10 Virtual Office Halloween Ideas for Employee Engagement
Halloween is one of Cooleaf's most popular holidays for festive and engaging programming. How are you ringing in spooky season with your team this year?
Does your team love embracing Halloween? At Cooleaf, we help organizations celebrate their employees, work wins, and holidays. Yes this includes everyone's spooky, festive favorite, Halloween.
As far as employee engagement, Halloween is one of the most popular holidays for our team building activities and challenges. From accounting, to development, to leadership, Cooleaf’s platform makes it easy for remote team building activities and traditions like Halloween costume contests or spooky scavenger hunts.
A study by Klick Inc. shows that, for highly engaged companies, Halloween is one of the most anticipated company events. The holiday also provides a great opportunity to build camaraderie and teamwork across departments.
Now that many hybrid and remote teams are looking to authentically connect online, holidays or special occasions give teams a reason to participate in some fun activities. Encouraging team bonding outside of focused work, opens up conversations and allows employees to get to know one another better.
Keeping reading for eight of our favorite virtual team-building activities and Halloween celebration ideas to celebrate spooky season.
Looking for virtual team building ideas? Check out our free guide to engaging virtual teams!
A Quick Note on Celebrating Halloween with Your Team
While Halloween festivities are non-secular, SHRM points out that a spooky holiday party can open doors for potential infractions for inappropriate costumes or safety issues. So before the Halloween fun begins, be sure to make adjustments and clearly communicate company policy where needed.
A great example of celebration done right is the Vericom Corp. team in Roswell, Ga. They embrace Halloween with a workspace decorating contest and costumes and make sure to tell employees that decor needs to abide by fire safety regulations.
As we approach get-togethers in-office or event spaces, don't hesitate to be clear or reiterate policies multiple times.
Now, let’s get to those Halloween activities to connect and celebrate virtually...
1. The Classic Costume Contest
Who doesn't love to dress up for Halloween? Your team members might already have their costumes sorted out just waiting for an opportunity to share their creativity!
For your virtual Halloween party, why not host a costume contest? Host the contest live on a Zoom call and have team members get dressed up for a virtual happy hour and costume pageant.
On Cooleaf, you can host a week-long contest and invite your teams to post their costumes, their kids' trick-or-treating, even their pets! Everyone can earn points for sharing and then vote for the best costume.
If you want to take it to the next level, you can create categories for "Most Creative", "Best DIY," "Spookiest", or "Funniest". And don't forget to offer a prize like gift cards or additional Halloween treats— no tricks here!
2. Candy Bracket Challenge
Think March Madness meets candy corn. In this friendly competition of bite-size proportions, you’ll host daily polls of tasty Halloween favorites. Which treat reigns supreme? Mini Butterfingers or bite-size Snickers? What’s worse? Candy Corn or the dreaded Halloween-themed black and orange Laffy Taffy? Let your employees voice their sweet (or sour) opinions on what should win.
You can use an online poll, Slack with emojis, or your own social media feed to encourage employees and followers to join. Tally the votes to move winners up the bracket.
Encourage employees to guess the winners and keep up their own bracket a la March Madness. Maybe Milky Ways will have a true Cinderella story. Or perhaps pumpkin Reese's will take it all. Who knows!
It's silly but truly engaging. Everyone has an opinion on candy after all. For the bracket winners, be sure to gift Halloween treats! Maybe the winning candy.
3. Pumpkin Carving Contest
This time of year brings out thrilling and funny pumpkin carvings. Why not host a friendly challenge for team members to share their skills? They can squash the competition in person with some real-time carving or, if you all remote work, ask them to share their jack-o-lanterns via photo!
If you have non-pumpkin carvers on your team, ask for their best Fall or Halloween decor ideas.
The Cooleaf Jack-o-Lantern Virtual Challenge is a festive and engaging event where participants can showcase their Halloween spirit. By completing specific tasks, such as uploading a photo of their meticulously carved jack-o-lantern, participants can earn points, adding a competitive edge to this spooky season fun!
Level up your carving masterpieces with themes for their pumpkins: from TV characters, scary movie villains, or the classic pumpkin expression.
With Cooleaf, you can also give gift cards to team members so they can gather their carving tools in advance. Get ready. Get set. Gourd!
4. Spooky Party Playlist Activity
Building a playlist together is a fun way to collaborate with remote employees or those in-house. Start a Spotify playlist with the Monster Mash, then ask everyone to contribute a Halloween song of their own.
You can use your ghoulish tracklist for your office Halloween party or if you're remote, share the playlist for teams to jam out to.
As a fun icebreaker before meetings, you can play a track before jumping into your agenda to set a festive mood.
5. Murder Mystery Dinner Party
Think beloved board game Clue meets virtual escape room. A Murder Mystery dinner party includes a mystery to be solved and a cast of characters in costume. You can find online options to fit your team count.
Be sure to give roles out in advance and ask people to come in costume, online or in-person. Now, work together to solve the crime!
Getting into the holiday spirit? Download our festive free guide for 12 activities to spread cheer on your virtual or hybrid team!
6. Virtual Escape Room
A virtual escape room is an incredible idea for teams that want to get really engaged this Halloween!
Team members can join via Zoom to crack the code and escape as a unit, completely remotely. Check out options from TheEscapeGame, GreenhatGames, and others!
7. Halloween Bingo
Imagine your traditional bingo card, but sprinkled with Halloween magic! Each square could feature favorite October icons:
- Spot a black cat
- Eat candy
- See Halloween decorations
- Go to a haunted house
- Have a bonfire
You can host your Halloween bingo party via Zoom. Invite participants to dress up in costumes or use themed virtual backgrounds for some added fun!
8. Virtual Haunted House Tour
This one's really spooky! Virtual haunted house tours offer a spine-chilling, immersive experience for thrill-seekers and ghost story enthusiasts alike, all from the comfort of home. Check out this list of Creepy Virtual Haunted House Tours.
9. Office Decor Challenge
In-person teams love this challenge. Much like some houses in the neighborhood get spooky with fake cobwebs or even inflatable ghouls, encourage employees to decorate. That can be their office cubicle or home office.
To take it up a notch, ask teams to work together. In-person departments can craft areas or a remote team can carry a theme across their individual desks. Then vote on your favorites!
10. Face Your Fears Challenge
We know that this time of year is known for its scares, so create a Halloween team building activity that invites your people to chat through fears. Create a space where people can share a time they had to face one of the scariest moments in their professional or personal lives, and how they overcame it. What was the result?
Then ask employees to share intimidating goal and see if there are ways to connect people with advice or support they need to accomplish it.
By supporting one another, and sharing your own vulnerabilities, team members will feel connected and empowered.
