While Valentine’s Day is mainly associated with romance, it is also the perfect day to show love and appreciation towards your employees. No matter the size of your business, recognising hard workers can increase engagement and employee retention. The HR team at GCS Malta lists 14 ways Valentine’s day can be celebrated at the workplace.

  1. Help out HR by turning decorating into a friendly competition

A simple but fun way to get everyone excited about Valentine’s day is to decorate the office in pink, white, and red. You can set up a decorating competition between departments if employees are willing.

  1. Set up an appreciation bulletin board

Whilst very simple, setting up an appreciation bulletin board allows employees to share their love on Valentine’s day by writing and posting sticky notes addressed to a co-worker. Although employee recognition is crucial to retain employees, do not underestimate the power of peer recognition.

  1. Have a Valentine’s Day selfie station

A selfie station not only gives employees another activity to do but also automatically provides content for the marketing team to showcase the company’s culture on social media. Selfie stations can be set up with cardboard cut-outs, streamers, or buying a ready-made selfie frame.

  1. Gift goodie bags

Giving a small gift is a great way to show appreciation. Goodie bags can be filled with self-care items, candy, chocolate, and company swag.

  1. Themed dress code

Inform all employees to come dressed in white, pink, and red to match the decorations. Although a simple idea, dressing up at the office can be a lot of fun.

  1. Host breakfast

For a more budget-friendly option than throwing an entire valentine’s day party, you can surprise your employees by ordering breakfast and setting up the table with Valentine’s day decorations.

  1. Play Valentine’s bingo

Provide bingo game sheets to your employees. To make the game more interesting, you can set up a prize system such as a voucher when an employee shouts bingo.

  1. Set up a decorating cookies activity

Bake or buy plain heart-shaped cookies and provide items to decorate them with, such as icing, candy, sprinkles etc. This can be a fun valentines theme activity for employees to interact with each other.

  1. Hire a massage therapist

Bring in a massage therapist to provide 15-minute massages to your employees as a nice treat for their hard work.

  1. Organise Valentine’s Day trivia

Organising a quiz can be done easily on Kahoot and can keep your employees entertained easily. Add a prize to spice up the competition, and remember to always check with HR when it comes to picking workplace-friendly questions.

  1. Play a candy guessing game

Buy a mason jar and fill it up with candy. Then, ask each employee to guess the amount of candy inside the jar. The employee with the closest number gets a gift, such as company swag.

  1. Host Valentine’s Day happy hour

Decide on a date and set up happy hour at the office after work. In addition, you can also serve pink/red drinks to stick to the theme.

  1. Volunteering activity

Although not as romantic, organising a volunteering activity can be great for team building and remembering to be compassionate with one another.

  1. Plan a Valentine’s Day party

Should you have enough budget to host an entire party, try combining various ideas from our article to create the best Valentine’s day part employees could ask for.

Why GCS Malta?

At GCS Malta, our highly skilled HR professionals provide sound advice from tips to retaining employees through team-building activities to the creation of employee handbooks. Contact us today for more information on how we can help you.

Article by Sarah Jane Gauci