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If your business has embraced off-site working, be it hybrid, remote or working from home, then you may be struggling with ideas for end-of-year celebrations that match your new working style.
You don’t need to revert to an on-site event if that doesn’t suit your current ways of working. There are plenty of approaches you can use to celebrate the end of 2022 and usher in 2023 that aren’t face to face.
If the pandemic lockdowns taught the world anything, it’s how to connect with each other in fun and innovative ways.
Hampers
If you’re not bringing your team together for a face-to-face meal, you could allocate that budget towards sending your staff hampers that they can share with their families. If you’re unsure what to include in the hampers, you could also consider a voucher to a hamper business for each staff member to choose what works best for them.
You could then encourage people to post photos of themselves enjoying the hampers on your workplace chat forums. This gives your employees a chance to celebrate and connect with both their loved ones and their colleagues.
Online Christmas/Hanukkah etc. trivia
Trivia is always a great way to bring people together as it provides an immediate talking point. Depending on the size of your business, you could divide your workforce up into teams of people that they don’t normally work with, and then host an online trivia event focused on end-of-year celebration questions.
Schedule the event at a time you know most of your workforce will be available. For example, if you have a lot of parents on staff, having an evening event might be difficult for them to log on to, but a lunchtime event may be much better attended.
For inspiration on different end-of-year events you could frame questions around, check out this Shondaland article.
Celebrate over a drink
If you used to do workplace drinks before an end-of-year break with a final thank you from the CEO, but no longer have everyone working in one place to make this feasible, why not block some time out in people’s calendars (on work time) for a drink and thank-you message via Zoom/Teams etc?
With a bit of forward planning, you could send a nice bottle of wine or a cocktail kit with a Christmas/thank you card out to staff ahead of an online get together so people can join the call with a drink.
If your organisation is large, you could consider breaking the business up into smaller groups. Different members of your c-suite could deliver the thank you message and spend time chatting with those on their call.
However you choose to mark the end of the year with your employees, a simple thank you for all your hard work this year always goes a long way!
RELATED TERMS
In a hybrid work environment, individuals are allowed to work from a different location occasionally but are still required to come into the office at least once a week. With the phrase "hybrid workplace," which denotes an office that may accommodate interactions between in-person and remote workers, "hybrid work" can also refer to a physical location.
Shandel McAuliffe
Shandel has recently returned to Australia after working in the UK for eight years. Shandel's experience in the UK included over three years at the CIPD in their marketing, marcomms and events teams, followed by two plus years with The Adecco Group UK&I in marketing, PR, internal comms and project management. Cementing Shandel's experience in the HR industry, she was the head of content for Cezanne HR, a full-lifecycle HR software solution, for the two years prior to her return to Australia.
Shandel has previous experience as a copy writer, proofreader and copy editor, and a keen interest in HR, leadership and psychology. She's excited to be at the helm of HR Leader as its editor, bringing new and innovative ideas to the publication's audience, drawing on her time overseas and learning from experts closer to home in Australia.
