Discussion and Ideas for Employee Celebrations

We also had this kind of situation before. What we did was get employee suggestions and then vote, especially as we have different ideas and people wanting to follow some trends. We also noticed it was a good opportunity to improve employee engagement by getting them involved.

Thanks Cristine, could you share some of the suggestions that you received, and you felt it worked best.

Thanks Cristine, could you share some of the suggestions that you received, and you felt it worked best.

For virtual engagement, we usually keep it simple and inclusive rather than overloading people with long sessions.

For International Women’s Day, some activities that have worked well for teams include a short virtual panel with women from different roles sharing real career experiences. We also ask employees to nominate women who inspire them at work or in their personal lives and share those stories internally.

To include different kinds of mothers, teams sometimes run optional sessions like a lunch time talk on working parent realities, fertility journeys, adoption, or balancing caregiving for elderly parents. Others prefer lighter activities like virtual coffee chats, wellbeing sessions, or sending a small thank you voucher with a note acknowledging working mothers, single mums, carers, and those who support families in different ways.

We usually survey employees beforehand and let them vote on what they would actually enjoy. Engagement tends to be higher when people feel they had a say rather than something being imposed.