Halloween is right around the corner. But unfortunately, it’s not a federal holiday. So employees by and large will report to the workplace on October 31, which happens to fall on a Monday this year.
For many people, Halloween is one of the most exciting days of the year. To strengthen engagement and make your team even closer, your company would be wise to celebrate the holiday in the office. This isn’t to say you need to go overboard. But some level of celebration — whatever is appropriate for your particular organization and jives with your values and culture — can’t hurt. In fact, it’ll likely pay dividends.
Drawing a blank as to what you can do to celebrate Halloween at work? Consider these five options:
01. Encourage employees to dress up with appropriate costumes
For one day each year, we’re able to become anyone (or anything) we want to become. We can dress like total ghosts and goblins, and somehow it’s OK. Nobody judges us.
To celebrate the spirit of the holiday, encourage your employees to dress up to their heart’s desire — within reason, of course. Male strippers and sexy maids need not apply. The last thing you want is someone’s costume to offend someone else. Good news: The folks over at Refinery29 have put together a handy infographic that should help you determine which costumes are off limits. Share it with everyone.
02. Bring in lots of candy
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Let’s say your employees aren’t really keen on dressing up or you don’t want to deal with a headache that could ensue if someone wears an inappropriate costume. Fine. The second-best part of Halloween is obviously the candy. Bring in lots of candy. Everyone’s allowed to scarf down Mr. Goodbars on Halloween.
03. Blast some Halloween music
It won’t hurt to play some Halloween-themed music, either. We all know the Monster Mash, and here’s a list of the top 10 Halloween songs as compiled by Billboard. Make a playlist. You may also decide to throw on some Halloween-inspired sound effects. Check out Disneyland’s Thrilling, Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House. (Or even a Phish Halloween set inspired by said soundtrack.)
04. Decorate your workplace
SOURCE: pinterest.com
Letting a holiday like Halloween come and go without decorating your office is a real disappointment. At the very least, decorations liven things up. If everything works out perfectly, you could find the workplace decoration portion of your Halloween celebration to be extremely beneficial as employees become engaged and get to know each other even better. Stumped on ideas as to how exactly you can decorate your workplace? You’ll find over 1,000 of them over on Pinterest.
05. Play games and do activities
Halloween is a great day for team-building exercises. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to improve your team’s camaraderie. So bob for apples or have teams design and carve pumpkins. While the former activity is sure to make everyone laugh, the latter is sure to strengthen employee bonds.
A little bit of Halloween spirit can go a long way toward boosting morale and increasing employee engagement. If yours is an office that doesn’t usually celebrate Halloween, ask your workers what their thoughts are on doing a little dress up this year. Better yet, ask them how they’d like to celebrate Halloween. The more collaborative the planning process is, the more likely you’ll be to have a successful team-building experience.
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