Whether your company has been remote for years or just transitioned to working from home over the past several months, fostering a sense of community and connection among your team is crucial for building a positive employee experience.
And while staying connected with your employees should undoubtedly be a year-round endeavor, the holiday season is a perfect time to ramp up your connection efforts. Celebrating the holidays with your remote team not only brings some cheer to a busy time of year, but it sets a positive tone for the year ahead.
5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays With Your Remote Team
With so many ways to connect online, companies have endless opportunities for virtual celebrations during the holiday season. Here are some of our favorites!
1. Host a Virtual Holiday Party
With free dinner, cocktails, and a chance to dress up and hobnob with coworkers, swanky office holiday parties are often the highlight of the season for employees—and an important part of a company’s culture. But just because you can’t have an in-person fete right now doesn’t mean you have to nix the company holiday celebration!
You can host a virtual holiday party on any video conferencing platform (like Houseparty or Google Hangouts), but Zoom has some features that can really up the fun factor. For instance, you can utilize Zoom Breakout Rooms as different “rooms” of the party, and party-goers can move from room to room to chat with coworkers. Even better, you can make each room a theme with a specific team-building game or contest to keep employees engaged.
If food and drink were a big part of your in-person parties, send workers a DoorDash or Grubhub gift card to bring their own appetizers and libations and then have everyone eat while managers present awards or host a holiday-themed trivia session.
You can ask attendees to dress up, but keep in mind that a fun dress code (think ugly holiday sweaters or silly seasonal ties) will probably be more appealing to your employees than something formal.
2. Organize a Holiday Gift Exchange
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Being a remote company doesn’t mean you can’t encourage the exchanging of inter-office holiday gifts—you’ll just have to do it remotely! A virtual “Secret Santa” gift exchange enables employees to get to know each other a little more and embrace the holidays as they shop online for others on the team.
Rather than pulling names out of a hat, consider using Elfster, a free online gift exchange service that does all the work for you. Participants can make wish lists and share gift ideas, and the site draws names. If your remote team prefers more of a minimalist spin on the holidays, a virtual “regift” exchange can be a fun way to get into the spirit of giving without having to buy a bunch of stuff.
One important thing to consider: Mandatory gift exchanges may make employees feel stressed rather than spirited, so it’s wise to make any office gift exchange optional. That way, no one feels pressured to spend money (or time) they don’t have buying or shipping gifts for coworkers.
3. Create a Cookie Swap
Your newly remote team may really be missing the usual holiday sweets rampant in an office environment. Sure, they can go out and buy their own, but it’s just not the same as walking into the break room to a table piled high with decadent desserts!
If you have some enthusiastic bakers on your team, an optional cookie or dessert swap may be the perfect way to satisfy that holiday sweet tooth. Similar to a gift exchange, employees can sign up to bake and receive a dozen holiday cookies. A simple spreadsheet with names, addresses, and any allergy concerns is all you need to get this fun tradition going.
At the very least, a delivery of yummy homemade treats this holiday season will brighten up participating team members’ days—but it could spark a friendship that goes beyond the workplace.
4. Plan Virtual Holiday Contests and Games
The fun thing about contests and games is that they’re not a “one and done” type of deal, like a virtual holiday party. You can stretch out multiple holiday-themed contests and games like these all season long to keep everyone feeling festive for weeks on end.
Make a Gingerbread Home Office
For a twist on the usual gingerbread house, how about a gingerbread home office contest? For a small team, you could send materials to all contestants (graham crackers, frosting, candies for decorating). If your company size makes it tough to mail supplies to everyone, though, consider emailing a $10 electronic gift card to participants to cover costs.
Have everyone send in pictures of their masterpieces and see who comes up with the most interesting design, with awards for most unique, most colorful, and most realistic gingerbread creations. Gift cards are always much appreciated, but extra PTO or company swag can also sweeten the deal.
Decorate the (Home) Office
Without a shared, decorated office space, it can be hard for your remote team to feel like it’s actually the holidays. But to encourage holiday merriment, hold an office decorating contest.
Employees can decorate their home offices however they’d like and then send in a picture with them in their new digs. Post the pictures on your company’s social media platform or in a holiday-specific instant messaging channel, and everyone can vote on the best. The winner gets an Amazon gift card to buy something for their home office.
Or, set up a video meeting to “unveil” decorations, with mini-tours from each contestant.
Start a Weekly Game Hour
From now until the end of the year, you can give your team a respite from holiday stress by hosting a once a week, paid holiday-themed game hour. Whether it’s bingo, trivia, karaoke, or a scavenger hunt, a low-key weekly holiday game via video meeting can bring everyone together and take the focus off of work for a few precious moments.
The camaraderie and bonding employees will feel by having this scheduled “on the clock” time to connect with coworkers for non-work related fun is sure to last well beyond the holidays.
5. Create a Holiday Channel
In the day-to-day of remote work, when you don’t ever see your remote team face to face, it’s easy to forget that they all have lives and families outside of their jobs. When it comes down to it, the holidays are about spending time with (or appreciating, if we can’t see them in person) those we love, so celebrating what your employees do when they’re not working can help to make remote work more of a “human” experience.
If you don’t already have one, start a holiday channel on Slack or whichever messaging platform your company uses. Encourage employees to share holiday pictures, fun anecdotes, family traditions, recipes, music playlists, or holiday activity ideas. You’ll be surprised how many people are eager to share their favorite holiday experiences with their teammates.
‘Tis the Season
With the year coming to a close, the holiday season truly is a wonderful time to thank your employees for all they’ve done and get them excited about the new year ahead. Celebrating the holidays with your remote team helps create and nurture a company culture that lets employees know you care and that you appreciate everything they do—not just this month but all year long.
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