It has to be voluntary and team based, not mandatory and companywide. In the companies I worked in the past, each team or a particular director’s organization, did (and probably still do) celebrate employees’ birthdays. The funds came from the manager’s or Director’s discretionary (operational) budget. However, there have been occasions when the team members contributed towards such a celebration (especially when the company was aiming to reduce operational expense).
As an employee and a team member, I don’t mind spending $10 a month to celebrate my colleagues’ birthdays. As a manager, I don’t have any problem selling that idea to my staff either. However, it would be a real hard buy for me as an employee to have $10 deducted from my salary every month to celebrate the birthday of someone I don’t know, I never met, and I don’t work with, on day to day basis. As a manager, it is really hard for me to sell that idea as well.
If the company takes a stand saying, we won’t be paying for such celebrations as a cost-cutting measure, I can live with that. As an HR person, if you still want to have that celebration to motivate employees, then you could make a suggestion to the managers (or Directors and ask them to cascade it down to their managerial staff) that it is a good idea to organize such a celebration within their own teams and ask their staff to contribute towards that voluntarily.
If you mandate a salary deduction, the result would be the exact opposite of what you want, and could create a backlash among your employees.
Good luck implementing that J
--Som G