An ecard from an employer can make these times a little less dreary—especially if said cards are signed by coworkers.

Online sympathy cards help team members feel supported. They don’t have to go through the heartbreak alone. They have an entire team of people who care about them.

Whether you choose to send a digital or physical card, Kudoboard gives you the option to send heartfelt messages, offer support, and encourage employees through their difficult situations.

9. Employee Retirements

Retirement is usually a one-time thing, which makes it an excellent ecard occasion.

Take a look at your employees. Are any of them nearing the end of their working life? If so, you need to do two things: consider their replacement and decide how to celebrate their departure.

We can’t help you with the first thing (other than sharing this article about onboarding, which you should read before bringing on a new recruit.) But we can definitely help you with the second one. Just sign up for Kudoboard, create an ecard for your whole team to contribute to via personalized posts, and send it to your employee before they ride off into the sunset.

Kudoboard even gives you the ability to automate your ecards. So, if you know when an employee plans to retire and don’t want to miss the important milestone, you can create your card ahead of time. The finished product will then send on the exact date you want it to.

10. Business Announcements

Finally, use an ecard to make essential business announcements.

For example, your company might have just hired a new employee. Or committed to hosting an industry conference. Or locked down that elusive client you’ve been courting for months.

These events should be made public. That way you and the rest of your team can celebrate the occasion and/or achievement. Ecards are an excellent way to make announcements because they’re easy to make, fun to receive, and allow multiple people to participate.

For example, you could announce a company-wide get-together, then ask employees to RSVP to the shindig. Or announce the completion of an organizational goal, then ask employees to contribute to the ecard by posting about the best memory they made throughout the process.

Here’s one more idea: you could create an ecard to introduce a new employee to your company. Said card could include a picture of the new hire and a friendly bio that includes a few fun facts about this person. If the rest of your employees take time to welcome and converse with the new recruit, your simple ecard could become a fantastic onboarding and engagement tool.

As you might expect, Kudoboard can be used to create announcement-style ecards. Backed by our industry-leading app, your company’s important announcement will never be ignored again.

Digital Ecards FAQs

What is an ecard?

An ecard is an electronic version of a traditional greeting card that’s sent via the internet. E-cards can be used to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or other special occasions, just like paper cards. The best ones include personalized notes, images, animations, or even music, all of which make them more interactive. To create an ecard, you can use one of the many ecard sites out there. The one you choose will depend on your budget and needs. If you’re looking to create free online greeting cards with a humorous bent, for example, you might choose a tool like JibJab. But if you want a full-featured platform that you can use to power your entire employee recognition strategy—without breaking the bank—try Kudoboard.

What are the benefits of ecards?

Ecards don’t require paper, printing, or postage, which makes them both cost-effective and environmentally friendly. At the same time, ecards can be customized in ways that traditional cards can’t be. For example, ecards can include music, short animations, full videos and other engaging elements. Finally, ecards can be sent almost instantly. This is beneficial for last-minute greetings or time-sensitive messages. It doesn’t matter what your objective is—recognizing coworkers, staying connected with friends, etc—you can do it with a thoughtful ecard.

What’s the best ecard site?

The “best” ecard site depends on your specific use case. Do you want to recognize your employees for their hard work? Send a humorous video message to a friend? Something else? Different platforms satisfy different needs. That said, Kudoboard excels in a variety of scenarios. Our platform is perfect for business communication and engagement purposes. Use it to congratulate employees, acknowledge milestones, and announce events—all while allowing coworkers to contribute their own comments and visual media to every card you create. Kudoboard can also accommodate private use, enabling users to send birthday and holiday cards to loved ones. Best of all, Kudoboard is easy to use, which means you can sign up for the service and create a card in minutes, even if you’ve never done it before.

How much do ecards cost to send?

It depends on the ecard site you choose. Some sites allow users to create free ecards. Others offer one-time purchase options. Still others require paid subscriptions. Generally speaking, the more you’re willing to pay for an ecard, the more features you’ll have access to. Kudoboard customers can purchase single ecards for as low as $5.99. (Though you can reduce that price to $3.49 per card if you buy multiple cards at one time.) Kudoboard also offers monthly subscriptions, which are perfect for business customers. For as little as $25 a month, you and your team can create unlimited ecards, access professionally designed templates, collaborate with up to 50 employees, and more.

Get full pricing details on our pricing page.

Kudoboard: Digital Cards for Any Occasion

Ecards are an excellent way to drive motivation, foster engagement, and build meaningful connections with your employees. So, what are you waiting for? Start sending those bad boys!

All you have to do is sign up for Kudoboard, choose an eye-catching template that fits the occasion, and create your first card. Then ask other team members to contribute so the card feels extra special. Finally, sit back and watch as company culture and success explode!