5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays in Your Office

A recent Columbia University Study explains that the chance of job turnover at a company with a strong and positive company culture is 13.9%, whereas companies with a poor company culture have a turnover probability percentage of 48.4%. Whether your company is a small mom and pop store or a corporation like Google, company culture changes the entire vibe of the workplace.

The same study interviewed two dozen executives of whom 90% said that company culture was important at their firm, 78% said that company culture was one of the top five things that added value to their company and 92% said improving their company’s culture would improve the overall value of the company. Sadly, only 15% of these executives said that their company culture was exactly where they wanted it to be. Little did they know, there’s always a way to increase company culture. The benefit of employee satisfaction can do wonders for your business.

Celebrating Holidays With Your Team Contributes to A Positive Work Environment

The New Century Financial Corporation statistics show that employees who are happily engaged in their job produce better results. Further, companies with employees who enjoy coming to work outperform the competition by 20% and are 2.1% above their industry benchmarks. Happy employees produce happy results! What makes employees happier than the holidays? A great way to keep productivity levels at your company high is to mix that holiday spirit in with work.

Having a positive atmosphere makes shopping at your store pleasant for customers. Happy staff means they are likely to be more motivated and care more about their quality of work.

5 Ways to Celebrate the Holidays in Your Store

Decorations

A way to achieve a happy environment is to decorate the workplace or store with holiday themes. For example, if it’s Thanksgiving time you could use window-safe markers to draw turkeys around the work-area, have hanging decorations of mistletoe or decorative wreaths on office doors for Christmas.

The company could even have employees hang Christmas stockings with their names on them around cubicles, or around the check-out counter. For New Year’s, floating gold balloons or banners reading, “Happy New Year’s” are a good way to express enthusiasm for the upcoming year. Having employee’s create goals for themselves for the new year can motivate employees to work harder in all aspects of their lives.

Food

Having a group meal is a fail-safe method to show your employees you care. It gives them time to spend talking to and connecting with each other. This, in turn, can increase employee satisfaction between co-workers. It also provides an opportunity to educate your team about the unique qualities and value of the food and produce you sell – especially among newer hires. Ensuring your staff is familiar with your products (in a fun context) can help them sell and advocate better).

Can’t afford to spend money on a meal for the whole crew? Start a pot-luck! Potlucks are an easy way to build team cooperation while also having your diverse community of workers bring in a variety of food. It’s easy to create a quick excel-sheet with a list of all employees, share it around and have employees fill in the sheet with the item of food they’ll be bringing to the pot-luck.

According to founder and CEO of Vanderbloemen Search Group, companies should appoint a “cultural whip,” whose main job is to make the company environment is flooded with culture. The importance of this person is for multiple reasons, knowing that there’s someone in the company whose main job is to promote culture will reassure employees that their employer does care.

Dress-Up/Costume Contest

Whether it’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas there’s always something fun to wear. For Christmas, every employee could come to work dressed as an elf and the employee with the greatest elf costume could win some sort of a prize. To gather prize money, task someone with collecting two or three dollars from every person to put towards a VISA gift card or a lunch certificate. Remember: unhappy employees tend to result in low-level engagement resulting in a 33 percent decrease in operating income.

Family Day/Bring Your Kid Into Work Day

Spending time with your family is a quintessential part of the holiday spirit. What better way to incorporate family time by mixing work and family together? If the company can’t afford to spend a whole day focusing on family, make it a half-day for all employees and hold a family picnic on company grounds. This is a great way for employees to get to know each other while creating a happy atmosphere.

According to Dean Mathews, founder of OnTheClock, “define a people-focused, not profit-focused, purpose,” emphasizing the importance of the employee in the work-space while also validating them. Making your employees feel special will only further engage their performance and give them a desire to do better.

Holiday Party

It may sound basic, but there are many ways to elevate a Holiday Party into a fun extravaganza. Holiday Parties can be hosted anywhere, at the store, a restaurant or someone’s home to make a welcoming environment for all employees. This also encourages employees to become acquainted with the people they’re working with. These parties also are informal ways to remind people what’s important – family, friends, work and the holiday spirit.