Culture and Engagement 7 ways to add holiday spirit to your intranet Just as you would decorate your home and get it ready for holiday festivities, it’s also the perfect time to add some holiday cheer to your intranet. Here are seven ways to make that happen: 4 minute read You might also like… Whitepaper Intranet use cases Whitepaper 10 Award Winning Intranets The end of the year can be a chaotic time in the workplace. But, it’s also a great opportunity to boost employee engagement, foster social responsibility, and create new memories. And while it’s also common to see slight dips in productivity, that doesn’t mean your intranet should suffer. Just as you would decorate your home and get it ready for holiday festivities, it’s also the perfect time to add some holiday cheer to your intranet. Here are seven ways to make that happen: Let it snow Snow is always a possibility during winter, unless of course you live somewhere warm and sunny. But even then, you can always make it snow on your intranet. As one of our most popular customizations, our Falling Fun card easily allows ThoughtFarmer users to pick and choose any image—snowflakes, autumn leaves, emojis, money etc.—and configure it so that the images fall on a page(s) of your intranet. Create auditory notifications From the exponential volume of holiday songs, to the chiming of bells, there is no shortage of sounds associated with the winter holidays. One of our customers, MedData, leveraged the ThoughtFarmer professional services team to create seasonal auditory notifications on their intranet. “We wanted a fun way for employees to be alerted when they received a new notification, so we worked with ThoughtFarmer to set-up notification sounds,” said Sean Biehle, Head of Creative services at MedData. A holiday-themed “Ho, Ho, ho” was created for the winter holidays, while a gobbling turkey was used for Thanksgiving. In case you were wondering (and in case you have an office Scrooge), rest assured all these notification had the option to be turned off/muted. MedData also leveraged many of the other intranet add-ons available on ThoughtFarmer to transform their intranet into a truly unique collaboration platform. Organize your holiday work party If you have ever tried to organize an event you already know the stress involved. From locating a venue, to selecting a date, to ensuring it’s a location employees actually want to go to—it can get pretty chaotic. Fortunately your intranet can help with a lot of these tasks; even if your holiday party is virtual! Begin by creating an event page on your intranet that includes all the relevant details. This will help keep all important information in one central location (who has time to search for emails?). Next, take advantage of our new RSVP feature that allows you to track exactly who will and won’t be attending. There is also an event card option in ThoughtFarmer that can be added to any news post. So if you wanted to notify employees about an upcoming holiday work party, you can easily craft a news post, insert it onto your homepage, and add an event card in it that has all the details and RSVP options for the calendar event you created. Personalize your home banner Your headers are likely the first thing your users see when they navigate to a page on your intranet, which makes it the ideal area to add a little holiday flare. Uploading a holiday banner is easy on ThoughtFarmer since the site-wide header and all individual page headers are completely customizable. But, if you run into trouble, you can also reach out to someone on our professional services team of experts. Keep your memories alive Even if your event is virtual, there are still plenty of memories to be had. Keep these and other memories secure yet accessible by adding them to a photo gallery on your intranet. Create a donations page Holidays are a great time to donate to those in need. Use your intranet to create a section for employees to donate to causes they are passionate about. At ThoughtFarmer, we frequently engage in charitable activities, and most recently participated in a month long Movember campaign to raise awareness for testicular cancer (Click here if you want to donate to our team page!) Leverage your calendar for inclusion The winter holidays are full of days to celebrate—particularly if your employees come from a variety of different backgrounds, religions and beliefs. As workplaces become increasingly diverse, holiday season is much more than just Christmas. Put your intranet calendar to good use by adding in all applicable holidays and days of worship. For further information on all the customization and add-ons available on ThoughtFarmer, please contact our Professional Services team to learn more.