Throwing a Halloween work party during COVID can be more TRICKY than TREATY – but don’t cancel your company’s Halloween activities! We need team-building now more than ever. While we’re all social distancing and forming frightfully close relationships with our PPE – you can still brew up fun, safe Halloween celebrations for your whole company.
Here are 6 ways to keep Halloween spooky (and safe!) at work:
1. Give out pre-made Trick-or-Treat Bags
Hand out or mail out festive candy goodie bags to employees. Having pre-made goodie bags ready to go minimizes contact. Find a fun variety of festive Halloween bags or candy on Amazon.
Protip: Consider including healthier snacks like trail mix, clementines (very pumpkin-esque!), popcorn, or nuts.
2. Hold a Costume Contest!
Throwing a company-wide costume contest is a great way to boost morale, spice up the workweek, and improve team collaboration in a fun and creative way. Star Staffing throws costume contests every year with high engagement from both employees and clients. This year is clearly different, so here’s how we’re making it safe and keeping it fun.
• Encourage Employees: Employees can dress up individually or create team costumes (recommended!) – incentivize employees with a fun prize like a team lunch or gift cards.
• Do the Monster Mash: Hold the costume contest a few days before Halloween to get pictures of all the awesome and creative costumes.
• Ask Clients to Vote: A day or two before Halloween, send an email blast out to your clients to have them vote on their favorite costume.
•Poll Social Media: Create individual social media posts of the costumes and count each engagement as a vote for that costume or team.
•Announce the wicked winners! The winning teams at Star get a free team lunch and individuals get gifts cards!
Follow us on social media to vote for our costume contest! Follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
3. Haunted Happy Hour
This is a fun option for virtual teams who are lacking that light-hearted connection at work. Pick a theme for your Halloween Happy Hour – like carnival, monster mash, or movie characters – and encourage teams to dress up. Consider asking fun Halloween trivia questions intermittently to spice up the conversation.
Pro-tip: Send out fun (and easy) Halloween-themed drink lists and include yummy mocktails for non-alcoholic options for teammates working at home. You can also create and share a Spotify playlist that people can play to turn up the fun if they’re remote!
Here are some tips for handling alcohol-friendly work parties.
4. Spooky Bingo!
Easy and fun! Bingo can be played virtually or safely in-person. Just pick your moderator, provide bingo cards that can also be printable from home, and be sure to have enticing prizes for winners!
Your moderator will create cards out of Bingo boxes by cutting up the original Bingo sheet. Draw cards randomly until someone calls Bingo!
Here are 2 free, printable bingo templates for you to use:
Halloween Bingo Cards from The Spruce
Halloween Bingo Cards from Little Projects
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5. Halloween Team Trivia
Trivia is fun, competitive, and team-building!
Here’s how to go virtual with your Halloween Team Trivia: Choose an enticing prize, a friendly moderator, and break employees into groups. Don’t allow phone use – you may have to use the honor system here. Most video platforms allow for breakout rooms, so decide how long to make the breakout sessions for team deliberation (30 seconds -1 minute is enough) then have each team share their answers one by one.
Protip: Have each team create a Halloween-themed team name for added fun.
Here are 60+ Halloween Trivia Questions and Answers
One Trivia question we like:
What is the original name for what we now call Candy Corn? (Answer below)
Answer: Chicken feed
6. Pumpkin “Carving” Contest
This can be done safely in-person or virtual. Provide sharpies or markers for drawing on pumpkins instead of knives. Provide pumpkins for employees if possible or offer printable pumpkin outlines if virtual teammates need them.
Comment below which one of these you’ll pick to celebrate Halloween safely at work. Happy Haunting!
If you are in Sacramento and need help from our staffing firms, we are always here! With seven offices throughout Northern California, we can offer a broad selection when it comes to various types of positions. Contact us at 916-274-4543 today to learn more about our application process.
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The CDC also provides additional risk-reducing information for celebrating Halloween at work during COVID.
Related Articles
https://www.starhr.com/4-ways-to-keep-employees-engaged-this-holiday-season/
https://www.starhr.com/how-to-survive-your-office-holiday-party/
https://www.starhr.com/how-to-handle-alcohol-friendly-work-parties/