5 Tips and Tricks to Engage Employees on Halloween

If you are familiar with Helios, you know that we are infamous for the color orange. Naturally, Halloween is one our favorite holidays to celebrate.  Not only because our CEO loves practical jokes and “releasing her energy” around the office by hiding under desks, behind doors, or any other unexpected places she finds fitting to shout “BOO!” to a casual passerby (not that I’ve ever been a victim), but because it allows us to engage our employees.  Utilizing opportunities like the holidays to further engage your team can really make a BIG difference with their experience of your corporate culture.

5 Tips and Tricks to have a Happy ‘Helios’ Halloween:

1. Dress-Up: As an HR consulting firm, I have to first advise you to over communicate what work appropriate costumes look like to your employees. If your expectations are not addressed prior to Halloween, the outcomes could be quite daunting.  123Print recently wrote a blog on work-appropriate costumes, Don’t Spook Your Co-Workers, which had some fun dress-up ideas with clear do’s and don’ts. Simple ways we incorporate the Halloween spirit into our professional attire at Helios include wearing our staple color orange and festive accessories like witch hats, cat ears, antlers, etc.
2. Decorate: From front lobby decorations, to pumpkin decorating, to door décor, the possibilities are endless! For instance, our friends at Reston Limo are currently having a Fall contest on their Facebook page for the best decorated department offices.
3. Demonstrate Caring: Thanks to Hallmark, it’s very easy to wave your magic wand (or, pen in this case) and demonstrate how much you care about your employees with a simple handwritten note card.
4. Distribute Treats: Whether you decide on a cauldron of candy, an early afternoon off, a healthy Halloween with fresh oranges or a potluck of everyone’s favorite fall dishes, you can be creative on what would be perceived as the sweetest treat to your employees.
5. Do Good: At Helios, we always try to incorporate community service into everything we do. An easy way to do this at your organization is by asking your employees to donate their leftover Halloween candy to Treats 4 Our Troops, a grassroots nonprofit that sends care packages with candy and magazines to troops who are currently deployed as well as the "Wounded Warriors" and their families who are recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Lastly, I’d be fooling you if I didn’t share that Helios is a huge champion of friendly competitions. Join us in taking the above tips and tricks to the next level by implementing a contest. Contests are a fun way to engage your team while also encouraging team building. We will post pictures of our pumpkin decorating contest on our social media pages tomorrow,  so make sure to check back to see who won!