Inclusive Valentine's Day Practices in the Workplace

When celebrating Valentine’s Day at your workplace, try to keep in mind that not everyone has someone to celebrate with, and Valentine’s Day can be a painful reminder of that. This means that workplaces must be as inclusive and empathetic as possible to people’s mixed feelings about the holiday.

Employee Valentine’s ideas shouldn't be limited to flowers, chocolate, and tacky cards. There are plenty of ways your workplace can celebrate the occasion, such as spreading love and good cheer throughout your community. Plus, a little self-love goes a long way too.

Here are six inclusive Valentine’s ideas for your workplace:

1. Buy a Treat or Cater Lunch

Show your team how much you appreciate them with a special office treat or catered lunch. When choosing which food to order, look for a local small business you can support within your own community.

These businesses can use all the help they can get! Plus, it’s a great opportunity to network with other businesses within your community. How can you collaborate in the future and work to support each other?

Involve your team in deciding what type of food they would like to have catered, and don’t forget to ask about dietary restrictions. A bunch of cakes and sweets may sound like a good idea, but not to someone who has diabetes, is lactose intolerant, or is gluten-free.

2. Share a Local Valentine’s Gift for Employees

Support local businesses when making your Valentine's Day purchases. Whether you’re buying your team a small gift or purchasing some sweet office treats, choose to support local small business within your community before turning to a big box store. Put in the time to do your research and get to know your community.

Remember that Valentine’s gifts for office staff need to be tasteful and thoughtful. Be careful not to make anyone uncomfortable by throwing a contentious holiday in their face. Instead of the usual flowers, red candy, and heart-shaped objects, opt for products that focus on your employees’ needs and self-care.

3. Half Day Off for Self-Love and Self-Care

Allow Valentine’s Day to be about some much-needed self-love and self-care. Want to be the absolute best place to work? Offer your employees a half day off on Valentine’s Day (or any day in February) to practice self-care. If you really want to go all in, offer an allotted dollar amount to go toward a self-care or self-love activity.

Valentine’s Day love is often centered around a special someone, but we all deserve some extra love and attention from time to time. Self-care is incredibly important to living a happy, healthy, and balanced life. Neglecting self-care can lead to issues with work-life balance, mental health concerns, physical health concerns, and burnout. Encourage your employees to practice self-care, and do what you can to support them.

Put a focus on self-care this Valentine’s Day season, and help your team members take the time to intentionally love themselves.

4. Support a Cause or Charity

Spread the love to an important cause or charity of your choosing. Get the team involved by asking them what type of charity they’d like to support. You can raise funds as a team to give back to those in need. For an extra push, have the business match all employee donations.

Not sure where to start? You could donate to your local food bank, a sustainability effort, an illness that has affected you or someone you love, an animal shelter, or a children’s program.

5. Show the Earth Some Extra Love

Give some of that extra Valentine’s Day love back to the Earth by turning Valentine’s Day into another opportunity to focus on sustainability.

If you live in a warm enough climate, arranging tree planting or a garden activity with the team will promote team building while providing some much-needed fresh air. If February is a chilly month, invest in some office plants that the whole team can participate in planting. Have a remote team? Send everyone seeds and the materials they need to grow a small home office plant or kitchen herbs.

While focusing your V-Day love on the Earth, take the time to remind everyone of your recycling practices, and educate the team on the best ways they can be more sustainable around the workplace.

6. Virtual Valentine’s Ideas for Workplaces

We already covered a few ideas for virtual teams throughout this article, but let’s take some time to focus specifically on Valentine’s ideas for employees who work remotely. Remember that your remote team still needs and craves team building opportunities, and they should get the time they need to socialize and build rapport with one another.

Mark the occasion with virtual team building activities to engage the whole team. Include icebreakers and games at the beginning of team meetings, and set aside some time in February specifically for team building.

There are plenty of virtual activities available online, including virtual escape rooms, virtual wine tastings, mindful experiences, and other curated events.

Consider a theme day to mark February 14th, such as asking the team to wear red, allowing pets to join online meetings for the day, or encouraging fun virtual backgrounds during interoffice calls.

Source: https://www.bluesummitsupplies.com/blogs/career-and-culture/6-inclusive-workplace-valentine-s-day-ideas