5 Tips for Making the Holidays an Employee Engagement Extravaganza

Employee engagement comes in many forms. Many organizations look at it as a top-down activity, where perks are given to the rank and file staff by the executives or directors. But another form is one that meaningfully involves everyone across roles and departments.

ExactHire has solidified its monthly tradition of seasonally-themed and friendly inter-office competition. November’s version of this much anticipated event didn’t disappoint and was not surprisingly focused on giving thanks, eating food and taking out turkeys. Wait…what? Read on for details folks.

For those of you who weren’t able to join us for the spirited activities on Monday, November 16th, I thought it would be fun to give you the breakdown in a few quick snippets below. Gobble, gobble! Let’s get to it…

#5 – Deck Your Office Digs With Turkey Swag

To get into the spirit, a handful of us conspired to bring in an eclectic collection of autumn- and Thanksgiving-inspired decorations to make the conference room extra special and lively for our annual November potluck lunch. I think we struck a reasonable balance between really hitting the mark vs. making it look like the seasonal aisle at Michael’s or Jo-Ann’s threw up on our conference table. I mean, we even had a cornucopia!

#4 – Eat: Pre-Game, Main Event & Post-Game

Arguably, November is the easiest month in which to host an office pitch-in because you don’t have to worry about coming up with a clever theme. Yes, potluck sign-up sheets are old hat for us at ExactHire since we embrace the paperless nature of our business by using a shared Google Doc file to state our name and our favorite Thanksgiving-appropriate food converted into a portable version (courtesy of a crockpot). Especially on a Monday Funday, the nibbles started early with the pre-game warm-up followed by the main meal in the company of each other. A few people might have kept sneaking the chocolate-caramel brownies later in the afternoon, too.

#3 – Document the Day & Spread the Joy

Wondering about the picture, aren’t you? What better way to pay homage to a momentous meal than to embrace the power of the trytophan? But speaking of giving thanks and spreading cheer, one of my favorite ExactHire traditions is our annual Thanksgiving card to clients.

We’ve had fun putting together the design for the cards in past years as they’ve always depicted the members of our team in what we hope is a comedic way. This year, however, we wanted to try something new that could reach even more people — a video. We used Funday as center stage for producing our first (dare I say) annual Thanksgiving video card. The collaborative effort involved in the video production helped us engage in the day’s festivities even more…from the decorations to the personal video messages of thanks to the staged post-meal napping.

#2 – Shoot Some Turkeys

We can’t forget the competitive part of Monday Funday. When we all battle it out for the coveted golden vase and personalized certificate of achievement. November didn’t fall short with a bowling pin-style shooting range of thoughtfully (okay, maybe hastily) colored paper turkey drawings each assigned various point totals. Each participant was given two practice shots before taking six official shots to try and accumulate the highest point total. You may be wondering about our weapons of choice? Well, fellow teammate Darythe was kind enough to supply us with some sharp shooting tools courtesy of her daughter. They were from the Nerf Rebelle line in case any of you want to bring this contest to your own organizations.

I was up first and feeling pretty good about my chances, but was very quickly rousted from contention by pretty much every single other co-worker…except of course, Darythe, who ironically came in last despite owning the goods. The official standings:

• Darythe – 70
• Jess – 85
• Tom – 100
• Susan – 135
• Christa – 150
• Jeff – 185
• Randi – 200
• Allen – 250 (for his second Monday Funday win!)

#1 – Spend Quality Time With Great Teammates

It’s easy for people to be too busy to really talk to their co-workers these days. I’m sure many of us are guilty of taking lunch at our desks, heading off site to meet others outside of the company all the time or just huddling in our own offices/cubes to finish a big project for hours on end. Our Monday Fundays give ExactHire employees a built-in opportunity to stop talking shop for a bit and get to know and appreciate each other. Fostering that kind of synergy pays dividends when it comes to group projects and resolving challenges in the workplace. We highly encourage you to try similar stress-reducing, culture-building activities in your organization.

I think it is safe to say there is no “case of the Mondays” here!

Recent Golden Vase Winners