Christmas party season is always a great opportunity to give your team some appreciation.  Whether you realise it or not it is important to them.

Taking the time to celebrate achievements in a meaningful way with your employees' offers numerous benefits from both a team morale and business perspective.

One of the most effective ways to boost employee morale, satisfaction, and motivation is to make people feel appreciated.  Teams that feel their efforts are celebrated will be more engaged and driven to maintain that successful momentum.  Celebrating as a group allows employees to connect with each other beyond just daily workplace interactions.  It brings the team together and working towards shared goals.

Think about what you have done (or are doing for your Xmas party).  It doesn’t have to be big and flashy but have that pause with your team where you make them feel appreciated.  Ideally you want to be building bonding between them also.

Some ideas to get the team feeling connected and appreciated:

·        Host a party– Christmas parties are a classic.  We also do End of Financial Year for example, so it doesn’t just need to be Christmas.

·        Organise an outing – this could be social club, could just be team but everyone pays their own way, could be funded by the business. The idea is something different, together as a memorable group experience.  This can be fun like going to a sporting event, play/concert, comedy club, museum exhibit, escape room, cooking class, or another activity you could do together.  It could also be a site visit to customer/supplier if they have something interesting you can show or just something fun in the shed/office.

·        Have an awards ceremony where you hand out light-hearted awards or recognise individual milestones (personal or business) and team members who excelled. People appreciate being celebrated for their specific contributions.

·        Plan a volunteer activity for teams that value giving back, you could organise a volunteer activity like serving a meal at a shelter or working at a charitable event.

·        Decorate the workplace to bring fun, cheer and even banter in the workplace.  For instance, it can be seasonal theme (Christmas) or event such as the Olympics.  Get each department doing their own area and get a competition going so it isn’t all on you and it gets everyone involved.

·        Goals, targets, incentives – always great way to pull the team together to common goals and get collaboration and reward.  

·        Gift exchanges and giveaways – think Secret Santa or similar games where people draw names for inexpensive gift swapping. Or the company can give out branded holiday gifts, gift cards, etc. as celebratory giveaways.

The key is making it a bit special without it needing to be a massive distraction.  It is still a workplace ultimately but you can have fun with it and you can have heart. If it is genuine the staff can feel it and will work better for you.

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