Employee Engagement Holidays in 2025

Employee engagement and recognition are year-round priorities for HR teams — but why not set aside a few extra special days to share your appreciation?

Creating opportunities for shared celebration and appreciation is essential for building an engaged company culture. Considering that a 2024 Gallup report found only 32% of U.S. employees are engaged, most workplaces could use a few more excuses to come together and celebrate.

If you’re looking for team building or event ideas, the below holidays may offer some inspiration. 

What is an employee engagement calendar?

An employee engagement calendar is your company's roadmap for making work more enjoyable. It can be a simple list of dates or a detailed plan outlining activities and events scheduled throughout the year to boost happiness and engagement.

In addition to lighthearted national holidays (e.g., “National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day”), HR teams might also want to include holiday parties and other annual company events.

Building an employee engagement calendar is a meaningful way companies can show they want to develop a positive work environment. It's a tool that helps companies schedule fun and meaningful activities to keep employees engaged and happy at work.

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Employee Engagement Holidays in 2025

January

1. National Trivia Day (January 4, 2025)

If you’re thinking of ways to keep spirits high after New Year’s Day, a little friendly competition might do the trick. Organize a virtual trivia game to bring your teammates together. Here are a few trivia game ideas to get the ball rolling. 

2. Bagel Day (January 15, 2025)

Kick off the week with a company-sponsored breakfast. Give your remote employees a breakfast voucher or stipend for spending at a local deli or bagel spot.

3. Lunar New Year (January 29, 2025)

Not all cultures start the year off with the Gregorian calendar. Many East Asian countries celebrate on the first new moon. Traditions include creating a Tray of Togetherness, a platter of bite-sized delectables symbolizing good fortune. Order some to hand out to your team, or organize a potluck lunch. 

February

It’s Black History Month in the US. Work with Black Employee Resource Groups to ideate initiatives. Be sure to dedicate budget for speakers, books, or other activities they suggest.

4. World Cancer Day (February 4, 2025)

World Cancer Day draws attention to research and support for the millions in the fight. Many people put off life-saving cancer screenings, intimidated by the stress, cost, and time involved. Consider providing time off or organizing in-office support. 

5. Rosa Parks Day (February 4, 2025 in some states and December 1, 2025 in others.) 

Slavery was abolished in 1865, yet nine decades later, Rosa Parks still had to protest for her rightful seat on a bus. It's an important reminder that the roots of racism run deep, and there's still work to do. Conduct DEIB workshops, panel discussions, and in-office historical exhibits from the Civil Rights Movement. 

6. Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2025)

If you subscribe to Lattice’s newsletter, you already know We ♡ Humans. Because you feel the same way about your employees, surprise them with a sweet treat for Valentine’s Day. Include a heartfelt note to make the gesture even more meaningful. Don’t forget to send something to remote colleagues as well! 

7. World Day of Social Justice (February 20, 2025)

Your employees are likely to be passionate about a variety of social justice issues — especially millennials and Gen Z. Use this day as a moment to acknowledge the diversity and importance of those issues. Consider offering time off to participate in advocacy campaigns or volunteer opportunities that support social justice initiatives.

8. Ramadan Begins (February 28, 2025)

In Islam, Ramadan is a holy month marked by fasting, prayer, and reflection. Support your Muslim employees by providing flexible work arrangements, creating a space where they can pray privately, and organizing iftar gatherings where employees can break their fast together. 

March

It’s Women’s History Month. Honor the women in your company with employee profiles, book clubs, or other activities suggested by your women’s Employee Resource Group.

9. Mardi Gras (March 4, 2025)

Mardi on! Organize a Mardi Gras-themed potluck lunch where employees can bring dishes inspired by New Orleans cuisine, like gumbo, jambalaya, or beignets. Don’t forget King Cake for dessert.

10. World Book Day (March 6, 2025) 

Looking for a creative way to bring people together that isn’t a happy hour? Organizing a book club is a great way to foster camaraderie, cross-departmental communication, and a little healthy debate. Consider sponsoring book purchases to encourage participation.

11. National Employee Appreciation Day (March 7, 2025) 

HR practitioners know employee recognition matters year-round. Still, you can go above and beyond on National Employee Appreciation Day by giving employees company swag, a sponsored lunch, or even a surprise long weekend. 

12. International Women's Day (March 8, 2025)

You can't prioritize DEIB without recognizing the experiences and achievements of women. Highlight the impact that girls and women worldwide have as workers, caregivers, innovators, community organizers, and teammates in the workplace.

13. St. Patrick’s Day (March 17, 2025)

Decorate the office in green, share festive Zoom backgrounds, or host a traditional Irish cooking class featuring staples like shepherd’s pie, corned beef and cabbage, and soda bread. ‍

April

April is Earth Month, National Volunteer Month, and Arab-American Heritage Month in the US. “Lunch-and-learns” featuring Arabic food and time off for volunteering are a great way to bring people together.

14. Earth Day (April 22, 2025)

Help your company do its part by organizing a volunteering day to clean up a local park, plant some trees, or stitch and decorate reusable grocery bags. Encourage employees to share photos from the event on social media or a company Slack channel.

15. Administrative Professionals Day (April 23, 2025)

Our workplaces wouldn't be what they are without the administrative professionals keeping everything running smoothly. Take time to recognize their outstanding contributions using your team praise tool or by organizing a virtual event.

May

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and Jewish Heritage Month (US). Focus on psychological safety, have open conversations around mental health, and remind employees of the benefits they can receive.

16. Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2025)

This holiday commemorates the Mexican Army's victory at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. Celebrate Mexican heritage with a company-sponsored panel and catered lunch or dinner. Traditional staples like mole poblano and chalupas are closely associated with the Mexican state of Puebla and the holiday.

17. International Human Resources Day (May 20, 2025)

For a team so invested in everyone else's engagement, HR deserves its own holiday, too. International Human Resources Day is a prime opportunity for a team lunch, field day, or other fun team-building activity. Make sure to include your remote colleagues, too.

June 

LGBTQ+ Pride Month and World Pride Day on June 28th call for festive celebrations. Sponsor your queer employees’ attendance at WorldPride 2025 in Washington, D.C.

18. Doughnut Day (June 6, 2025)

What better way to celebrate a Friday? This year on Doughnut Day, give employees a tasty treat to enjoy with their morning coffee.

19. Juneteenth (June 19, 2025)

Juneteenth honors the day enslaved people in Texas learned the Civil War was over, and they were now free. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, a record number of companies observed the day for the first time in 2020 to give employees an opportunity to reflect. Work with your Black Employees’ Resource Group to learn how they’d like to honor the day.  

20. Summer Solstice (June 20, 2025)

Spending time outdoors comes with heaps of physical and mental health benefits, including stress relief. Kick off the summer by organizing an offsite picnic for employees at a nearby park. If your team works remotely, you can also host a virtual lunch over Zoom. 

July

It’s Disability Pride Month. Co-create accessibility initiatives with disabled and neurodivergent employees.

21. World Chocolate Day (July 7, 2025)

Need we say more? Pay homage to the humble cocoa bean by ordering some chocolatey treats for your employees on the Friday before World Chocolate Day. For an interactive twist, consider hosting an onsite or virtual chocolate tasting.

22. National Ice Cream Day (July 20, 2025)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Beat the summer heat by treating your employees to an ice cream party with all the fixings.

23. International Self-Care Day (July 24, 2025)

Congrats, you’ve made it halfway through the year — time for some deserved self-care. Organize wellness programs. These could be a series of instructor-led yoga classes or meditation sessions. You can also sign employees up for meditation apps like Calm or Headspace.

August

August is National Black Business Month. Organize popups of Black-owned businesses, or conduct mentoring programs for young Black entrepreneurs.

24. International Dog Day (August 26, 2025)

According to a 2021 study on dogs in the workplace, welcoming pets into the office may improve productivity. Capitalize on those benefits by hosting a virtual happy hour or inviting everyone to share pet photos on Slack.  

25. Women’s Equality Day (August 26, 2025)

This national holiday celebrates the passage of the 19th Amendment, which recognized women’s right to vote in the US. Because there’s more work to be done, host an onsite or virtual panel on allyship and pay equity.

September

Spend Hispanic Heritage Month celebrating the diversity of Latin American culture. Panel discussions and “tapas-and-learns” are in order!

26. National 401(k) Day (September 5, 2025)

If your business offers retirement benefits or a matching program, reiterate those offerings via a company-wide communication or by organizing office hours. Better yet, ask your 401(k) benefits vendor to host a webinar or live Q&A to help employees who'd like to learn more about saving for retirement.

27. HR Appreciation Day (September 26, 2025)

People teams endure a lot. You’re responsible for workplace culture, employee satisfaction, compliance, recruiting, benefits, onboarding, and a long list of additional duties. So why limit the celebration to International HR Day? Gear up for HR's busy season by organizing a fun offsite for your team — one that doesn’t involve work. You can also appreciate other HR professionals in the Resources for Humans Slack community.

October

Global Diversity Awareness Month is a terrific time to schedule unconscious bias workshops and conduct DEIB surveys. It’s also Black History Month in the UK. Work with your employee resource groups to source meaningful ideas.

28. Mental Health Day (October 10, 2025)

As you enter the fall months and days get shorter, consider giving employees a mental health day to decompress. It’s also an excellent time to remind your team to use your employee assistance program (EAP) and other mental health resources.

29. Halloween (October 31, 2025)

Need new creative ways to celebrate Halloween at work? Besides the usual costumes, consider a pumpkin carving contest, spooky film screening, or even a costume party for employees’ pets. Keep things cozy by serving hot cider and doughnuts. 

November

During National Native American Heritage Month, acknowledge the land upon which America is built. Organize field trips, educational panels, and screen documentaries.

30. World Kindness Day (November 13, 2025)

It's cool to be kind. Give out care packages and create a gratitude program where employees can recollect and share random acts of kindness they observed their coworkers doing that year. Use Lattice to dial up employee appreciation with public praise.

31. Thanksgiving (November 27, 2025)

Ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, show employees gratitude with a catered feast of all the fixings. While you might not be able to mail a plate to remote colleagues, a generous meal stipend could go a long way in showing your appreciation.

December

32. Giving Tuesday (December 2, 2025)

On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, partner with a charity, community center, or school to give back to your community. Some ways to contribute include setting up a food or coat drive, donating gift cards to a shelter, or purchasing toys for a local children’s hospital. 

33. Ugly Sweater Day (December 19, 2025)

What better way to ring in the holiday season than with an ugly sweater competition? In addition to organizing the usual contest between employees, you can also enroll in an ugly sweater 5K run for charity.

34. Winter Solstice (December 21, 2025)

December hosts a slew of special holidays, so why not pick a day to acknowledge them all? The winter solstice marks the astronomical start of winter and the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere. Celebrate your team with an office potluck or holiday party — or send them a surprise bundle of gifts to their home address.

Best Practices for Promoting Holidays to Your Team

Building your employee engagement calendar is just the first step. You must also effectively promote the holidays to ensure everyone is adequately prepared and can make time if activities fall during the work day.

Here are some best practices to consider:

1. Communicate early. Give your employees ample notice about upcoming engagement holidays so they can plan accordingly. Share an HR calendar at the beginning of the year.
2. Provide equal access to fun. Ensure that the fun activities on engagement holidays aren’t geared exclusively for your on-site staff or a specific time zone. Thoughtfully consider ways to involve international and remote colleagues in team bonding to boost employee engagement.
3. Maintain a holiday calendar.  Use a shared calendar or scheduling software to track holidays and time-off requests, making it easy for employees to see when the next company holiday is. Your HR information system (HRIS) can be used to maintain a list of closures and holidays.
4. Involve employees in planning.  Involve team members in brainstorming sessions to ideate on employee engagement activities during holidays and observances.
5. Guard against performative allyship.  While observing heritage months and recognition days is a great way to improve DEIB in your workplace, be mindful that your initiatives do not come across as inauthentic. If your leadership’s actions don’t match its promises, it can do more harm than good. The best way to address this is to involve the communities you are seeking to serve while planning activities.

Year-Round Activities to Improve Employee Engagement

Employee engagement holidays aren’t your only means of bringing people together. Smaller, less involved traditions and events can also help foster engagement and morale year-round:

• Birthday and anniversary celebrations: Celebrate employees' birthdays with small parties, decorations, or simple gestures like having your team sign large greeting cards to boost morale. 
• Employee-led clubs or interest groups: Encourage employees to create and lead clubs or groups based on their interests, like book clubs, sports teams, or hobby enthusiasts. Make sure to loop in new hires as well. 
• Work anniversary gifts: Provide small gifts or tokens of appreciation to employees on their work anniversaries to show appreciation for their tenure and company loyalty.
• Social gatherings: Plan regular social events outside of work, such as happy hours, picnics, or holiday parties. Use these to mark milestones in your company’s growth, such as going public or having a high-revenue year.
• Wellness challenges: Organize friendly wellness challenges, such as step-count competitions or healthy eating challenges.
• Lunch and learns: Host regular ‘lunch and learn’ sessions where employees can learn from their colleagues or external experts.
• Volunteer opportunities: Organize opportunities for employees to give back to the community through volunteer work.
• Heritage months: There are heritage month observances almost every other month of the year. Celebrating and learning about the diversity of minorities in your company is a great way to strengthen inclusion. Some of them are:some text
  • February: Black History Month (US)
  • March: Women's History Month
  • April: Arab American Heritage Month
  • May: Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jewish Heritage Month
  • June: LGBTQ+ Pride Month
  • July: Disability Pride Month
  • September: Latinx Heritage Month
  • October: Black History Month (UK)
  • November: Native American History Month

Why Employee Engagement Is So Important

Year after year, we see employee engagement consistently rank among HR’s top priorities. Our 2025 State of People Strategy Report also shows that the HR teams that exceed all goals prioritize engagement.

Gallup’s engagement research backs this up. Having an engaged workplace leads to a safer environment, and employees willingly go beyond their formal job requirements.

• Increases in employee well-being  by 70%
• Increases sales by 18%
• Increases profitability by 23%

The report also found that employee disengagement costs companies $8.8 trillion annually — or about 9% of global GDP. That’s why it’s critical for organizations to deliberately track quantitative and qualitative employee engagement data, including metrics like employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS).

1. Engaged cultures are inclusive and psychologically safe.

Employee engagement and inclusivity are closely connected. Employees who feel valued, respected, and included are more likely to be engaged. Conversely, an inclusive environment enhances engagement by making employees feel connected and appreciated. Company events are a great way to help spark those connections.

In an engaged workplace, there is also a higher level of psychological safety, where employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions, ideas, and concerns without fear of retaliation. This safety is essential for creating an inclusive culture where diverse perspectives are welcomed and considered. 

A multi-year study on psychological safety’s workplace impact also found that it led to higher levels of employee performance and lower levels of interpersonal conflict.

2. Professional development and engagement are connected.

When companies give employees room to grow, they are rewarded with higher engagement metrics and more creative outputs. Individual contributors may also rely less on management in their daily decision-making, making for more agile teams.

According to one 2023 study on talent mobility, 73% of employees want a better understanding of growth opportunities within their organization. When planning your employee engagement holidays, consider ways to make them educational. For example, ask a recruiting team member to host a lunch and learn to talk through job openings and their required skills. 

3. Prioritizing engagement is critical to employee wellbeing.   

When employees are engaged in their work and feel valued, supported, and fulfilled, their wellbeing improves. Keep a close eye on employees' feelings using our free employee wellbeing survey template.

In addition to ensuring workloads are manageable, scheduling engagement holidays can break up the monotony of everyday work and help stave off burnout. Unchecked, burnout can impact several aspects of your employee experience, leading to disengagement and low productivity. Burnout may also contribute to attendance issues and emotional exhaustion.

Creating an Employee Engagement Calendar

So you’re sold on the idea of building an employee engagement calendar. Now what? Before putting pen to paper, consider what you want to achieve with your calendar — like improving teamwork, reducing turnover, or boosting engagement scores.

With your goals in mind, remember to solicit input from your employees via a survey, focus group, or one-on-one. Ask them what activities they'd enjoy and find most engaging. Don’t forget to gather input from a diverse selection of employees. Onsite and remote colleagues should also feel equally empowered to share their perspectives.

Need some inspiration? Download the 2025 HR Calendar — it includes meaningful holidays for a range of cultures and identities, critical HR compliance deadlines, and everything else you need to set your business and people up for success in the new year.