Most HR teams know how important personal attention is. The intentions are often great:

“We’d rather decorate the employee’s desk”, or “The departments handle this themselves and go all out for birthdays”.

The intention is genuine, but in practice it often falls short because:

• There’s no clear ownership.

• Birthdays aren’t always properly noted in managers’ calendars.

• Sending cards takes time and easily gets overshadowed by “more urgent” tasks.

Understandable, but the result is that employees receive no card at all or don’t get the attention they deserve.

And that has impact. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace (2023) shows that only 23% of employees feel truly engaged with their organisation. Engagement isn’t created through grand gestures, but by consistently making people feel seen. A simple birthday card or message on an important day makes a difference.

We live in a digital world full of messages and notifications. A card is different: you can hold it, display it, keep it.

Personal recognition is one of the strongest predictors of retention and job satisfaction (Harvard Business Review, Employee Recognition: Low Cost, High Impact, 2021).

A card is therefore an easy and powerful way to show care.

HR asks this question often. And understandably so.

Automation does not mean standardisation. It means removing the manual hassle so there is space for real attention.

With Print.one:

• The style, tone of voice and feel match your brand.

• Cards are designed or adapted to your culture.

• Name and message are personalised automatically.

• Want to add a personal team photo? Possible.

• The timing of sending is handled automatically and optimally.

The execution is automated. The attention stays genuine.

When employees feel recognised, you see increases in:

• Job satisfaction

• Loyalty

• Willingness to go the extra mile

A birthday card won’t solve every HR challenge. But it is a consistent ritual of human attention. And rituals build culture.

In the pilot campaigns we run with our clients, we see that conversions take a little while. In the example below, you can see when conversions from Kaartje2go’s win-back campaign occurred.

In the first 8 days after sending, only 0.6% of recipients converted. The biggest boost happened between days 14 and 30, accounting for 44.1% of all conversions. Within 30 days, 71% of conversions had occurred. This also means that the remaining 29% came in over the following 2 months!