Companies get creative in lieu of office parties

CHICAGO — Kelly Cain normally goes all out for her staff of about 20 at the holidays, renting a suite at United Center for Chicago Blackhawks games or organizing a group trip to the theater.

The tab for these year-end festivities at Supply & Equipment Foodservice Alliance typically runs $400 to $600 per employee, said Ms. Cain, CEO of the Schaumburg, Ill.-based company.

This year, the celebration will be on Zoom, since the coronavirus pandemic has nixed an in-person gathering. The company also plans to mail employees gift baskets filled with an assortment of food products, Ms. Cain said.

“Some of them are going through some rough times. Some have spouses or partners who have been very negatively impacted. ... It’d be a missed opportunity to not show you care, especially with virtual opportunities,” Ms. Cain said.

For businesses large and small, it’s been a tough year of layoffs, furloughs, and salary cuts, as some companies struggle to keep the doors open. Health concerns and tight finances may have scrapped traditional holiday parties, as well as year-end bonuses at some companies, but employers are looking for creative ways to offer some sort of cheer at the end of a difficult year.

But a Zoom party that looks a lot like mundane Monday morning meetings can be a letdown compared with the real thing, so some companies are taking a different approach. Bosses are arranging virtual scavenger hunts, pub trivia, cooking or mixology classes, or hiring a magician.

Matt Lindner, a 38-yearold content marketing manager based in Chicago for Rakuten Advertising, participated in a virtual cocktail class the company offered employees as a yearend celebration.

Some weeks, the only human interaction he has is with his wife, Mr. Lindner said.

“In normal times, you take camaraderie time for granted like the water cooler talk. That’s been robbed from us because we work from home,” he said. “How do you make time for small talk online?”

There were a couple of times the company planned trivia nights for employees this past year, but some people weren’t showing up because it meant sitting through another video conference call, Mr. Linder said.

Zoom fatigue is real, and employees don’t want to have to sit through an awkward meeting, said Murrel Karsh, president of corporate event planning firm Windy City Fieldhouse.

The company has pivoted from the typical corporate team-building events it hosts at its Logan Square facility to virtual events like scavenger hunts, where participants break into groups of five to find and take photos of items around their households. The company also offers virtual trivia nights, cooking classes or wine sampling events.

Windy City Fieldhouse is doing more than 90 virtual holiday parties this month, he said. Companies can choose from a single experience or multiple ones to give employees different options that involve splitting participants into separate virtual “rooms.”

Each event can cost about $2,000, depending on the size of the group and the experience selected, Mr. Karsh said.

The rise of virtual parties has generated such a flurry of business that Ross Hunt, owner of Chicago-based un-Muddled Bartending Co., has had to turn business away.

“With the amount of requests we were receiving, we just didn’t have the bandwidth,” Mr. Hunt said.

Chicago- based gifting company Packed with Purpose typically makes gift boxes for companies’ clients, conference attendees and year-end holiday presents. But as many people work from home, there has been interest in sending employees care packages even before the holiday season, said CEO Leeatt Rothschild.

Despite the challenges the pandemic brought this year, some businesses still plan to reward workers with holiday bonuses.

Unlike salary increases, bonuses allow companies more discretion and flexibility to offer an amount in line with company performance, said Andy Challenger, senior vice president of Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“When times are uncertain, if companies can put more on bonuses, they have the option to dial it up or down depending how the company does as opposed to a salary increase that’s nonadjustable. They aren’t on the hook 100% if the company has a difficult fourth quarter or year,” he said.

More than 33% of companies the firm surveyed in October said they would offer a year-end bonus to employees in the form of cash, checks or a gift card, an increase from about 30% last year, according to the nationwide survey of 189 companies. The figures don’t include about a quarter of companies surveyed that will provide performance-based bonuses.

Employers including grocers, real estate firms, pharmaceutical and medical supply companies that have done well during the pandemic will be in the best position to reward employees this year, Challenger said.

Home Depot, which saw sales increase as people stayed home and made home improvements, is offering nationwide raises.

Other firms like Deerfield-based Walgreens said they will pull back bonus programs this year because of the pandemic.