plan a party Archives - Celebrated Events

It’s your retirement – let’s celebrate! It’s a great accomplishment to achieve, and it’s an opportunity to celebrate you as well as your years of dedication and hard work.

So what do you need to think about for a retirement party? Here are a few ideas.

Themes

Choosing a theme is an easy way to start the planning process. Your decorations, food choices, and party favors (if you decide to have them) can all be determined by your theme. If you’re jumping into the planning process for a retirement party and don’t know where to start, this should be Step 1. Shutterfly has a great article on how to choose a theme that works for your party and your goals.

If you decide not to have a theme, that’s great as well. You can still keep it simple and easy without becoming overwhelmed. For example, if you’re having the party in the autumn, you could use harvest décor on the invitations and for centerpieces. You could decide to use solid colors that go well together for napkins, tablecloths, and invitations, such as blue and gold, and voila! You have a good portion of your decisions already made.

Speeches

Your boss or direct supervisor will likely have a few words they’d like to say about your years of service. But your coworkers or team members may also have some words they’d like to share. Allow at least one speech and/or toast so that everyone attending has an easy opportunity to thank you by raising a glass in your honor.

You may also want to make a speech of your own. You could make it serious and heartfelt or funny and lighthearted, or some mixture of all the above. It’s also a way for you to publicly thank your colleagues for their support and dedication in the office alongside you. Your retirement celebration is all about you, for certain, but if you’re self-conscious or dislike having the spotlight entirely on you, go ahead and thank your team, your coworkers, your spouse or children, or anyone else you’d like to mention.

Slideshows

Decide if you’d like to have a slideshow. Or, if you’re planning the party for someone else, you could decide to include a slideshow in addition to or in place of a big speech. Use photos from past events the honoree was at, photos or video of their accomplishments or key projects, etc. Of course, you may not have photos of these events, so you may have to get creative. But do avoid a PowerPoint presentation style – you don’t want your guests to feel like they’re attending a business function. Keep it simple, keep it lighthearted, and keep it out of PowerPoint if at all possible!

Invite Friends and Family

It’s a celebration for your family and friends as much as your coworkers. Assuming your party isn’t at the office and restricted to colleagues, it’s perfectly OK to invite friends and family as well as business partners, networking partners, and other business connections to join in your festivities. Make sure that your invitations make this clear, however; if you’re inviting friends and family who may have young children, they’ll need to know if they need to arrange child care in order to attend, or if children are welcome.

Keep in Contact

Just because you’re retiring doesn’t mean you have to stop talking to all your work friends or partners. Make sure your colleagues and associates know how to contact you now that your office email won’t be the main method of contact. You could even create new retirement business cards with your preferred means of communication to hand out at the party, or set on a table for folks to take with them. Retirement may mark the end of an era for you, but it doesn’t mean you have to isolate yourself from the people who have made an impact on you.

A holiday party for your company is a great way to let employees relax, have fun, and get to know each other better. A party can encourage team bonding as well as let employees from different departments who may not interact on a day to day basis socialize with each other. It’s also a nice way to thank employees for their hard work through the year, and many companies will fold in awards, special thanks, or holiday gifts or bonuses with the holiday party to make it that much more exciting.

Here are a few tips for improving your company holiday party.

Planning is Key

Like any other big event, make sure you plan it! A holiday party sounds easy – just throw together some food, some music, and you’re done, right? Wrong! If you’re providing food, you need to account for any specialty diets. If you’re providing drinks, are you providing alcohol, and if so, is it open bar or cash bar? If you’re providing a special dessert, who’s making it and what kind will it be? In fact, who’s making any of your food?

Location is crucial if you plan to have the party outside of your office. Many locations book months in advance, and December is a popular time for parties in general. Plan to book a location and secure your spot during the summer months if at all possible. If you wait until the autumn to book a venue, be prepared to shop around or be turned down. If you need to wait until closer to December to book your location, it’s a good idea to have a plan B in mind already so you aren’t scrambling at the last minute, or forced to host a larger party in a small space.

These questions and many more will come up in the process of planning your party, so it’s best to start early. You may want to have an events committee as well to help take on tasks so that no one person is doing everything.

If you’re planning a large party and you don’t have an in-house events coordinator, consider hiring an event planner to help get things organized.

Guest List

Your employees are invited, of course, but who else do you want to invite? What’s the goal of your holiday party?

If your goal is strictly to honor employees, you may want to limit the party just to your employees and maybe their families. If your party is more open to celebrating the business or a general end of the year party, consider inviting business partners, networking associates, colleagues outside the business, or potential clients or partners.

Once you decide, make sure it’s clear on the invitation who can come. Language such as “All employees and their families are invited – children welcome!” would cover all bases for most people. Also make it clear to whom questions and RSVPs should be directed.

Holiday Gift Exchange

A gift exchange for the office sounds like fun – but account for the length of the exchange when you’re picking the game! I know of one case where the office decided to do a White Elephant exchange one year and it took over an hour to get through all the gifts because of the number of people who decided to participate. While it could be fun, it’s maybe not the best use of your party time.

White Elephant is more fun for a smaller group, but it can be used by larger offices. Secret Santa can be fun, although it has been less popular as a choice for office gift exchanges. For this one, you may want to allow departments to do their own Secret Santa so that employees who know each other better will be more likely to choose gifts the person wants.

A Grab Bag could be a practical but fun gift exchange that’s similar to the White Elephant but without the potential for a too-long game. With Grab Bag, everyone who wants to participate brings a wrapped gift, which is put into a large opaque bag. Then the participants pull a gift from the bag on their turn based on how it feels and unwrap it. There’s no stealing in this game, so what you get is what you get.

Keep Diverse Backgrounds in Mind

A holiday party for your company is a fantastic idea. But you don’t want to accidentally alienate any of your employees or make them feel unwelcome. When choosing decorations or a theme, keep the diversity of your employees in mind. My recommendation is to either honor all the backgrounds represented by your employees, or none. For example, it’s likely that your holiday party isn’t going to be on Christmas itself, so rather than having the party be a “Christmas party”, it’s OK to leave it as a “holiday party” or “winter holiday party”. This also allows the party to be a simple celebration of the end of the year and keep it lighthearted and non-specific to any one tradition.

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