‘Tis the season for a merry workplace. The holidays are the time of year to bring joy, warmth and cheer into your office. But celebrating the holidays with employees doesn’t have to mean throwing an extravagant party. A few small simple gestures can make the office more festive and help you to reward employees for a job well done and boost team morale.
Here are some of the ways Team Entripy celebrates the holidays at our office in Oakville, Ontario.
Getting Started
The biggest challenge of bringing about the holiday cheer may be having the time and resources to do so. A great way to tackle this is by starting an in-office Social Committee who can dedicate a bit of time to planning festive events and social gatherings to help your team bond and engage. Bringing on a representative from every department or team can hep with making sure you have a diverse range of perspectives and ideas once you start planning.
Create a Festive Atmosphere
What would the holiday season be without lights, garland and bows? Some simple decorations can spruce up even the drabbest office and instantly inject holiday cheer. Decorating the office for the holidays creates a fun and warm atmosphere not only for employees, but for clients and customers, too.
Why not allow employees to put their own festive touches on their office space? Entripy’s IT department got into the holiday spirit and decorated their space like Santa’s Village, complete with stockings and elves.
Host a Holiday Cookie Exchange
Everyone loves to indulge over the holiday season. A cookie exchange is a great way to send staff into a sugar coma, but it’s also a chance for the bakers in your company to shine! Ask all your bakers to bring in their homemade goodies, label their tray with their name and ask everyone (bakers and eaters) to vote on the best cookie. Entripy’s holiday cookie exchange has been a huge hit!
Give Out Brand Pride
Handing out custom apparel branded with your company logo is the perfect way to encourage brand pride and employee engagement. The cold winter season calls for something warm and cozy, so think about custom sweaters or embroidered toques for your corporate gift. If you need help deciding on what to get your employees, use our top holiday gifts handpicked by the Entripy staff.
Encourage Giving Back
Giving back is a great way to unite your employees together for a great cause.
Choose a charity everyone can rally behind and allow employees to tap into their festive spirit and spread good will to those in need.
For the past several years, Entripy has partnered with Toys for Tots, a charity that provides toys to underprivileged families.
If your team has a taste for some friendly competition, hosting a charity drive makes for a great platform to test who can bring in the most donations out of your departments.
Secret Santa Gift Exchange
When you have a large staff, it becomes difficult to get everyone get to know each other.
A Secret Santa, or Kris Kringle, is a fun way to encourage employee bonding. Everyone who wants to participate draws a name at random and purchases a gift for that person. When done across departments, the office Secret Santa can be a great way to foster unlikely connections, especially when participants are tasked with finding a gift for someone they may not regularly interact with.
Ugly Sweater Contest
This classic contest is loved by everyone and is sure to rouse some jolly laughter. Whether homemade or store bought, ugly Christmas sweaters are a great way for employees to show some creativity and fun over the holidays. Think the ugly sweater contest is overdone? Why not try a holiday custom t-shirt contest? Create your own custom holiday designs, ask everyone to vote on the best one and get the winning design screen-printed onto t-shirts for everyone to wear!
Display Holiday Cards
Does your office receive tons of holiday cards from clients or partners sending you some holiday cheer? Why not share the joy with all your staff? Holiday cards can help show your employees that their hard work is paying off with satisfied customers.
The Annual Holiday Party
Arguably the most anticipated event of the year, the Entripy holiday party is a chance for everyone to put away our t-shirts and dress up. Getting together outside the office is a great way to boost team morale. After all, who doesn’t love great food, music and laughter with colleagues? The annual holiday party is always met with anticipation and is talked about for weeks afterwards.
