Employee's Date of Joining - Just another day in "Paradise"

For the last several weeks, I have been asking a simple set of questions to the clients I met with:

1) Do they remember the exact date on which they joined the company?

The answer has been "Yes" 100% of the time.

2) On any of your anniversary dates, has your manager called you and acknowledged the fact that you have completed "x" number of years by saying "Thanks"?

The response rate drops to a dismal 10%. A few did mention that they got an email from an automated system and some even said that they received a gift in the mail on one occasion.

3) Do they believe that every employee in the organization remembers their date of joining? After a quick thought the response has been "Mostly / Majority / Yes, I think so".

4) Do you believe that your employees want to be atleast acknowledged on their service anniversary - whether it is year 1,2,3 or whatever?

Again the answer has been "Yes, I think so" in 90% of the cases.

Here we have a day/date that is very meaningful to the employee "year-on-year", but it is just another day in the calendar for the company.

From an other perspective, isn't this a great opportunity which does not cost anything, for the manager to build a relationship with the employee and show that these occasions are important and meaningful? If the company can support this with a meal voucher for 2, to allow the manager to take the employee out for lunch, won't the Manager-Employee relationship be significantly strengthened?

By missing out on this easy opportunity, the employee's date of joining ends up being "Just another day in Hell - oops sorry - Paradise".