Keeping the Festive Spirit: Remote Team Christmas Idea

How one of the biggest companies, symbolic with the Christmas holidays, celebrates Christmas during a pandemic? Nevyan Petrov, People & Culture Director at Coca-Cola HBC Bulgaria tells us what are the difficulties that can be encountered during the organization of remote team building practices, how to overcome them and how to keep the light and spirit of the holidays, regardless of the current situation.

In times of remote work and home office practices, Christmas parties are somewhat of an “exotic” notion, and the festive spirit is not in the focus. As a company so closely associated with Christmas and the emotion this holiday brings, what alternative ways of celebrating have you come up with in the last 2 years?

First of all, Christmas has always been one of the symbols of Coca-Cola, as, of course, the reverse is also true - for many people, the Christmas excitement begins only when they see the new Coca-Cola ad on TV. For us, this period is very festive but it also is so much more - it involves a lot of hard work and preparation for our Christmas campaign, which involves people from many different departments. In order to combine work with pleasure, in this particularly busy moment of the year, the company endeavours on ways to bring an uplifted mood in the employees, emphasizing positive communication through all channels - announcing various games with gifts, prizes, as well as promoting our successes throughout the retail outlets. Of course, we can’t forget about boosting the Christmas spirit in the office as well – although the current implementation of the hybrid practice of working does not allow us to gather in large groups, we strive to have and keep the Christmas spirit alive as per usual                                                                              

The fact is, however, that this year, like most big companies, we will not be able to hold our traditional Christmas party, despite the great desire to get together and celebrate. In the absence of this event, we are forced to be creative and come up with alternative ways that are tailored to the epidemiological situation, usually involving activities in smaller teams and groups. For example, we decided to put the unused budget for the Christmas party in the hands of the managers, giving the opportunity to organize events in a small circle for the individual teams. This gives managers the freedom to choose a celebration format that is closest to the preferences of specific employees.

You are a company with thousands of employees. What practices do you apply to create a sense of unity and teamwork among them, no matter how many they are?

It is very difficult, especially in times of a pandemic, when informal contacts are extremely difficult. The key is to use every opportunity to say "Thank you". In the last 2 years we have created mechanisms by which employees can nominate colleagues in different categories based on behaviors that demonstrate the company's values.  Usually at the end of the year we make virtual events in which we announce the winners in different categories, which creates an additional charge among employees. If nothing else, the virtual work environment gives us the opportunity to gather people from different parts of the country and even from other parts of the world together and to thank each other for a job well done.

Do you see a change in the attitudes and expectations of your employees regarding the celebration of the holiday before and after the pandemic?

My personal opinion is that the pandemic actually helped us to appreciate even more the live contact and the emotion of being together with colleagues and friends. I say friends as well, because we all suffer from the lack of social contacts not only in our jobs, but also in our personal lives. I think we will only be able to draw more lasting conclusions about employee attitudes when we have fully put the pandemic behind us and settled into the new normal.

Merry Christmas!