Creative Team-Building Ideas for the Holidays

An important element of company culture and employee satisfaction can be the internal programs organized by the company. We consider it particularly important that these programs fit into the team in both quality and relevance, as an event that has gone awry can achieve the opposite. That is why we would like to help our partners organize quality and creative programs for their employees, thus increasing their commitment.

In our article, we'll show you some tips on how to explore the festive season, taking advantage of the potential of community building, and how easy it is to manage these activities through our system.

Halloween and Thanksgiving

While pumpkin carving competition may be too obvious, it's easy to spice it up by looking into some out of the box ideas on Youtube or TikTok, so you can get into creative thinking right away, or get some basic accessories from hobby stores or even Flying Tiger. In fact, you can organize a Halloween costume contest as well.

Create a poll where you can easily and democratically conduct tournaments and make it easier for colleagues to use your online communication tools actively. You can also give even smaller prizes to the winners or the audience favorite (e.g. laser fight pass, dinner coupon, company mug, etc.), you can further increase employee satisfaction with small kind gestures like this. Create an event on the interface you're using and follow the event from the start to the "After" pics.

In the same way, it can be a great idea to ask for movie recommendations where you can vote for one of the recommended films submitted then you can organise a company movie night and watch the chosen one together. Just get a projector and a couple of speakers, some snacks, and you're done! 

Not all countries celebrate Thanksgiving but you can bring a new tradition into the office. Prepare a box and some paper and put it in a common area. Your colleagues can write little notes to one another to thank them for their annual work, support, coffee together or for whatever you are grateful for them. It can be by your names or it can be anonymous.

Office Santa Claus, Christmas and New Year's Eve

Charitable ideas

During the Holidays, think of those who really need help or some kindness so it's worth getting behind a higher cause and spending the annual Holiday budget on something other than the usual company gifts. Doing some charity work can also be a great team building program when it comes to company Christmas but you can organize your company programs around this idea at other times as well.

Organize a fundraiser for families in need, children's homes, animal rescuers, or any organization you'd like to join at company level! You can also start a vote about this to choose which organisation to support.

Office Santa Claus or Secret Santa

Assembling Santa's packages is never easy. If the package contains some edibles too you may want to assess food intolerances, and also it is advised to think about the sustainability aspects of the gifts. A great solution for this is to prepare a questionnaire in advance (online or offline), thus expressing the importance of a caring corporate culture. Moreover, you can include an option in the questionnaire as to whether the employee would offer his own package to a child or family in need.

Company Christmas

Using questionnaires can also be useful when voting on what Christmas programs the colleagues would like to participate in or if there is a company dinner you may want to ask about the food intolerances and dietary preferences (lactose intolerance, vegetarian, vegan, etc.).

When organizing plans, think of colleagues who may be away from their loved ones because of the pandemic situation or just geographical reasons. As mentioned above, you can include them in the celebration by recommending movies, books, recipes, and programs that can help them tune in to the Holidays.

Moreover, you can have an almost inevitable ugly sweater day at the office (or even a cooking competition with the ugly sweaters) and spice them all up with a competition.

Create a company Advent calendar, here the possibilities are endless. If the number of employees is exactly 24 that's excellent but you can make as many packages as there are at the company, then randomly distribute them to 24 then randomly select who’s opening the packages each day.

Company New Year’s Eve

Doesn’t matter if you’re planning an office New Year’s Eve or the first event of the next year a board game night is always a good idea. Everyone can share their own favorites or even bring in the new ones that they got for Christmas this year. There are plenty of fun games outside of Monopoly and Uno these days, so game on!

We hope that we’ve managed to contribute at least one great idea to your team as we approach the end of 2021! If you are interested in our useful features of the Blue Colibri App and how you can implement the above mentioned ideas, browse our website or contact us at the hello@bluecolibriapp.com email address!