Valentine’s Day may be over a month away, but in my opinion it’s never too early to start planning! Although the holiday is typically celebrated between couples, I think it’s a great opportunity to have a fun day with your team. After all, we used to have Valentine’s Day parties in school. Why not bring them to the office?! 

Your celebration should be focused on fun, boosting team morale, and employee appreciation, which is a great thing to do in mid-February. By then, the holidays are long behind us and most people (like those of us in Michigan!) are in the middle of a long winter. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot. These low cost Valentine’s Day ideas will give you plenty to do on February 14th without breaking the bank!

First, an absolutely free Valentine’s Day idea: send an ePraise card. Choose a card to send to the entire team and say “Love your work” or “Way to put your heart into it.” Using ePraise, you can make Valentine’s Day a day for employee appreciation!

 

It’s estimated that more than 58 million pounds of chocolate will be purchased during the week of Valentine’s Day. Bring some chocolate goodness to the office on Valentine’s Day with a dessert potluck. Invite the entire team to bring in their favorite dessert to share. Elect judges to taste the different dishes and hand out awards, like the Stole My Heart with One Bite Award, and present certificates to the winners. What other awards would you give out?

Everyone loves food in the office, so give each of your team members a small treat on Valentine’s Day. Whether it’s a small bag of Tootsie Rolls or Sweet Treats full of jelly beans, your employees will love that you remembered them. Add a personal note to each piece of candy to make this an effective employee appreciation gift.

One of my favorite Valentine’s Day ideas is having an old fashioned card exchange. Create mailboxes for your employees out of paper bags or shoe boxes, and ask everyone to bring a Valentine’s Day card for each of their teammates. I think this would be a blast at Baudville. We’d have some really creative cards floating around!

Finally, I love the creative Valentine’s Day ideas on Mud Pie Studio blog. They posted 101 Valentine’s Ideas for under $5, and a lot of them would be perfect to give in the office. The valentine using the Pop Rocks is one of my favorite because it has an employee appreciation message. 

Over the years, I have volunteered for a number of different organizations. And I’ve done it for a number of reasons: desire to help people in need, passion for a particular cause, and an interest in growing my community. Never once did I decide to do it because of a strong need to feel appreciated.

That said, I have a confession: when, at one organization, I felt frustrated over their poor communication and unresponsiveness, I kind of lost the drive to continue giving my valuable time and talent. And, after repeated incidents of feeling like all of my work was just being sucked into a gaping void, I decided to step down.  

With Christmas only one week away, those of us in the office who like to bake – and like to eat baked goods – have sugar plums, candies, and cookies dancing in our heads. If you’re like me, you may spend days in the kitchen making goodies to share with neighbors, friends, family, and party hosts. It’s a lot of time and a lot of work!

This year, one of my teammates arranged a cookie exchange among our department. Ten of us signed up for the very easy swap: bake enough of your favorite cookie to share with nine other coworkers. The result was fabulous! We didn’t all have to spend the entire weekend in the kitchen, but we got a delicious variety of sweet and chocolatey treats to share with friends and family.

When we got together for the exchange, we had fun learning about the different kinds of cookies and admiring the unique holiday packaging (we declared Hobby Lobby the best resource for cute bags). We each talked about the type of cookie we made and explained the significance, if any, of the recipe. I made my family’s sugar cookie recipe and decorated each cookie, while one of our designers made an authentic Bosnian dessert. Next year, we’ll each bring a recipe card for the exchange, too, so we can recreate a new holiday favorite.

This is a really easy and fun team activity. Everyone gets to take home delicious goodies and share a little bit about their holiday traditions, too. In our cookie exchange, we had brand new recipes and family favorites shared. You can use this opportunity to learn more about your teammates as individuals and celebrate the holiday season in a friendly way.

Here are a few of the recipes we swapped in our office cookie exchange: 

If your office is anything like ours during November and December, then there’s probably a tray of cookies, a tin of peppermint bark, and/or a basket of gourmet cheese around every corner—as well as a sneaky little feast fairy waiting to sprinkle on the unwanted pounds. Definitely not the kind of holiday magic any of us is wishing for!

While working as a department supervisor, I had a team leader reporting to me who had a peculiar ritual: at the start of each day and again at 3:00 in the afternoon she and her team would stand up and sing together “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” complete with hand claps during the refrains. This was odd to me, for one because we were located in Michigan, and two because, well, I just didn’t get it. I thought it was annoying, disruptive, and total a waste of time. And, in the end, I actually told her she had to stop. This didn’t go over well, and I became even less popular than I already was.

Now that I’ve had many years to mature and reflect on my period of tyranny, I’ve come to see it all more clearly. What she knew that I didn’t at the time was that these breaks in the work day were critical to maintaining high morale, keeping her team energized, and building unity among everyone. And to think I destroyed all of that with one single no. :sigh: