Service Awards That Run Themselves
eCardWidget reads hire dates from your directory or HRIS, sends the right milestone eCard at 1, 5, 10, 20 years and beyond, and can carry a gift card with it. Set it up once and no anniversary is missed.
30-minute personalized walkthrough · tailored to your program · no commitment
In short
A service awards program recognizes employees at tenure milestones such as 1, 5, 10, and 20 years. eCardWidget automates it: hire dates from your directory or HRIS trigger a branded milestone eCard on the anniversary, with an optional gift card, so no anniversary depends on someone remembering.
- Hire dates synced by CSV, API, Zapier, or SCIM
- A branded eCard for each milestone tier, sent on the date
- Gift card rewards at the milestones you choose (Enterprise plan)
Trusted by 9,000+ organizations
74% of companies have a service anniversary program. 22% call theirs excellent.
That gap is not a budget problem. It is a consistency problem: a spreadsheet, a calendar reminder, a manager on leave, and a ten-year anniversary passes without a word. Employees who receive high-quality recognition are 65% less likely to be looking for another job, so a missed milestone is not a small miss.
Sources: Applauz, Employee Service Awards guide; Gallup, Employee Retention Depends on Getting Recognition Right.
The spreadsheet breaks at 50 people
Somebody owns the list until they do not. Hire dates go stale after a transfer, a rehire, or an acquisition, and nobody notices until an anniversary is missed.
Recognition depends on the manager
Some teams celebrate every year; others never do. The inconsistency is what employees notice, and it lands hardest on frontline and remote staff.
Points platforms add cost and friction
A per-employee platform fee, a rewards budget on top, points that expire, and another login. A service award should be a card and a reward on the right day.
Automation fixes the consistency problem
Hire dates in one directory, a card assigned to each milestone, and the send happens on the date whether or not anyone is at their desk.
A years of service program, end to end
Tenure tracking, milestone eCards, and optional rewards, all from the directory you already keep.
Upload the directory once. Dates do the rest.
Birthdays and hire dates from a CSV or your HRIS drive every send. Anniversary years 1 to 50 each get their own card, and the calendar shows what goes out and when.
- Merge tags fill in name, department, and years
- SCIM keeps the directory current on the Enterprise plan
A real gift card inside the card
On the Enterprise plan, attach a gift card from your own Giftbit account or a pool of codes you already own. The employee claims it with a one-time code. No points, nothing to redeem later.
- Amount inside the range you allow
- Claimed in one click, logged for payroll
A branded card that opens anywhere, with no login
The card arrives at whatever email is in the directory, work or personal, and opens full screen in any browser, on a laptop or a phone. Nothing to install for the frontline or the field.
- 500+ templates or your own artwork
- Your logo and colors on every card
See which teams are recognized, and which are quiet
Sends, opens, and clicks by campaign, sender, and department. Quiet teams show up the week it happens, and the CSV export goes to leadership without a spreadsheet.
- Opens and clicks per card
- CSV export for HR and leadership
Set up a years of service program in three steps
Service awards use the same automation engine that sends your birthday and holiday eCards. There is no separate awards tool to run.
Bring in hire dates
Import your team by CSV, keep it current through the API and Zapier, or sync directly from your HRIS with SCIM on the Enterprise plan. Tenure is tracked without a spreadsheet.
Choose milestones and cards
Pick which years count and assign a branded eCard to each tier from 500+ templates or your own artwork. Merge tags fill in the employee's name, years of service, and the manager's name.
It sends on the anniversary
The card arrives on the date, from the sender name you choose. Attach a gift card to the bigger milestones and the reward arrives inside the card, claimed in one click.
See a years of service program built on your branding
30 minutes, on your branding, no commitment.
A service award structure most HR teams start with
Tiers are yours to define. This is the shape we see most often: a card every year, a reward at the milestones that mark real tenure, and a bigger reward as the years add up. Amounts are examples, not a recommendation.
- Every anniversary gets a card, so no year is silent
- Rewards scale with tenure and stay inside spend guardrails
- Frontline, remote, and multi-site staff are reached the same way as head office
- Gift cards are taxable wages in the US, so every reward is logged for payroll
Recognition without points, catalogs, or balances that expire
Most recognition platforms run on a points ledger: budgets to prefund, points that buy less than dollars, and balances that expire at year end. eCardWidget skips the whole economy. A branded eCard says what was done and who noticed, and a real gift card can ride along when the moment calls for one.
No points ledger
Recognition is a branded eCard with a real message, not a currency employees have to bank, convert, or watch expire.
No catalog
Nothing to browse, nothing converted into a points value. When you want a reward, it is a real gift card the recipient claims in one click.
Nothing to remember
Birthdays, anniversaries, and service milestones send themselves from hire dates in your directory or HRIS.
No app, no login
Frontline, hourly, and multi-site staff open the card at whatever email is in the directory. No account to set up.
Free plan available. Gift card rewards on the Enterprise plan.
What HR and culture leaders say after launch
Verbatim from the people who run recognition at Axon, Modivcare, and a 7,000-person healthcare system.
"We've been using the eCard widget to automate our birthday and service anniversary messages, and it has genuinely transformed our workflow. What once took hours each month now happens seamlessly in the background."
"We have been able to create birthday cards, anniversary cards, company value cards as well as get well soon, thank you, and sympathy. This program has enhanced our overall culture, and I couldn't be more satisfied with my experience."
"A+ customer service and plugin! Loved the plugin/widget from the beginning, and Tim made it even better by being super helpful and responsive to ensure it worked well for our organization of about 7,000 staff."
The questions HR, Finance, and IT will ask
The answers your procurement team needs before the program goes live.
Does it integrate with our HRIS?
CSV import works with any system. The REST API, webhooks, and Zapier keep the directory current, and SCIM 2.0 provisioning on the Enterprise plan syncs hire dates and deactivations automatically. See the BambooHR, Workday, Rippling, and ADP integration pages.
What about SSO and security review?
Single sign-on with OpenID Connect (Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, Google Workspace, and any OIDC provider) is available on the Enterprise plan. Details on the SSO and directory sync page.
How do we control reward spend?
Gift card rewards run from your own Giftbit account or a pool of codes you already own, with per-card minimums and maximums, daily and monthly spend caps, and a full audit log. Finance sets the rules once. Full detail on gift cards for employees.
Can we prove the program ran?
Real-time analytics show every send, open, and click by campaign and automation, so you can report participation and reach by department instead of estimating it. See analytics and reporting.
Prove every anniversary was recognized
Report participation and reach by department instead of estimating it. Every send, open, click, and reward claim is on the record.
- Sends, opens, and clicks by automation and campaign
- Reward orders and claims in an audit log
- Export to CSV for payroll and leadership reporting
Rated 5.0 on Capterra and G2 by the HR teams who run it
Reviewers rate eCardWidget 5.0 out of 5 on Capterra, with 4.8 for ease of use and 5.0 for customer service, and 5 stars on G2 and the Shopify App Store. Support is a real person who answers the same day.
Service awards are one automation. Add the rest.
The same directory that drives years of service recognition drives birthdays, onboarding welcomes, and holiday cards. Turn them on once and the program covers the whole year.
Service awards, answered
Common questions about automating years of service recognition
See a years of service program built on your branding in 30 minutes
We will load a sample directory with hire dates, assign milestone eCards to each tier, attach a gift card to the five-year card, and show the send calendar. Bring your tier structure; we bring the demo account.
- Milestone tiers set up on your templates, with merge tags filled in
- The three-year send forecast, so you can see exactly what goes out when
- HRIS sync options for your system (CSV, API, Zapier, or SCIM)
- No pressure to decide on the call
Book your demo
Pick a time on the next screen. We will come prepared with your use case.