It’s the time of year for holiday parties, dancing and embarrassing yourself in front of your coworkers because you’ve had too much to drink. But what do you do during a pandemic where everyone is working remotely and social distancing? Don’t worry, just because you can’t celebrate together in the same room, doesn’t mean you can’t still get together and get embarrassingly drunk in front of coworkers with a remote holiday party (dancing is optional). Here are a few ideas and tips for hosting a remote holiday party for your employees:
- Do an activity together: Create a non-work related activity that all of your employees can do together over Zoom, no matter where they are. This requires a little advanced planning (add it to a Task List on your team wiki!) to send all of the necessary ingredients and items to your employees in advance, but a shared activity always sparks conversation and brings teams together.
Ideas: wine tasting, building gingerbread houses, creating holiday cards for charities to use with donated gifts, painting pottery.
- Play games: No equipment or extensive planning needed, just a few good ideas for games that will get teammates laughing and thinking about something other than work.
Ideas: Trivia games, Charades, Two Truths and a Lie, Holiday or Company-themed bingo, Pictionary
- Host a Zoom Dinner Party: Allow employees to expense a takeout dinner from their favorite local restaurant and just have a festive meal together while chatting over Zoom. The only rule: no work talk!
- Take a class together: Nearly all cooking and art classes are being offered remotely now, so arrange for your team to cook or create the same item together at the same time over Zoom. This also requires a little advanced planning to make sure the class is booked and everyone has the correct ingredients and equipment, but the act of accomplishing a complicated task together can go a long way to build camaraderie and team spirit.
If you can’t come up with anything fun to do or can’t afford to do anything extensive this year, consider just giving your employees a few hours or even an extra day off. They’ll thank you for the extra time to rest and spend with family and when they come back, they’ll be more productive and ready to tackle the challenges of a new year.
