Do you celebrate birthdays?

Imagine being the person who has to scramble for a last-minute cake or hunt for obscure Serbian food because someone’s birthday popped up without warning. Now multiply that by two or three birthdays a week.

That might seem manageable in a small team, but it quickly becomes unscalable as your company grows. Celebrating every birthday on the exact day sounds nice in theory—but it drains time, attention, and money.
### Make birthdays scalable

Celebrating birthdays is important—it shows appreciation and builds team morale. But like any good process, it should scale as your team grows.

Here are some common approaches:

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### 🎂 Option A – Same-day celebration

This is the classic approach: celebrate someone’s birthday on the actual day with cake or a special lunch.

#### Why it’s not scalable

* Hard to maintain once you have 1+ birthday per week
* Easy to forget or miss someone
* Last-minute planning stresses whoever is responsible

**Use this only if:**
You have a very small team (fewer than 10 people) and someone *loves* managing birthday logistics.

---

### 🎁 Option B – Let individuals choose how they celebrate

Some teams give the birthday person a choice—e.g. pick the Friday lunch venue, get a small gift, or have a shout-out.

#### Why it may/may not work

* Adds admin complexity—requires someone to follow up and remember preferences
* Not all team members enjoy making these decisions
* Still requires manual coordination

**Use this if:**
Your culture is very personalized and you can handle the overhead.

---

### ✅ Option C – Monthly grouped celebrations (Recommended)

Group all birthdays into a single celebration at the **end of each month**, ideally during something already on the calendar (e.g. Friday Free Lunch).

#### Why this works best

* Scales well as your team grows
* No one gets forgotten
* Easy to delegate and automate

The best way to do this is with a **monthly summary email** to the organizers using an **automated Power Automate flow**, scheduled for the **last Monday of each month**.

<emailEmbed
  from=""
  to="SSWFreeLunchMasters@"
  cc=""
  bcc=""
  subject="Monthly Birthday Summary"
  body={<>
    ## Hi Free Lunch Masters

The following birthdays happened this month:

1. Organize a celebration with/after Free Lunch this Friday
Tip: check any dietary needs in CRM | Users | &#123;&#123; PERSON &#125;&#125;

| Name           | Site       | Birthday   | Dietary Note  |
|----------------|------------|------------|---------------|
| &#123;&#123; NAME &#125;&#125;     | &#123;&#123; CITY &#125;&#125; | &#123;&#123; DATE &#125;&#125; | N/A           |

Note #1: This data is driven from &#123;&#123; URL TO THE REPORT &#125;&#125;

Note #2: The people responsible are: &#123;&#123; LINK TO THE CRM RESPONSIBIILITY &#125;&#125;

<This email is sent as per <https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/celebrate-birthdays>>
::::::
  </>}
  figureEmbed={{
    preset: "goodExample",
    figure: "Good example – Automatically generated monthly birthday email that makes celebrations easy and scalable",
    shouldDisplay: true
  }}
/>