How These 14 Companies Celebrate The Holidays
Yesterday, we celebrated our third annual Secret Snowflake at PowerToFly! We wanted to know what other companies do to keep the holiday spirit alive at work, so we asked our partner companies to share one or two of things they do to celebrate. From spending quality time together in person (even when their teams are spread across multiple locations!) and giving back to their communities, to taking time to rest and recover for the new year (a couple of them even shut down between Christmas and New Years), their answers did not disappoint.
Read on to get an inside look at the many creative ways these companies celebrate the holiday season and kick off the new year!
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Greenhouse — A New York City New Year.
Greenhouse SF Party
"At Greenhouse, we like to end the year on a high note and start the new year off right. To close out the year and celebrate our successes, each of our office hubs hosts their own holiday party and our distributed employees are given the opportunity to choose their own Greenhouse-sponsored activity. We love seeing each employee show their own personality through the photos that are posted on Slack the next day. As a distributed workforce with teammates all over the United States and Dublin, we don't always get to meet face to face. So, we like to ring in the new year together by bringing the entire Greenhouse family to our headquarters in New York City for Kickoff Week. During this week, we get to meet our fellow teammates in person, show off our unique knowledge at Trivia and karaoke night, and bond on both a company and team level."
[Learn more about Greenhouse.]
Quip — Cookies and camaraderie.
"This year, Quip held our fifth annual Holiday Cookie Cook-off. Quip employees brought in cookies to share with their coworkers and compete in categories including Most Millennial Cookie, Best Non-Cookie Cookie, and Grand Champion Cookie. More important than the baking and the voting, everyone at the company looks forward to eating all of the amazing cookies, and socializing with coworkers across the company."
[Learn more about Quip.]
Blockstack — White elephant and wacky socks.
"At Blockstack, we held a 'Fuzzy Socks White Elephant End of the Year Party' this year for both HQ and remote team members. We provide the fuzzy and patterned socks so that everyone who joined (team member and their families/partners) can wear them and feel included as part of the celebration, whether in person or remote. We played White Elephant with gifts provided by the company, so that we can swap gifts around. For remote folks, we ran a spreadsheet with fun descriptions of the gifts to intrigue remote folks to choose the present."
[Learn more about Blockstack.]
Braintree — Letters to Santa.
"At Braintree, every year we look forward to participating in Chicago Sun Times' Letters to Santa program. Every child deserves to get gifts for the holidays, so this is our chance to help make that a reality. We receive letters from local elementary schools, and Treeps sign up to help purchase gifts between $25-$30, ensuring every child has a happy holiday! This year we saw participation from over 180 employees, who provided nearly 350 gifts for local students."
[Learn more about Braintree.]
Dell — Random acts of kindness.
"At Dell, we close for the week of Christmas to give everyone time to relax and recharge before the new year. We also keep the holiday spirit alive through different team activities. This year, one of our teams is having an acts of kindness contest. Participants contributed $10-$20. Now they have until January 3rd to complete ten acts of kindness (e.g. giving up a parking space at the mall, or your place on line at the cashier, or any other). At the end, each participant will submit their top act of kindness and the team will vote on the #1 act. The winner gets to select the cause that the entry money is donated to."
[Learn more about Dell.]
T. Rowe Price — A "Holiday Giving Campaign."
"T. Rowe Price hosts an annual Holiday Giving Campaign, and every year, associates go above and beyond to make an impact. More than a dozen nonprofits around the world are supported each year by the firm's 7,000 associates. Giving and serving in the community are important aspects of T. Rowe Price's culture, and the Holiday Giving Campaign is a longstanding tradition that has grown along with the firm. Through donations and volunteerism, T. Rowe Price's associates make a difference in their local communities all year long—but the holiday season especially sparks a spirit of generosity and camaraderie. To learn more about T. Rowe Price's culture of giving read out latest report at, TRowePrice.com/CRReport."
[Learn more about T. Rowe Price.]
CarGurus — A top-secret, surprise private performance.
"Among many holiday traditions at CarGurus, such as donation drives, individual team celebrations, and Secret Snowflakes, we like to celebrate the start of the new year with a company-wide party! Last year we invited all 900 employees, along with a plus one, to the House of Blues, for a private surprise performance by Snoop Dogg! This year, we will keep up with our tradition by having our subsidiary company PistonHeads join us to partake in the holiday festivities. The live performance is still under wraps, but we cannot wait to share who it is. Follow us on our Instagram culture page, @cargurusculture, to see all of the fun that is about to come during the rest of the holiday season!"
[Learn more about CarGurus.]
Procore — A "Week of Giving."
"Towards the end of the year, each Procore office gets to celebrate, reflect, and give back in ways that are unique and special to our offices. But celebrating isn't all we do—our Austin office, for example, participates in a "Week of Giving" where we give back to the local community through donation drives, volunteering at local charities, and writing gratitude cards for children at SAFE, a human service agency in Austin serving the survivors of child abuse."
[Learn more about Procore.]
Vrbo — Unique themed parties + festive sweaters!
Vrbo's 2019 Haunted Holiday Soiree that was on Friday the 13th!
"Each Vrbo office around the globe is uniquely decorated and has its own holiday celebrations, but our One Team value is what brings us all together to reflect back on the year we've accomplished together. We gather in our most festive sweaters for a holiday version of our monthly companywide meeting with leadership, 'Table Talks,' to recognize achievements and discuss what we can look forward to in the new year. In Austin, we hosted the Latinos in Tech End-of Year Fiesta, which brought together 10+ tech companies to celebrate the city's strong and growing Latinos in Tech community. An Austin employee favorite is our holiday party that we've hosted Downtown at Moody Theatre for the past three years!"
[Learn more about Vrbo.]
VideoAmp — Contributing to the community.
"At VideoAmp, we celebrate the holidays and get into the Holiday Spirit by giving back! A few years ago, VideoAmp was a tiny company with roughly 17 employees, and one thing we all shared together was a commitment to people. "VideoAmp Gives Back" started off simple. At first, we worked with organizations that allowed us to volunteer, like the Salvation Army. Eventually decided to do everything in house during the holiday season: from lunch kits, hygiene products, and toy drives to sponsoring families' Christmases. All these events were recommendations from our employees, and as our company grew bigger (we went from 70ish in 2018 to over 200 employees in 2019), so did VideoAmp Gives Back!"
[Learn more about VideoAmp.]
Scout RFP — A sophisticated San Francisco soirée.
"To celebrate the holiday season, Scout RFP hosts a Holiday Party every year at a venue in San Francisco, where we are headquartered. Our employees who are remote or work in another office fly in, and everyone is invited to bring a plus one. We rent out a private section of the venue and have food and drink available to all our guests. It's so fun to see all of our coworkers outside of a work setting, dressed in cocktail attire, and with their plus ones."
[Learn more about Scout RFP.]
Intuit — A holiday market in support of small businesses.
Every December, Intuit puts on a Holiday Small Business Market, where local businesses and vendors are invited to Intuit campuses to showcase their creations and (hopefully) spark unique and creative gift ideas for Intuit employees. The event encourages support of local businesses, a sentiment in line with Intuit's mission of powering prosperity. Many of the local vendors are also small business customers of Intuit's QuickBooks product. Intuit also has a Toys for Tots drive in partnership with the Marine Corps and our team at Intuit Boise also partnered with the Make-a-Wish Foundation to write letters from Santa. For every letter written, Macy's will donate $2 to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. The team hand-wrote 378 letters!
[Learn more about Intuit.]
SeatGeek — Giving, giving, giving.
"Here at SeatGeek, the holidays are all about giving. We have an employee-run group internally called GiveGeek that organizes charitable events and donation opportunities for the company. This holiday season, GiveGeek has partnered with a few different organizations to create 3 unique opportunities for employees to give back to the community. From purchasing gifts for under-resourced children, to writing cards for local seniors and partnering with a local food drive, GiveGeek helps create opportunities for SeatGeek employees to make a positive difference in the community."
[Learn more about SeatGeek.]
Nextdoor — An end-of-year shutdown.
"At Nextdoor, we're scaling quickly and have offices/team members in over 10 locations around the world. In addition to some amazing Holiday parties, we're grateful to have been given the opportunity to implement an end-of-year shutdown and our offices will be closed until the first day back in the office on January 2nd. This allows our team members an opportunity to step away from all of the hard work we've put in at Nextdoor and reconnect with our community of friends and family."
[Learn more about Nextdoor.]
How These Companies Are Celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
As we reflect on recent events and how they fit into a much larger history of discrimination, we're also taking time to celebrate and acknowledge the many achievements of the AAPI community.
We asked several of our partner companies what they're doing to honor AAPI Heritage Month at work, and we were inspired by the range of responses, covering everything from campaigns to #StopAsianHate to educational events on AAPI history.
Here's what they're doing, in their own words:
Empowering authenticity - LogMeIn
"Our theme this year is AIM to Be Real. We are embracing our new company values and celebrating those who bring their authentic selves to work, who help create space to celebrate diversity of thought, and who give back to the API community. Our Asian ERG, Asians in Motion (AIM), is hosting several events: a discussion about bringing your authentic self to work with Jerry Won (Dear Asian Americans podcast); a refugee-led virtual cooking class; ERG Movie Club discussions featuring Bollywood films, and a virtual volunteer event where we will offer career development mentoring for young women across Asia."
Learn more about LogMeIn here.
Educating on current events — Raytheon Technologies
"Raytheon Technologies is honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with an enterprise-wide global town hall event – Real Talk: Building CommUNITY Together. Organized by the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) employee resource groups across the company, employees will share their personal experiences and discuss ways to support Asian American Pacific Islander communities. The event will also feature prominent leading advocates from renowned civil rights organizations to provide insight into the national context surrounding recent events. We will also feature AAPI employees internally and on our social media channels."
Learn more about Raytheon Technologies here.
Encouraging awareness, growth, and learning — Moody's
"Moody's is encouraging awareness, growth, and learning during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with the following activities, led by our Multicultural Business Resource Group and DE&I team:
- Weekly newsletters featuring AAPI employee profiles and cultural resources
- Video screening and small-group discussions supporting #StopAsianHate
- Cultural panel discussion featuring employee stories
- Professional development activities
- External speakers speaking about Asian leadership"
Supporting professional development — Freddie Mac
"Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month at Freddie Mac – Together, We Are Stronger
Freddie Mac supports the professional development of Asian and Pacific Islander employees while promoting an increased awareness of the value they bring to the organization and our local communities. Our InspirASIAN Business Resource Group is hosting various activities throughout the month such as:
- Personal development session on empowerment led by a coach from our Employee Assistance Program.
- "Stop Asian Hate" lunch and learn geared toward discussing the hurdles facing the AAPI community.
- Fireside chat about racial injustice with leaders from our InspirASIAN and ARISE (employees of the African diaspora) BRGs."
Fostering inclusion, learning, and belonging – Nestlé USA
"At Nestlé USA, the Pan Asian Network (PAN), one of our many employee resource groups that support our Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion initiatives, will host a variety of events to honor and acknowledge Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. These activities will foster greater inclusion, enhanced learning, and belonging for the AAPI community. PAN will highlight women's development in Asian cultures, Asian leadership and what their culture means to them, culinary innovation of Asian cuisine, intersectionality of LGBTQ+ and Pan Asian community, as well as an enhanced learning watch party of the PBS movie 'Asian American.'"
Learn more about Nestlé USA here.
Promoting cultural literacy – Relativity
The Community Resource Group at Relativity
"For Relativity, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is an opportune time to not only celebrate the rich AAPI cultures represented within our company, but to also foster awareness and allyship amidst the current rise of AAPI hate. RelAsians, our internal community resource group, has organized a few activities for May: a book club focused on AAPI heritage—because we feel it's never too early to gain cultural literacy, a weekly spotlight on AAPI Relativians, and a virtual event that takes attendees on a tour through an Asian grocery store, introducing native vegetables and staple ingredients for traditional home-cooked Asian recipes."
- Contribution from Neha Pant, Sr. Performance Engineer & Angie Ocasek, Sr. Specialist, Partner Enablement – Co-Chairs of the RelAsians Community Resource Group at Relativity
Learn more about Relativity here.
Creating transformative experiences – Facebook
"At Facebook, our APIs employee resource group's mission is to create transformative experiences for all APIs at Facebook, Inc through key cultural awareness and engagement highlighting the API community. To kick off APIHM, we will host a series of events and conversations for the community and its allies designed to support the API community around the theme, The SUM of Us, including:
- Letting Others In: a mindful discussion series that privileges intersectional voices, storytelling, feedback, and vulnerability as tools for building empathy and inclusion amongst organizations.
- Racial Healing Learning Session: specific to the API Experience focused on naming of experiences and emotional responses, understanding the body's responses to racial trauma, what the audience can do in the moment for self-care, and long-term strategies to overcome the effect of the traumatic experience.
- Bystander Training/self Defense Workshop"
Learn more about Facebook here.
Extensive and exciting programming — 2U
"At 2U, Inc. we'll be honoring Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with extensive and exciting programming coordinated by our employee-led Asian Pacific Islander Network (APIN). In a year marred by exceptional challenges APIN has centered activities around the ameliorating themes of joy, culture and wellness. Be it delighting in a ukulele mini concert, reading an interview highlighting an API coworker, winding down after too much screen time with a somatic healing session or engaging in a panel discussion with API tattoo artists, we have a packed month ahead with opportunities to support oneself and the API culture! Follow along @Lifeat2U on Instagram for more!"
Learn more about 2U here.
Amplifying voices and educating others – Smartsheet
"During APAHM, the API at Smartsheet community will be hosting several events and activities to educate others, amplify AAPI voices, and celebrate the AAPI community! We plan to kick off the month with a documentary viewing and discussion to learn about AAPI history, and hope to share personal stories from our AAPI employees throughout the month. We'll end with an opportunity for the community to celebrate itself by gathering together for fun and games, while eating food from local Asian-owned restaurants."
Learn more about Smartsheet here.
Rising together in sports and culture – NBA
"For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, APEX is proud to present a multitude of celebratory activities, headlined by an NBA Family Virtual Town Hall and, with the NFL and MLB, an Asians in Sports & Culture Symposium themed "Together We Rise" featuring prominent Asian personalities from the sports world. We are also launching a PSA with an NBA star, honoring Eid-al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan, offering a bystander intervention training led by AAJC, and – because the celebration wouldn't be complete without food – hosting a sushi making class for our members."
Learn more about the NBA here.
Creating courageous conversations – Commvault
"This May, we are celebrating all our Asian/Pacific Islander employees, not just Asian Americans. We will spend the month learning about and celebrating the diverse cultures of Asia through weekly events and activities led by our Multi-Culture ERG. Vaulters and external guests will teach us the history of practices such as yoga, origami, and Asian cuisines. We will also discuss topics like the rise of hate crimes against Asian people and the recent spike in COVID-19 in India. These activities and courageous conversations will engage our workforce and create support for our Asian and Pacific Islander communities around the world."
Learn more about Commvault here.
Honoring history through virtual events – Collins Aerospace
"Collins Aerospace supports our AAPI colleagues not only in May, but all year. Our parent company Raytheon Technologies hosted a virtual Town Hall last month to provide a safe space for open dialogue about recent events targeting Asian Americans in the U.S. In addition to this entity-wide event, our Asia Pacific ERG at Collins is hosting events that educate and honor the importance of Asian Pacific American history such as virtual Lunch & Tours spotlighting South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and India; and Thoughts & Support sessions. Site-specific events include virtual cooking class, and viewing PBS docuseries Asian Americans."
Learn more about Collins Aerospace here.
Highlighting new perspectives – MongoDB
"MongoDB will share daily historical facts, highlights of Asian American pioneers, and perspectives from our AAPI employees in a dedicated Slack channel. We will also be providing access to an Asian Pacific American Heritage Month webinar, organizing a trivia night, and holding Processing Together sessions for our internal AAPI community due to recent hate crimes happening across the globe. These sessions are a safe space for employees to share their stories and sentiments of what it is like as an Asian American in America today. (Read MongoDB employee Monica Lu's story about being an Asian American woman in tech here.)"
Learn more about MongoDB here.
Spotlighting diverse communities – Bumble
"At Bumble, moments like heritage month celebrations are often our anchor to ensure we are spotlighting diverse communities. In alignment with AAPI Heritage Month in May, Bumble is rolling out a series of thoughtful programming to encourage internal education and around how to support the Stop Asian Hate movement and better serve the Asian community globally. The lineup of initiatives include:
- BuzzWord DEI Discussion Series with featured guest speakers: This conversation will focus on the Asian community within the context of larger cultural issues such as dating app experiences, fetishization, masculinity, and representation.
- Bumble will be inviting employees to join a virtual Vietnamese coffee-making class. Created in partnership with Phin Bar, an urban brew-bar that offers Vietnamese-style steeped coffee combined with house-made ingredients, Bumble hopes to facilitate a deeper cultural learning and community bonding experience for the team.
- Bumble will also be activating channels across social media and our product to educate our community about bystander intervention and raise awareness around the importance of supporting the Stop Asian Hate movement."
Engaging in daring conversations – Procore
"In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month in May, Procore recently organized an internal event to recognize and support the AAPI community. The event was hosted as part of our ongoing internal speaker series, 'Daring Conversations & Allyship,' to create space for an open dialogue around diversity, inclusion, and belonging. All employees were invited to tune in as employees from our AAPI communities shared their unique experiences, addressed anti-Asian hate, and discussed actionable ways to support our AAPI community."
Learn more about Procore here.
Taking action to foster change – SeatGeek
"This month the POC ERG will be meeting and hosting different activities to celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This includes creating a safe space to discuss current events, and what actions our communities can take to foster change, sending out a newsletter which will highlight the Asian community in every aspect, and lastly, we will be hosting a guest speaker.
We hope with these planned activities and meetings, we can highlight, and uplift the Asian/Pacific American community, as well as bring awareness to the horrible ongoing attacks they are facing."
Learn more about SeatGeek here.
Uplifting and inspiring the community – Okta
"Okta's People of Color (POC@Okta) ERG is planning to commemorate AAPI Month with a series of fireside chats and iconographical facts posted internally in the #poc and #all diversity Slack channels! These chats will feature Dion Lim of ABC7 News and Comedian/Actor, Ronny Chieng. We will conclude the series with a partnership with Pride@Okta featuring supermodel, TED speaker, and transgender advocate Geena Rocero. The goal of this series is to educate, uplift, support, and inspire! The Okta leadership supports its AAPI employees, customers, and community."
Learn more about Okta here.
Empowering cultural diversity and leadership – Quip
"Salesforce will be celebrating through multiple virtual events, such as a leadership panel on the power of cultural diversity, a tea tasting, a tai chi class, a haka workshop, and more! Members of the Quip team have also compiled an extensive list of resources to support AAPI communities, including ways to donate, take action, and learn more."
Learn more about Quip here.
Focusing on lived experiences – Mindbody
"The Mindbody United ERG focuses on a different heritage or history each month, with May devoted to Asian & Pacific Islander Heritage Month. This ERG seeks to provide a platform to both celebrate and learn together. This will manifest in two ways: As a newsletter and a Zoom meeting. The newsletter will feature contributions directly from team members, while the meeting will feature Assembly member Evan Low as our speaker. It is our goal to focus on the lived experiences of the AAPI community, address discrimination, and how to chase after the part of the world we can make better."
Learn more about Mindbody here.
Promoting harmony and unity – T. Rowe Price
"T. Rowe Price is aware and appalled at the recent spike in hate crimes against the Asian community. In response, the firm will center Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month efforts around harmony and unity, in alignment with the Hawaiian value, Lōkahi – Forward as One. To share best practices, successes and areas of opportunities, T. Rowe Price will co-host a Leadership Panel on Asian Leadership Challenges with Baltimore Asian Connect, a consortium of Asian business resource group leaders at local corporations. The firm will also host a book club and restorative listening circles for Asian American associates and their allies."
Learn more about T. Rowe Price here.
Celebrating Asians globally
"May is Asian Pacific American (APA) Heritage Month. Although traditionally a US celebration, at Autodesk we are celebrating Asians globally. The Autodesk Asian Network is hosting Innovative Leaders, including Lori Mukoyama and Jonathan Zee. Lori Mukoyama is redefining experience-driven design globally at Gensler. Jonathan Zee has an extensive portfolio of buildings that are helping to shape cities around the world at Goettsch Partners. Lori and her husband Jonathan combine design, architecture and engineering in their work while simultaneously manage a family together during this pandemic. This event is hosted by AAN, as part of a monthlong series of APA Heritage Month events."
Learn more about AutoDesk here.
