October is a fun and festive month filled with pumpkins, cinnamon spices, and costumes! While children love Halloween as their creative juices run wild with dressing up as heroes and critters, adults in the corporate workplace can have equal amounts of fun during the day. Plus, who doesn’t need a free pass to consume mountains of sugar? *wink
Halloween in the Office: 5 Corporate Team Building Ideas
Because Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year, the workplace can easily see a boost of morale, employee engagement, collaboration with colleagues, and interactive fun. While HR is often involved with planning, companies can also ask each department to come up with an activity or theme. This will allow employees to step into leadership roles, where they can expand upon their event planning and organizational skills.
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Here are 5 fun and easy ways to celebrate Halloween in the office or workplace this year.
1. Host a Staff Costume Party
Encourage employees to come dressed up in a costume to win a prize for the following category suggestions: Most Creative, Most Hilarious, Most Scary, Best Team/Group Costume.
During the contest, the announcer can ask all costume participants to enter in only one category. As the announcer requests each category to stand on stage, they can have the employees announce themselves and the inspiration behind their costume. After each announcement, the audience can vote by cheering for their winner the loudest. Prizes can get creative just be sure to have enough for the group/team costume one. An idea is to have a lunch outing with the CEO or upper management and can be a great way for upper management to connect with employees across the organization.
2. Decorate Desks
Departments and individuals can run a contest to see who has the most Halloween spirit through decorating. If competing by department, give each department an allowance so they can purchase supplies and decorate together. If competing individually, set a budget for each member to be reimbursed should they choose to participate. Employees can cast their ballots for best desk decorator so participants can win a prize.
3. Host a Halloween Breakfast, Lunch, or Potluck
There are many great recipes for Halloween and who doesn’t love food? Hosting a Halloween themed breakfast, lunch, or potluck is a popular way to have interaction between employees and celebrate all of the festivities.
Here are a few favorite recipes I’ve rounded up:
Black Lemonade
Cheesy Halloween Breadstick Bones
Halloween S’mores Dip
Jalapeno Popper Mummies
Mummy Dogs
4. Mummy Making Contest
This one is very similar to the bridal shower game where you split up into teams and nominate one model. The rest of the team members grab a roll of toilet paper and make a dress. In this case, the team is making the most creative mummy they can. There should be a time limit of around 3 minutes and all mummies must walk along the cat walk so the audience can cast their votes by cheering!
5. Pumpkin Carving Festivities
This one can get messy so make sure you have a lot of newspaper or disposable table cloth! Have employees carve their pumpkins for display around the office. This is an easy way to build employee engagement and have decoration around the office.
I hope you have a spooktacular Halloween and enjoy celebrating as an adult!
I love it when corporate offices get into the holiday spirit because it just breaks up the mundane nature of everyday work (unless you already have an incredibly exciting job). I loveeee being able to decorate my work space and find it really helps to lift my spirits!
That’s amazing feedback, Helen! I wish I could have seen your office!
It’s been so long since I attended an office party. I have been working at home for quite some time now! I think these are all lovely ideas! I really like your suggestions.
LOL Carol, very true… I think us entrepreneurs and solopreneurs need a day in the park!
I really like the breakfast/lunch and pumpkin carving ideas. There’s nothing like food and friendly competition to bring the staff together.
Hehe friendly competition is always fun!
I think the brunch or lunch is a nice idea. Make it a potluck and it would be fun.
Yes! Always interesting to see what people cook up .. or buy! 🙂
We have a costume and workplace contest. I like the idea of pumpkin carving or a themed potluck. I will suggest these to our social committee.
I love that you have a social committee!!!
it’s always fun to get together and enjoy the holiday with the group/office. something like a lunch party sounds like it would be perfect.
I agree. It’s a nice way to break up the day and get the energy back in the room.
I work from home, so no Halloween celebrations here (don’t celebrate it anyway). But it’s quite common to see seasonal decor and employees in costume in many businesses and stores around here – even a few days before Halloween – and some places like banks and hair salons often have refreshments like apple cider and munchies out for customers.
That’s always a nice touch to put out something for visitors, guests, and customers! Great points!
I love these ideas! i wish my office did something like this to celebrate halloween and the festivities!
Perhaps you can take the lead in the winter holiday decorations! 🙂
Great ideas! Thank you
I am an HR professional and I love employee engagement ideas like these. Happy Halloween
So wonderful to hear that Meghna! Thank you for stopping by and good to know this is HR approved. Haha.
Great idea to bring holidays into the work place. I don’t care much for halloween, but these are great ideas to apply to other holidays. I would decorate my desk for the season for sure.
Hehe yes, a splash of orange really livens up the place. Thanks for stopping by Adkins!