Make Your Next Office Party a Potluck
Everyone has probably been to a potluck dinner at some point, but have you ever been a potluck office party? I've worked at a couple companies that had strong traditions of potluck lunch parties and everyone looked forward to them all year. One was held right before Thanksgiving and the other was held in December before the holidays.
Office potluck lunch parties are great because the atmosphere encourages employees to speak with people they might not interact with on a day-to-day basis. They're also a fun way for people to get to know about each other's backgrounds as many people choose to make something native to their culture or ethnicity. One of my former colleagues makes the best couscous!
If you're responsible for organizing your company's holiday party and you want to give the potluck a try this year, you can use MyPunchbowl's potluck checklist feature to easily keep track of who's bringing what dishes. Then, since you'll know what everyone is bringing, you can prepare place cards ahead of time labeling all of the dishes. You can use colored paper with stickers or stamps, or you can tie little labels to apples (like the apples below), pears, or mini-pumpkins for an elegant look on the table.
It's also a nice touch to have some light background music playing--probably just loud enough to hear but low enough that people can talk about what a great idea it was to have a potluck at the office!
Enjoy Planning.
Penelope