Cancel the company holiday party and do this instead.
Attendees creating a bespoke tea blend
What if, instead of planning a company event during a tight schedule of conflicting personal events and celebrations over the winter break, your organization’s celebrations were focused on dates of meaning for everyone?
It’s true that company holiday parties are a default, intending to provide an opportunity for employees (and SOs) to connect, using the holiday season as a reason. But companies with an intentional relationship with employees will reconsider that default and do better.
Learn from history and decide to:
Not try to navigate the holiday season’s traffic jam of demand for event spaces, experience providers, caterers and more
Not have any conflicts with employee personal plans for the holiday season
Not mix messages of why this why now with holiday expectations.
Not create opportunities for all the things we know company holiday parties are known for.
Instead, think of a meaningful cadence for YOUR organization to come together and create memories. Rethink what coming together means, including:
Fostering positive relationships at different levels, team, group, and organization.
Celebrating milestones, intentions, and achievements we know are important to our progress and identity
Recognize the differing needs of team members and vary celebratory experiences to embed inclusiveness and respect.
Exploring the flavors of sour foods
More often than not, the annual company holiday party is a confusing experience for employees, especially those who prioritize balance in their work commitments. A performative experience, the holiday party has to serve so many goals:
Showing appreciation to employees while also celebrating the fiscal year end
Providing an opportunity for leadership to speak to everyone at the same time, ideally reinforcing organization values and aesthetics
Allow employees to include their significant others in a company event to develop personal relationships
All great goals! But do they have to be at the absolute worst time of year?
So before we get too far into the year, take a hard look at how you celebrate and when.
Introducing our goal achievement methodology
Step 1: Identify the company milestones that deserve recognition. First new store in a region, first launch of a hero product, the start of a major collaboration, find the right reasons to celebrate.
How about the day we went public or the day the founders had the first spark of an idea?
How about at the start of a major pivot or the end of a major transition?
How about a tiered calendar of team, group and organization events that build connections at those levels on a regular basis?
Step 2: Add it to the calendar! If you have a company communication calendar, add connections and celebrations along with reason/message to it, and budget accordingly. This may be HR budgets augmented with team employee-related budgets to fund fully. (If you don’t have an internal communication calendar, try building one for this year. We can help.)
Step 3: Identify experience partners able to create a respectful experience that optimizes the connection with employees, customized to include your message and meaning for each event. The blurred line between work and play, colleagues and family, is going out of fashion with new employees who value their personal time spent with personal connections. We know (or should) that the idea of “work family” is outdated and actually rather toxic.
What does respectful celebration look like?
Includes interactive and unique experiences to cement the shared memory with the message
Intentional, brand-aligned messaging to anchor the experience, with opportunities for reciprocity and collaboration
Diverse social comfort levels and personal needs or preferences are recognized and accommodated
At a Matter of Taste, every team experience is bespoke, anchored on topics and tastes, and then developed with the goals and needs of the client team built in at the foundation.
From taste & make experiences to delight and inspire to deep dives into complex flavors to invoke discerning and communication skills, we facilitate agendas of elevated experiences and intentional mindsets of creativity and exploration. We know from experience that this recipe for honoring and respecting the people who deliver success works, and is on target for employee expectations in 2025.
