Isn't there a risk you are over complicating what is in essence a "nice" thing to do. Objectives - recognise long service and thank people :-)
Measurement - long serving people feel happier and thanked :-)

Generally in these things service has to be continuous

Dear Jodie
I work in an International School in New Delhi and we have long service awards as part of our rewards and recognition policy. These awards are based on tenure and given to employees who complete continuous employment with us. For eg we have an award for 10 years, 20 years and 25 years.
Hope this helps.

Thanks
Jayati

We have one. Celebrate 10, 20 and 30 years with flowers plus 10 get birthday off or agreed day if it falls outside TT. 20 is birthday off and £200, 30 is birthday off and £400 in a nutshell. Only continuous service to our school not the LA or other schools. The point is to earn the reward over a long period of time. Beware, we have a problem in that our LA data is not always accurate in the recording of start dates and continuous service.

In reply to Keith:

I get what Keith is saying, but I think Jodie is on the right track. MATs don't have money to burn and, if you're going to commit time and effort (and probably money) to something, there needs to be a clear pay-back in terms of the what the MATs are trying to achieve (i.e. improved educational and social outcomes for students).

There are also risks in recognizing long service in a field when some long-serving staff are literally time-servers: low-enthusiasm box-tickers, counting the days to retirement, who aren't quite bad enough to fire and too expensive to make redundant.

I would say that a better approach would be to recognize and reward staff (teachers or otherwise) who make a measurable contribution to the outcomes the MAT wants to promote, of any length of service. This then justifies recognizing long-service staff who still teach with passion, enthusiasm and skill without obligating you to offer the same to those who only do the bare minimum.

In reply to Robey:

In terms of total disclosure, I have no great love of long service awards but that wasn't the question being asked :-)

If you are going to have them then don't over complicated them

I think going down the route of a performance award / Stars type award in education poses a whole different set of challenges and would need careful thinking about

In reply to Robey:

I couldn't agree more here. I find myself just wanting to ask why you would do this - is it desirable to have someone who has worked in ONE SCHOOL for 30 years? With literally no other experience to draw upon? I know it's a fairly nominal reward and a chance to say thank you, but it does suggest that long service in and of itself is adding value. In my experience while that can be the case, it would be exceptionally hard to quantify why 30 years in a single school (or 10 or 20) would provide a better educational experience for pupils than 30 (10, 20) in a variety of schools.

And if you strip away the 'one school only' bit of it, you're just left with a reward based on age, which has to be discriminatory.

[Heads off to cancel Christmas etc]