The holiday season isn’t just for celebrating with friends and family but for employees, too! For organizations, this time is an opportunity to embrace each upcoming holiday while promoting employee appreciation in the process.
As the holiday season isn’t tied to one holiday, keeping your celebrations as inclusive and well-rounded as possible is essential. Here are some tips on how to embrace the holidays within your organization:
Switch up your team meeting
Add “holiday celebrations” to the agenda for your next team meeting! Team meetings are a convenient time to celebrate the holidays, as they bridge any time zone differences.
There are endless ways to use a team meeting to celebrate. Start off the team meeting with an employee presentation about a specific holiday. Encourage your employees to get creative—this can be an informative presentation about their personal holiday traditions, holiday trivia, or an open space for employees who celebrate the holiday.
Using a team meeting to embrace the holidays goes further than sending holiday wishes; it also encourages inclusivity and camaraderie among employees.
Celebrate with food
It’s no secret that food unites people, and a potluck is a prime opportunity to have employees gather together.
Host a company potluck and have employees bring a dish from the holiday(s) they celebrate. Not only does this create a space for celebration, but it also opens the door to exchanging shared traditions, ideas for celebration, engaging stories, and more.
Keep in mind that potlucks can be themed however you want. Your organization could have a potluck centered around one holiday, multiple holidays, or a broader potluck with a general holiday theme.
Need a way to amp up your potluck further? Bring your employees mouthwatering eats and send them Superior Dishes. Send along a family style meal, a DIY meal, or classics like Chicago-style pizza.
Change your Zoom backgrounds
Beyond a conversation starter, Zoom backgrounds are a fun visual way to kick off any celebration. Have your design team create a wide range of holiday-themed backgrounds and swap them out as the holidays pass. Not only is this a great way to go through the entire holiday season together, but you’ll also be encouraging a diverse space within your organization. Take it even further and have employees attend your team meetings with their holiday Zoom backgrounds.
Don’t forget to consider holidays outside of the scope of your organization’s current geographical location–keep your Zoom backgrounds as diverse as possible!
Create a space for celebration
While food is a great way to bring employees together, there’s nothing like a holiday party to keep the celebrations flowing! However, for extra pizazz, amp up your celebrations with creative spaces to celebrate. Here are different ideas for celebration:
→Create a Slack channel for a designated holiday. Employees can share their holiday traditions, share food photos from the holiday, ask questions, and talk with other employees celebrating the holidays.
→Create a holiday shop with Stadium Shops. Choose from our range of templates and have recipients redeem their points for snacks, swag, and more.
→Take your team meeting a step further by having breakout rooms on Zoom and having employees celebrate together. Send them snacks from SnackMagic for a great meeting snack.
→ Use TeamBuilds and host your virtual holiday celebration in a virtual venue.
→Create a space for holiday greetings–make a space on Canva or set up a bulletin board at the
office and use Post-its instead.
→ Have an in-person celebration at a local restaurant–bonus points for traditional holiday foods and decor.
Send a gift
End the celebrations on a high note with themed gifts. For an extra memorable gift, keep your gifts holiday-themed if possible. Here are some gift ideas:
-Themed gift baskets
-A branded swag kit with holiday swag
-A DIY gift filled with snacks, swag, and gifts related to the specific holiday
-A donation to a charity of their choice
Go the extra mile–pair your gift with a personalized note or card for an extra special touch.
Use holiday traditions or values as a roadmap
Holidays are about celebration and tradition, a blend of old and new. As an organization, you can always pull aspects of holiday traditions into your celebrations. Here are just a few examples:
→ For Diwali, you may want to give employees time off for their prayer or have a prayer room for them close by.
→ For Kwanzaa, you could give employees a day off to volunteer to reiterate the aspect of Ujamma.
→ For Christmas, you can host a Secret Santa amongst employees.
→ For Rosh Hashanah, you could serve the traditional food of apples dipped in honey.
Embracing the holidays isn’t about singlehandedly celebrating the holidays, but about learning new things, keeping an open mind, and ensuring employees feel celebrated. As long as your celebrations are inclusive, varied, and packed with fun, it’ll be another celebration for the books!