While working towards a sense of inclusion and belonging for all team members is important year-round, the winter holiday season has its own special set of considerations. This time of year, company practices and workplace culture with respect to the holidays can especially contribute to a sense of disconnect, or even frustration, for some employees. Here are just a few tips that can help you reflect on and rethink upcoming holiday festivities and end-of-year celebrations at work. We promise what we have to say is more than just advising you to choose winter-themed seasonal decor or change your holiday sign-off to “stay warm.”
1. Check in with your community about holiday celebrations.
How do the members of your team feel about the inclusivity of current community norms and practices for celebrating holidays at work?
Have you surveyed your team about what holidays and cultural celebrations they would like to see recognized, if any?
Do you offer ways for employees to weigh in about what they would like you to know about their holidays or traditions in general, or their preferences about recognizing them at work?
2. Offer flexible holiday leave.
Revisit your leave policies - do you offer floating holidays?
The practice of integrating floating holidays avoids centering Christian and American holidays by allowing those who do not observe them to take holiday leave at another time
3. Assess whether you are putting equal emphasis on all holidays.
Create a culture that is inclusive of all holidays year-round. You might adopt a practice of holding seasonal or quarterly celebrations to recognize all the holidays observed by your community in that timespan.
Try hosting potlucks in which all are invited to share dishes from their culture or faith, or creating physical or digital spaces for people to post about their traditions if they choose to.
Integrate interfaith or global holiday calendars into your scheduling workflow, such as the add-ins available on Google Calendars. This helps to avoid planning meetings or events on important national, religious, and cultural holidays.
4. Be mindful of the accessibility issues that decorations in shared spaces may cause.
Minimize environmental barriers, flashing lights, and excess noise or motion from decor considers the needs of community members across the spectrum of ability and neurodiversity.
5. Ensure community members have access to mental health care.
While many associate the winter holiday season with celebrating and connecting with their loved ones, their faith, or both, that is not the same for all.
Some people in your community may find the dark and cold winter months challenging for mental health reasons, such as seasonal depression. Others may associate the holidays with a traumatic event, or with unwanted interactions with people in their lives whom they do not feel safe with.
Making sure that your employees have access to and are aware of mental health support in your workplace and community is important year-round, but is an essential resource in the winter months.
6. Consider the language and assumptions about family made in emails and correspondences.
It is relatively common for workplace emails in the winter holiday season to include phrases like “wishing you and your family a joyful holiday.”
Many individuals may not have close or healthy family relationships. Others may be grieving a recent loss, or may be unable to spend time with their families due to travel costs, immigration laws, displacement, being unwelcome at home, or other factors.
7. Support businesses owned by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ folks.
If your company gives holiday season gifts to employees or clients, consider supporting businesses owned by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ folks.
If appropriate in your community’s channels, share information about local businesses run by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ folks that they might consider supporting as well.
8. Assess the inclusivity of your holiday parties.
Provide thoughtful and diverse food options, and consider whether you might be inclusive of those who do not drink for personal or religious reasons by hosting an alcohol-free event or a two-phase party that only includes alcohol in one portion of the festivities.
Gift exchanges might not be financially feasible for some, and for others, gifts may not be part of their belief systems. If you have one, make it voluntary.
The goal of most end-of-year celebrations is to recognize employees and the hard work of your team. Be sure to emphasize that rather than throwing a holiday event that is a Christmas party in disguise.
9. Recognize and respect employee preferences, needs, and availability.
Flexible attendance requirements for holiday events and celebrations support your community's varied needs, beliefs, and practices regarding secular and non-secular holidays. They also signify recognition that differences in personal preference, capacities for socialization, and availability are all valid and valued.
Avoid judgment of those who cannot or prefer not to attend. Some may have religious reasons, and others in blended families may have limited availability due to multiple family obligations. Create a culture where all feel comfortable being authentic to their needs, identities, cultures, circumstances, and personalities.
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