Years of Service Awards and Wording Ideas

By Greg Trudelle, Vice President of Sales

Years of Service Award Ideas by Milestone

A good service award program steps the award up as the years add up, so a 25 year award looks and feels different from a 5 year one. A simple ladder keeps every anniversary consistent and gives employees something to look forward to.

• 1 to 3 years. Acrylic awards or glass awards with the company logo, easy to order in quantity when many employees reach the same anniversary.
• 5 years. The first real milestone, and the natural point to move to crystal awards. A crystal award with the employee's name and start year reads as a clear step up.
• 10 and 15 years. A larger crystal award, colored crystal, or 3D laser crystal with your logo engraved inside the crystal. Pick an award that will still look right on the desk at 20 years.
• 20 and 25 years. Art glass awards or marble and stone awards, for your longest-serving employees.
• 30 years and up. The top of the ladder, and a good moment for the company's leadership to present the award. When the anniversary is also a farewell, our retirement award wording ideas cover that moment.

Keep one award style per milestone across the whole program. When 2 employees reach 10 years in the same quarter, they receive the same award, and everyone recognizes the 10 year award on sight.

Years of Service Award Wording Ideas

Years of service award wording works best when it names the person, the number of years and the company, then adds one line of thanks. Short reads better than clever on an award. Here are wording ideas by milestone to use as written or adapt.

5 Years of Service

• In Appreciation of 5 Years of Dedicated Service
• 5 Years of Hard Work, Ideas and Results. Thank You.
• Celebrating Your First 5 Years With Our Team

10 Years of Service

• Thank You for 10 Years of Commitment and Excellence
• A Decade of Making a Difference
• 10 Years Strong. We're Proud to Have You on Our Team.

15 and 20 Years of Service

• Honoring 15 Years of Loyalty and Leadership
• 20 Years of Service, and Still Raising the Bar
• With Gratitude for 20 Years of Outstanding Contributions

25 Years of Service and Beyond

• 25 Years of Service, Dedication and Friendship
• In Recognition of a Quarter Century of Excellence
• 30 Years of Service. Thank You for Helping Build Our Company.

Add the employee's full name on its own line, the anniversary date or start year, and the company name or logo. If your program has its own name, put it on every award so the series reads as one.

Ordering Service Awards for a Whole Program

A service award program usually starts with a list: names, start dates and milestones for the quarter or the year. Send AbleRecognition the list and the award you've chosen for each milestone, and we lay out every award and email you a proof within 2 business days.

Your proof approval is where every name and year on every award gets checked, so a misspelled name or a 15 that should read 16 is caught before it's engraved. We ship stock awards 5 to 7 business days after you approve the proof, and custom designs take 2 to 6 weeks after final design approval, depending on the material. If your presentation date is close, call us at 1-866-313-2253 about a rush order.

We ship free by UPS Ground on orders over $250 to one address in the contiguous US and Canada (Yukon, NWT and Nunavut excluded), businesses can apply for invoice terms on orders over $250, and every order is backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Years of Service Award FAQs