Thanksgiving is an important holiday for Americans, often more so than Christmas and the Fourth of July. It is an opportunity for families to come together and feel close to one another. It’s also fun to celebrate Thanksgiving with employees and colleagues. What better way to do this than organize a Thanksgiving event.
Why Celebrate Thanksgiving with Employees?
Since Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks and expressing gratitude, it is a great opportunity for employers to show employees how important they are to the business. Employees who feel valued are far more likely to stay with the company. They will also be more productive, which helps your bottom line.
Encourage employees to bring their families along to the event. This gives everyone an opportunity to socialize and make new friends, plus you can get to know your employees on a more personal level.
If you’re planning a Thanksgiving event for your employees and their families, read on for some useful planning tips.
Ask for Ideas
It’s a good idea to ask employees for their thoughts about what sort of celebration they would like. Place a suggestions box in a central area. Not everyone likes the same things, so you might want to hold more than one event. Equally, people may come up with an idea you haven’t considered.
Make a note of whether any employees are vegan or have other dietary restrictions. Their needs will have to be catered for if you include food as part of your workplace celebrations. Consider any employees with mobility issues too.
A few classic employee only Thanksgiving celebration ideas that most people will enjoy include the following:
Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt
This one is great for families. Kids will have a lot of fun searching for Thanksgiving-themed items like fall leaves in a specific color, mini pumpkins, corn dolls, bags of Thanksgiving cookies, and anything else that fits the theme. You can even turn it into a team building exercise by choosing teams to work together to find as many items as possible in an allotted time.
Turkey Cook-Off
Celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey cook-off. Ask each employee and their family to cook a turkey, using their favorite recipe. You can then judge the winner based on the taste test. Naturally, the company should provide the turkeys and key cooking supplies, but the rest is up to the individuals.
Set up the event on company property, with cooking tents and eating tents. Decorate the area with pumpkins, streamers, and Thanksgiving-themed decorations. Serve hot and cold drinks, some Thanksgiving appetizers for picky eaters, have candy treats for the kids, and rent a cotton candy machine. Midway game trailer rentals are perfect for family fun day celebrations around Thanksgiving; parents can chat while kids play games!
You could even rent a blizzard snow machine if the weather is too warm for a Thanksgiving vibe.
Even if your employees all work from home, there are plenty of great ways to celebrate Thanksgiving virtually, too, so you really have no excuses this year!
So many great ideas! Really well thought out and gorgeous photos. The only thing I would include is perhaps a magician, or Emcee to keep things flowing smoothly and add some extra laughter and excitement – I could be biased though.