How Can We Make Our Diwali Office Celebration Extra Special This Year?

Hi,

I am working with an MNC in the Human Resources Function. With Diwali just around the corner, we need to come up with a celebration plan. I have thought of some ideas like Traditional Attire, Exchange of Gifts, and a Rangoli Competition. If you have any interesting ideas to make the celebration special, please do share them. We all know that in the corporate arena, these celebrations, even at a small level, help in de-stressing the employees and work as good bonding activities.

Thank you,
Pearl.

Hi,

You can have a cabin/cubicle decoration contest: have teams work on it and see the results (you would be amazed at how teams work together to get the best results out). Start this early so that you can welcome the Diwali spirit at the office.

Have a Mr./Miss "firecracker" competition (in Hindi, this sounds much better... Patakha contest!!). This could be similar to personality contests but add spice to it using lingo used to describe the strength and form of crackers; it's fun.

If you have an open area available on your premises and lighting festive diyas won't be a problem, you could have a contest on lighting diyas; have teams work on it. The team lighting the maximum diyas in a given time wins.

Just use some more creativity, and you could see a lot of concepts generated to celebrate Diwali at the office.

Thanks,
Kamaljit

Take a look at this site: www.papertoys.com. You can download a few models, print them, and engage in this activity to create your own paper models. This activity can help build patience and creativity among the employees.

I would suggest the following models as they are easy to make:
1. Great Pyramid
2. Eiffel Tower
3. Empire State Building
4. Mount Rushmore, etc.

Feel free to share your comments.

Dear Kamaljit,

Getting the diyas lit from teams is a good idea since it will be a good team-building activity too. Please help me understand... We have various teams, i.e., departments, but the strength of employees differs in each team. How do we manage that?

Should we create separate teams for playing games where we nominate people from various departments?

Regards,
Bhavna

That could be done or well... there's something more interesting that you could do: have cross-functional teams and make teams with an equal number of members.

Thanks,
Kamaljit

Hi, what I am doing here is similar to what Kamal said. We are having a small get-together with families invited, and activities like:

1. Paper Dance
2. Musical chairs
3. Best Cabin contest.

And then we all light small fireworks, definitely not the bombs, but just small "phuljharis" :-)) Cheers, friends! Have a great Diwali.

Hey,

We are also doing similar activities in our office:

1. Cubicle / Cabin Decoration
2. Fashion Show
3. Ad Mad Show (This is a very interesting competition; you need to give it a funny concept name, and the participants need to prepare a humorous advertisement to sell their product. You can try this out.)
4. You can also have a dance competition followed by a quiz.
5. Diya making or lighting competition
6. Treasure Hunt (This is also very exciting. You need to take help from your colleagues. In this, you need to seek nominations, make teams; your HR team, i.e., your colleague team, needs to hide some exciting gifts somewhere in the office. Prepare clues on chits, for example, a mathematical calculation of a cubicle. When they find the cubicle, it will lead to another clue, and after 10 clues, they will find the treasure. This is a really exciting and fun-filled game.)
7. You can also have one-minute games; they are also thrilling.

Hope these suggestions are helpful. Feel free to buzz me for any more clarifications.

Thanks & Regards,

Dipika Amlani

Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely time celebrating Diwali. We too had fun in the office. In fact, every department had come up with several creative ideas in addition to the ones sent by us. To pep up the already charged atmosphere, tarot readers, braid makers, mehendiwalis, etc., were called too!

NOW... CHRISTMAS!

Don't you think HR starts celebrations weeks in advance? So, what's in store in terms of making plans? ;-)

Cheers!!! Pearl.

Hi,

The suggestions given here are really great. However, I would require some more information or ideas on the same. I am working as an Assistant Manager in the HR Department of my office. My office's strength is somewhere around 60 to 70 people. As we all know that Diwali is around the corner, I am also looking for ideas to celebrate Diwali at the office.

I would like to request all the members that if someone has some nice and good ideas, kindly share them. I really liked the idea given by Kamaljit but I am still looking for some more options.

Thanks,
Sharol

Hey, I was just finding some innovative ideas to celebrate Diwali in my office, and your ideas have really helped. Can I have some more ideas? Some interesting group game or something?

Hi Kamaljit,

You have given really great ideas. Even, we can go with a collage competition with a theme like "Diwali - the Joy of Giving," which I am doing at my office. We will also be having a traditional attire competition.

Regards

Dear all, I have received your reference to organize stalls by NGOs for Diwali. Please share their contact number or email address if they are from Mumbai. If you can suggest any creative ideas to make Diwali 2010 successful, you are most welcome. I want to make this event lively with increased participation.

Regards, Geeta

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