This year has been a year of forced innovation for businesses as we all try to find ways to take our normal in-person functions and make them virtual. While it may not sound like the most wonderful way to celebrate, virtual holiday celebrations are better than none at all!
Holiday parties can be a time to bond as a team, to relax, or to celebrate the wins of the year. Remember the reason behind why your company does a holiday party, and try to stay true to that sentiment when putting together your virtual party and design your holiday party around that intention.
As you’re putting together the agenda and plan, here are some virtual holiday office party ideas that you can do with your employees to keep it interesting and fun!
- Ugly sweater contest
Video conferencing means that you can all still partake in an ugly sweater contest! If you want to up the stakes, use some of your normal holiday party budget to have really great prizes for first place and runner up. You can use Google Forms or a similar tool to have all of your employees vote on who should win. This virtual holiday party idea helps get everyone involved and sets a lighthearted tone for the event.
- Holiday drinking game
If your holiday party is going to be alcohol-friendly, consider coming up with a drinking game for everyone to play. You can select certain holiday words or something as simple as talking about work and everyone needs to take a drink whenever anyone speaks about those off-limits words or topics. If you want to get really fancy, you can share the recipe for a signature cocktail or mocktail for the party.
- Holiday games
Play holiday trivia or holiday bingo as a way to get everyone engaged and as another way to give out prizes. Competition can be a fun way to get everyone to participate and be involved in the party.
- Share your favorite holiday memory
This virtual office party idea is great for newer teams that might need a bit of an icebreaker or something to start the conversation. Have everyone share one of their favorite holiday memories. It can help to have one of the leaders go first to set the tone and share something personal with the team.
- Secret Santa
This virtual holiday office party idea takes some planning upfront. Use a digital tool (or the trusty names in a hat approach) to draw names for Secret Santa. Share the name and address of the names drawn and set a dollar figure limit for the gift. You can make it part of the party by asking people not to open their gifts until the virtual holiday party.
If you’re unsure about what would resonate most with your culture then conducting the AcuMax Echo will help you prioritize what you need to address within your culture. If everything is important, then nothing is. The Echo process is based on wiring profiles, so our reports will show the significant gaps and where your current culture is out of alignment with how your employees prefer to be motivated. The Echo company culture assessment quickly highlights the factors that are more important and where improvement is most necessary. This will help you know what cultural gaps you have and what the motivators are when planning your holiday party.
