Halloween can be celebrated in many different ways. Some enjoy watching scary movies and attending haunted houses, while others enjoy going to Halloween costume parties, or even spending time with their little ones going trick-or-treating. What about celebrating Halloween at the workplace? Does your office have a party or costume contest? Whether you celebrate the holiday or not it’s still a great way to have some fun at work.

Here at our office we want to get everyone involved by joining in on our Halloween costume contest. It is a great way for the employees to have a little friendly competition. Of course, not everyone will participate in the contest. So if you are trying to plan an enjoyable Halloween event at work and want everyone to join, the best way is to offer some type of prize. In fact, when prizes are involved you would be surprised how many people do chose to partake.

The great thing about having a costume contest is it brings out everyone’s creative side. It’s great to see what people can come up with and how much time they put into their costume. Of course, on the day of the contest it’s a blast to see the costumes, but the anticipation up to it is just as fun. Everyone goes around trying to figure out what to be and get ideas off each other. In a way it is a great way to build teamwork when trying to help decide what to wear.

To make the contest even more interesting it can be neat to have a specific theme and everybody has to wear something related to that topic. This year at our office, a few employees are going with a Reality TV Show theme. This can be stirring up even more rivalry between coworkers, which can be quite entertaining.

This year Halloween is on Friday, which makes this party a great way to end the work week! On Halloween, we all show up in our costumes and vote on who we thought had the best attire. Once the votes are tallied we announce the winner and celebrate with a pizza party. You can get even more artistic and make your gathering a Halloween style potluck. Bring something in to pass like banana style ghosts or mummy hot dogs.
Everyone at the office enjoys this event because it gives them the chance to mingle and talk about other things besides business. It’s important to have a good company culture that engages with entertaining activities now and then. We spend most of our time at work, why not have a little fun once in a while.

Happy Halloween!

Natalie Chrapla is the Marketing Coordinator of Automated Business Designs, Inc., software developer of Ultra-Staff staffing software for the staffing and direct hire industry. Ultra-Staff is a staffing software business solution with components for front office, back office and the web. Natalie’s email address is Natalie.Chrapla@abd.net or for more information on Ultra-Staff go to www.abd.net.