Valentine’s Day Is a Day for Couples. But Have You Thought About Using the Day to Show a Little Love to Your Team? Here’s Ways to Make the Day Fun at Work—for Everyone.
In the middle ages, single women and men would draw names to choose a Valentine. They pinned the name on their sleeves for a week…thus “wearing their heart on their sleeve.” Nowadays, celebrating Valentines Day has become one of the biggest spending days of the year—a chance for people everywhere to show their love for each other. If it’s been a little while since you’ve had a team-building event at your office, Valentine’s Day is an excellent excuse to roll out the kind of company parties, free lunches, and incentives that make employees feel seen and appreciated. Here’s our thoughts on the tricks and tech that can make that make Valentine’s Day fun for everyone on your team, whether they work remotely, or not.
Start By Being Considerate of Everyone’s Needs
Remember, not everyone has a partner that can make them feel appreciated at home. Perhaps they’re widowed, or single, divorced, or simply still reeling from a bad breakup. For many, the day might not feel like a cause for celebration.
Having something going on to celebrate the holiday at work can make everyone feel like they can participate equally in the day, regardless of their personal circumstances. But before you plan your Valentine’s Day awesomeness, ask yourself a few questions:
- Do I have any team members that have medical conditions with special special dietary needs, like diabetes or celiac disease? If so, consider adding some additional options, like sugar-free chocolates, or gluten-free cookies.
- Does Valentine’s Day fall during the work week? If so, don’t plan anything for your staff after hours. Everyone will have places they need to be. Think about bringing in breakfast, lunch or afternoon snacks instead.
- Are there any COVID protocols to consider? If so, you may want to opt for individual gifts, or, individually wrapped treats, rather than an open lunch buffet where everyone is spooning out their meals with the same serving utensils. Concerned about having everyone together in the same room eating? Make it easy for employees to carry back to their desks.
- Do you have team members who work in a factory setting, or work remotely? Then the typical event might not be the best way to show your appreciation. See some of our ideas below on how to make a remote team feel appreciated on Valentine’s Day.
Ideas for Making Valentine’s Day Fun and Inclusive at Work
Whether you’re all in the same office together, or spread across the country, there’s are great tools out there for showing your team how much you appreciate all they do for the company. Why not try some of these?
- Unveil online recognition platforms like Bonusly—Valentine’s Day is a great day to kick off using an employee recognition program like Bonusly year round. Every employee is automatically enrolled with a certain number of points every month to give away. They can gift their co-workers when they do a good job or show great teamwork. Then employees who’ve been gifted with points can redeem them in the company store for everything from company swag, to gift certificates at their favorite stores and restaurants.
- Send employees an online gift certificate—Small, general gift certificates to places like Starbucks can be a very well-appreciated gift. Have a week of coffee, on us! Bonus points go to managers who send the certificate with a personal note that says what they appreciate about the job their report is doing.
- Host a Valentine’s Day breakfast, or lunch—Bring in individually wrapped breakfast biscuits and donuts. Have the local deli deliver sandwiches. Bring in heart-shaped cookies with the company logo from the local bakery. Employees will appreciate it. And for those who can’t be there, send gift certificates for a meal of their choice.
- Give everyone a half day off—People will appreciate the ability to go home and spend time with their loved ones.
- Put up photos and stories in your employee communication portal about ways your people share the love—Have employees who have done amazing deeds in company volunteerism efforts? How about employees who went the extra mile for others in the office? Celebrate the day by celebrating them, and hold them up as shining examples of company culture of serving others.
Valentine’s Day can be a great opportunity to reinforce your company culture, and make people feel appreciated for who they are and what they do for the company. Keep it sincere, and inclusive, and you’ll get great results.
Help Your Business Share the Love
Still looking for more ideas on how to show your employees appreciation? Try our latest blog on tech gifts your employees will love.There are so many great ideas for building teamwork and transparency, you’ll see why all this new technology makes us so happy to be in tech.
Of course, one of the best ways you can show employees you care is providing them with a modern, connected workplace that enables remote and in-office work. For most companies that means moving your business to cloud-based productivity tools. Here at Iconic, we can help. If you’d like to know how to transition your company’s network to the cloud, and how much you should pay for a managed service IT provider that understands cloud tech, we can help. Download our FREE Modern Workplace Essentials Kit today, and take a deep dive into what Cloud technology can do for you!
From our hearts to yours, Integris wishes you a safe and happy Valentine’s Day.
