Funny employee awards: 60 original mock award ideas, four rules that keep them kind, the awards never to give, and how to run the session

Somebody suggests funny awards for the end-of-year do, everyone agrees, and then the person organising them searches for a list and finds a hundred titles that are either meaningless (“Office Rockstar”) or unkind (“Most Likely to Be Late”). Funny workplace awards are worth doing well, because a good one is remembered for years and a bad one is remembered for the wrong reasons. The difference is not the joke; it is whether the award is about something the person does at work and would be pleased to be known for.

This article gives 60 funny employee awards, all original lines written by the New Dynamics team, grouped by theme and each with a citation formula so the award names a real habit; four rules that keep mock awards kind, built on the Acas description of bullying; a list of awards never to give; a way to run the session in the room or remotely; and the tax point to check before you buy prizes.

Funny awards are the light half of recognition; the serious half is thanking people for specific work in the flow of the week. See how New Dynamics recognition lets colleagues and managers do that where the whole team can see it.

Four rules that keep mock awards kind

Acas's guidance on bullying at work describes bullying as unwanted behaviour that is “offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting” or “an abuse or misuse of power that undermines, humiliates, or causes physical or emotional harm to someone”, and adds that “it can still be bullying even if they do not realise it or do not intend to bully someone”. Its examples include putting humiliating comments or photos on social media, which is where award photos often end up. A mock award session is a room full of people laughing about one person at a time, so the rules matter.

1. About the work, not the person. The award names something the person does at work: a habit, a skill, a running joke they started. Never appearance, age, accent, health, family, money or a protected characteristic.
2. Opt in. Everyone knows the awards are happening and can say no, privately, in advance. Nobody is a target who did not agree to be one.
3. One each. Everyone gets an award of equal weight. Leaving one person out is the oldest way to hurt someone with a joke.
4. The manager goes first. The first award is at the manager's expense and the manager laughs loudest. It sets the register for everything that follows.

The test for each award: would the winner put it on their desk? If you are not sure, write a different one.

60 funny employee awards

Each title comes with a citation formula in brackets: the sentence the presenter reads out, naming the real habit. Fill it in with something true.

Meetings and calendars

1. The Hard Stop. (For ending every meeting at exactly the minute it was due to end, even mid-sentence.)
2. The Agenda Whisperer. (For sending an agenda so good the meeting was cancelled.)
3. The Fourteen-Minute Meeting. (For the shortest useful meeting of the year, and for knowing it was enough.)
4. The Human Diary. (For remembering everyone's holiday, dentist and school play without a calendar.)
5. The Reply-All Survivor. (For the calmest response to a reply-all thread of over forty messages.)
6. The "Can Everyone See My Screen?" Award. (For asking it most, and for the one time it really mattered.)
7. The Five-Minute Early. (For arriving at every call before the organiser.)
8. The Parking Lot Attendant. (For the phrase "let's take that offline", deployed 200 times, always correctly.)

Spreadsheets, systems and documents

9. The Forty-Tab Spreadsheet. (For the workbook that has more tabs than the team has people, and still works.)
10. The Conditional Formatting Artist. (For colour-coding a spreadsheet so well it needs a gallery.)
11. The Filename Poet. (For "final_v3_FINAL_revised_2.docx", and for finding it again.)
12. The Version Historian. (For being the only person who knows which version is the real one.)
13. The Template Librarian. (For having a template for everything, including the request for a new template.)
14. The One Who Reads the Manual. (For actually reading it, and for not telling us until we asked.)
15. The Keyboard Shortcut. (For never touching the mouse, and for the look when someone else does.)
16. The Password Reset Champion. (For the most confident "I definitely know this one".)

Tea, snacks and the kitchen

17. The Tea Round Institution. (For the round nobody asked for and everybody needed.)
18. The Milk Detective. (For finding out who finished it, every single time.)
19. The Biscuit Tin Custodian. (For keeping it full, and for the rule about the last one.)
20. The Dishwasher Engineer. (For loading it in a way the rest of us cannot explain but cannot improve.)
21. The Birthday Cake Radar. (For arriving in the kitchen thirty seconds after any cake, from any floor.)
22. The Lunch Prophet. (For predicting the sandwich choice of every colleague before the order goes in.)

Communication and language

23. The Plain English Award. (For turning a 400-word email into a sentence, and for the sentence being better.)
24. The Acronym Decoder. (For being the person everyone messages to ask what the acronym means.)
25. The Typo Hawk. (For spotting the one wrong letter in the deck at 4:59pm.)
26. The Emoji Diplomat. (For resolving a tense thread with one well-chosen emoji.)
27. The Great Explainer. (For the analogy that finally made the new system make sense.)
28. The Voice of Reason. (For "have we tried turning it off and on again", said kindly, and correctly.)
29. The Understatement Award. (For describing the outage as "a bit of a hiccup".)
30. The Sign-Off Specialist. (For the email sign-off that became the team's catchphrase.)

Getting things done

31. The Quiet Fixer. (For the number of problems solved before anyone knew they were problems.)
32. The Deadline Magnet. (For the calm, and the delivery, at ten minutes to the deadline.)
33. The Post-it Architect. (For the wall of notes that is somehow a fully working project plan.)
34. The First Responder. (For answering the customer at 8:01 when the question came in at 8:00.)
35. The Unblocker. (For the phrase "leave it with me", followed every time by it being left with them.)
36. The One-More-Thing Award. (For the question at the end of the meeting that saved the project.)
37. The Refactor. (For quietly rebuilding the thing everyone was afraid to touch.)
38. The Lost Property Office. (For the desk that holds every charger, adapter and stapler the team has ever lost.)

Team spirit

39. The Welcome Committee. (For being the first to say hello to every new starter, on their first morning, every time.)
40. The Playlist Curator. (For the office playlist, and for taking the feedback about the office playlist.)
41. The Morale Officer. (For the joke that got the team through the Wednesday of the worst week.)
42. The Quiz Dynasty. (For the pub quiz record, and for the graciousness in the one defeat.)
43. The Stationery Sommelier. (For strong opinions on pens, all of them right.)
44. The Desk Garden. (For keeping more plants alive than the rest of the floor combined.)
45. The Umbrella Bank. (For lending an umbrella to everyone, and for never getting one back.)
46. The Team Photographer. (For documenting every celebration and for the angles that flatter everyone.)

Working from home and hybrid

47. The Best Supporting Pet. (For the cat, dog or parrot with the most appearances on video calls.)
48. The Virtual Background Explorer. (For a different background every day, and for the one with the beach.)
49. The Mute Button Veteran. (For the most eloquent thirty seconds delivered entirely on mute.)
50. The Doorbell Award. (For the delivery that arrived, without fail, during every important call.)
51. The Home Office Architect. (For the desk set-up the rest of us secretly copied.)
52. The Connection Award. (For "you're breaking up", said with more patience than anyone deserved.)

Leaders and long service

53. The Open Door. (For the door that was open, and for meaning it.)
54. The Institutional Memory. (For remembering why we do it this way, and being right about whether we still should.)
55. The Calm in the Storm. (For the tone of voice during the incident that made everyone else calm too.)
56. The Delegator. (For the phrase "you decide", and for standing by the decision.)
57. The Founder's Anecdote. (For the story about the early days, told for the twentieth time, still good.)
58. The Thank-You Note. (For the handwritten notes that people have kept.)
59. The Question Asker. (For "what do you need from me?", asked before anyone had to say.)
60. The Last One Standing. (For being the person who turned off the lights at the end of the office party, and the office year.)

The awards never to give

Some awards are traditional, easy and unkind. Do not give awards for:

• Appearance or dress, including "best dressed" and its opposite.
• A protected characteristic: age, disability, sex, race, religion, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marriage.
• Lateness, absence or sickness. Nobody knows the reason, and the person does.
• Mistakes. The outage, the wrong email, the lost file: they were bad days, not comedy.
• Performance, including "most improved", which tells the room where the person started.
• Family, relationships or money. Nothing about a person's life outside work.
• Private habits noticed by others: eating, phone use, toilet breaks, what they do at lunch.

How to run the session

1. Pair every funny award with a sincere one. The session has two halves. In the serious half, each person receives specific thanks for something they did this year, in the form our employee recognition ideas and recognition quotes describe. The funny award follows and is the lighter echo of the same respect.
2. Collect the citations in advance. Ask the team for the habits and running jokes; you will get better material than any list, and the person nominating is usually the person best placed to judge whether it is kind.
3. Keep it short. One sentence of citation, the title, applause, next. Sixty awards in this list; you need one per person.
4. Print the certificates. A printed certificate with the title and the citation is the part people keep. Photos stay in the team, not on public social media, unless the winner says otherwise.

Remote and hybrid teams. Run it on video with cameras on, send the certificates by post or as a file in advance, and let each winner unmute for a one-line acceptance speech. The Best Supporting Pet award is compulsory.

Prizes and tax

Keep prizes small and funny: a mug with the title, a trophy from a discount shop, a certificate in a frame. If you give something with a cash value, check the rules first. In the UK, GOV.UK's trivial benefits guidance sets the conditions under which a small gift to an employee does not need to be reported or taxed; a gift that is cash or a cash voucher, or that is given as a reward for work or performance, does not qualify. Because a funny award is not a reward for performance, a small gift usually sits within the rules, but the conditions and amounts change, so read the current page before you buy. Other countries have their own rules; our recognition ideas post covers the tax points for gifts more fully.

Frequently asked questions

What makes a funny employee award work?

The joke is about something the person genuinely does at work and would happily be known for, the citation names the real habit, everyone gets one, everyone agreed in advance, and the manager takes the first award. The test is whether the winner would put the certificate on their desk.

What funny awards should you avoid?

Anything about appearance, a protected characteristic, lateness or sickness, mistakes, performance, family, money or private habits. Acas describes bullying as behaviour that is offensive, insulting or humiliating, and notes that it can be bullying even when it is not intended; an award in those categories is the joke nobody shares.

How many awards should we give?

One per person, of equal weight, plus a sincere recognition for each person alongside it. A team of twelve needs twelve funny awards and twelve real thank-yous, not a top three.

Can we give prizes with funny awards?

Yes, kept small. A mug, a certificate or a novelty trophy is enough. If a gift has a cash value, check the GOV.UK trivial benefits rules in the UK, or your own country's rules, before buying; cash and cash vouchers do not qualify.

Can mock awards work for remote teams?

Yes. Send the certificates in advance, run the session on video with cameras on, keep each award to one sentence of citation, and let winners unmute for an acceptance line. Include an award for the pets.

Your next step: collect the citations

1. Tell the team the awards are happening and let people opt out privately.
2. Ask everyone for two habits or running jokes about colleagues that the colleague would enjoy.
3. Write one funny award and one sincere thank-you for each person.
4. Print the certificates and give the first award to the manager.

For recognition that lasts longer than the party, read and download our employee recognition guide. The guide is free to read, and the PDF uses our short download form.

Want thanks for specific work to be visible across the team all year, not only at the awards? Book a New Dynamics demo and bring your current recognition approach. You can also email contact@new-dynamics.com.