Here is our list of the best Holi celebration ideas for work.
Holi celebration ideas for work are fun and engaging activities to celebrate Holi in the office. Examples include canvas parties, guessing the true colors, and treasure seeking. The purpose of these activities is to celebrate the Holi festival of colors, spread cheer, and teach teammates about other cultures.
These parties are examples of team celebrations, team building events, and diversity and inclusion activities.
This list includes:
- Holi activities for adults
- Holi office party games
- Holi celebration ideas for work meetings
- Holi work party ideas
Let’s get to it.
List of Holi celebration ideas for work
Office meetings and hectic routines should not stop your employees from celebrating Holi. Instead, you can arrange some Holi office party games, so they do not miss the festivities of this special day. So, here is our list of ideas to celebrate Holi at work.
1. Canvas Party
Holi is all about celebrating smiles and spreading colors. A canvas party can be a great way to celebrate these beautiful colors without messing up the office.
You can bring canvasses of all sizes and colors to paint. The participants will get their canvas, and they can paint whatever they want. The purpose of celebrating Holi is to spread colors. So, the participants will not be bound to draw a specific shape or drawing.
Some good examples are handprints of the teams, abstract art, and scribbles. For a relatively mess-free color-tossing activity, set up a tent, don ponchos, and splatter paint on canvases.
The best thing about a canvas party is that you will not mess up the office while doing this activity. You can pick a spot for painting on the canvas, and the colors will not spoil anything.
2. Photo Shoot
Events like Holi are full of photo ops. When celebrating Holi in the office, remember to take photos to preserve fun memories.
Planning a photo shoot is among some Holi work party ideas. For example, you can set up a photo booth at one corner of the office and tell the employees to dress up fancy.
Here are some essentials that will contribute to a fancy photo shoot:
- Props
- Fancy hats
- Outsized sunglasses
- Colorful wigs
Be sure your photo props are bright and colorful to capture the spirit of the celebration!
You can also decorate a complete wall with random colors to add a more appealing effect. All the employees can then gather and make funny poses for the shoot. This activity will also make the environment fun, and the employees will enjoy clicking pictures.
Get our free team building toolbox
- icebreaker games
- bingo cards
- DIY guides
by teams at FedEx, Amazon, Deloitte and 73,930+ others
3. Color Award Ceremony
If you are looking for the best Holi activities for adults, then a color award ceremony is a great choice. Acknowledging achievements builds confidence and reinforces positive behavior in your employees. You can hold a color award ceremony to celebrate your employees’ achievements and the special festival of Holi side by side.
In this activity, each color will represent a specific trait of your employees, for which they will receive an award.
For example:
- Yellow represents happiness.
- Purple represents creativity.
- Blue indicates a responsible and calm attitude.
- Red means energetic.
- Pink indicates friendly behavior.
You can nominate the employees for awards of different colors according to their traits.
One idea is to use stickers or badges and stick the appropriate awards onto a plaque or sash that the employee can proudly display.
Here are more employee recognition ideas.
4. Holi Lunch
A Holi lunch is among the best Holi celebration ideas for work meetings. Eating food together is usually an essential part of any celebration.
The employees can come together during the office break and have lunch while talking and spending time with each other.
Even if you have people from different cultures or religions in your office, your team can unite to celebrate differences and share joy. Such get-togethers create a sense of trust and builds a professional relationship among coworkers.
You can also include the special dishes of Holi. Most of these dishes are sweet, but you can also add spicy dishes to the menu.
Examples of special Holi dishes and drinks are:
- Thandai
- Malpua
- Matar paneer
- Pakore
- Dahi bhallay
If you have employees from different cultures, it is better to give them a taste of Indian recipes and its rich food culture.
5. Cooking Competition
A cooking competition is a great idea to celebrate Holi in the office. If you are planning some Holi work party ideas, then consider a cook-off or bake-off.
Besides celebrating colors, Holi also includes cooking and eating delicious foods with your loved ones.
You can ask the team members to cook the dishes associated with Holi. For example, a famous dessert for Holi is Gujiya. This sweet dish is prepared by stuffing in dried fruits and milk solids. It is then dipped in sweet syrup to enrich its taste. When participating in a cooking competition, the employees will work in groups to create delicious dishes.
You can also give an award for the best-cooked dish at the event.
Here is a guide to office cook-offs.
6. Song Competitions
The vibe of Holi will reach new heights by organizing a singing competition for employees. In India, this practice is called “antakshari.”
In this game, the participants split into two groups. Then, each group receives a letter of the alphabet to start a song. The rules can vary according to your knowledge of songs. If your employees are talented singers, then you can set strict rules to make the competition fun and engaging.
In general, the other team has to sing a song with the last letter of the last word from where one team stopped. However, you can also give separate alphabets or words to both teams to come up with the song. If one team cannot decide on a song to sing, their turn will pass to the other team.
Such Holi celebration ideas for work meetings can create a fun environment in the office. A song competition will also boost the focus and confidence of your employees and reduce shyness.
7. Office Decoration
Most companies are fine with celebrating festivals and the workplace and do not mind decorating the office with fancy decor. If your company approves, then celebrating Holi by decorating the office can be a fun party idea for work.
You can create a unique entrance to the office by placing chai cutting glasses or small clay pots filled with organic Holi colors in powdered form. These colors will look amazing at the entrance. You can also add a pop of color by using buntings, ribbons, and balloons around the office.
Such a decoration will give good vibes to the Holi festival, and the Indian employees will appreciate the festive decor.
However, it is better to choose easy-to-clean, mess-free decorations to not disrupt the workplace or permanently damage any office fixtures.
8. Dance Party
Music enhances celebrations and festivals. Organizing a dance party can be a fun idea to make employees enjoy this special day. Dance parties will also distract your employees’ minds from their busy routines and relieve stress. For your party playlist, curate a collection of Bollywood hits and feel-good Indian pop. For a more multinational approach you can simply create a soundtrack of feel-good music. Feel free to allow employees to request songs and collaboratively build the soundtrack. Another fun option is to make a playlist of songs about colors, like “Yellow” by Coldplay or “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones.
You can also sing songs at the dance party or have large speakers for a few hours to celebrate Holi. When folks from different cultures and ethnic groups come together, it creates a friendly relationship among the employees, which leads to a healthy work environment.
9. Concert
Turning your office into a mini music festival can be a unique yet fun idea for Holi.
Holding a concert in the office can be fun for the employees. You can invite a Punjabi vocalist to the office to sing for the company. The employees will like this unique Holi idea. The dance environment and vibing on songs for Holi will make the whole office bloom with joy.
10. Wall Of Colors
If you want a spirited way to celebrate Holi in your office, then making a wall of colors is a fantastic idea. For this activity, you can choose one wall in the office to fill with colors.
You can give your employees the liberty to draw anything they want. These exhibits can be high-end paintings from artists in your office or random pieces of abstract art.
Be sure to encourage employees to focus on the joy of painting and not worry about aesthetics. The variety of colors can represent the importance of diversity in great collaborations. Plus, the artwork will brighten the office and lift employee moods!
11. Slogans On Shirts
If the workers are tired of wearing the same office dress daily, then it is time to bring a change to Holi. A great idea to celebrate Holi in the office is to announce a dress code for the day.
Folks usually wear white clothes on Holi. So, you can choose white as the dress code and also decide on fun slogans to make it even more appealing.
Here are some examples of slogans you can try:
- Holi hai
- Rang barsao
- The big bhang theory
These funny slogans will bring humor to your celebration. You can hand out rainbow sharpies and encourage employees to sign each other’s shirts or let participants wear the tees to a traditional color powder tossing event.
12. Face Painting
Face painting can be a fun activity to celebrate Holi at the workplace. Although face painting is common among children, adults equally enjoy this fun diversion.
You can arrange a competition to do face painting with your colleagues. For this activity, you will need particular colors and paintbrushes. However, test products in small batches for allergic reactions before employees paint their whole faces!
While competition is a fun idea, you can also choose to call a professional painter to make masterpieces on your teammates’ mugs.
The different colors painted on the face will look unique yet funny, creating a joyful working environment.
13. Scavenger Hunt
Games and activities like scavenger hunts usually make an event more fun and engaging. When planning a scavenger hunt for Holi, you can use different colors as clues. The participants will guess these clues and directions and reach the destination, which will help them achieve the reward.
A good example is placing clues using different colors and code words. Participants will follow these code words and determine how they are related to the colors. For example, green is the color of the grass. Next, the participants will look for an object in the grass, snap a picture, or bring the item to the gamemaster. You can also assign each team a color and have players find flags in their hue.
Check out more scavenger hunt ideas for adults.
14. Trivia Event
A trivia event is a great idea to celebrate Holi for on-site and remote teams. Teammates in different regions can come together to celebrate Holi through a Zoom meeting.
While trivia events come in broad categories, you can choose the Holi theme and ask holiday or culture-specific questions.
To play this game:
- Divide the group into two or more teams. Encourage fun and relevant team names like “Holi Rollers”
- Find or prepare Holi trivia questions.
- Ask questions from each group one by one.
- If one team answers wrong, the other team gets the chance to respond and win bonus points.
- Make sure to record the score on the scoreboard.
You can also use Kahoot! to facilitate gameplay.
A trivia event will increase the knowledge of your employees about Holi. The workers from different religions or cultures can also participate in this trivia to learn more about the holiday. Such quizzes remove the gap between cultures and religions and encourage people to collaborate despite the differences.
Here are starter questions:
- Holi is celebrated in which Hindu month? Phalguna.
- Holi marks the beginning of which season? Spring.
- What color of clothes is preferred on Holi? White.
- On which day do you celebrate choti Holi? A day before Holi.
- Which drink is famous for Holi? Thandai.
Check out ideas for virtual trivia games on Zoom.
15. Musical Chairs
Musical Chairs is a fun activity for any festival, and playing this game in the office can be enjoyable. You can use the chairs in the office to play Musical Chairs and fill the environment with joy. However, if you want to associate this game with Holi, you can put on Hindi songs while playing.
Musical Chairs will start with many participants who walk around the chairs when the music plays. When it stops, players must immediately sit on the nearest chair. The person that does not sit gets out of the game. The activity will continue until two participants are left. The one that sits first on the chair as the music starts will win.
16. Color Throwing Party
No Holi is complete without throwing powdered colors and colored water on others. Although color throwing is a common practice in Holi, doing this can be messy in the office. Of course, no boss would like to get their office furniture and walls spoiled.
So, here are some work-friendly tips for celebrating a color-throwing party for office workers:
- You can take the employees offsite to a Holi celebration spot and let them play their part in the festival.
- You can also hold the party outside the office on a lawn. A better idea is to do this celebration after office hours so that the coworkers can go home immediately after.
These tips will reduce the effort of cleaning the mess after the Holi celebration.
17. Bollywood Film Festival
A movie night with Bollywood films is a great idea to celebrate Holi. Watching movies with family and friends to celebrate festivals is common in many cultures. A Bollywood movie night will add entertainment to your day and let you celebrate this festival with your coworkers.
The best way to celebrate a movie night is to watch movies with Holi scenes. For example:
- Rang Barse
- Silsila
- Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
While several old Hindi movies have Holi scenes, you can also add funny movies to your list for more entertainment. It will generally depend on the age group of employees. Older people would like old films, while younger coworkers would be interested in comedy movies.
Conclusion
Celebrating festivals in the office with your colleagues can be fun, and the memories will last for years to come. However, as Holi comes once a year, it is better to celebrate in full spirit and encourage all the employees to participate in this celebration.
Even if you have teammates from different cultural backgrounds, coworkers can unite to eliminate differences and celebrate each others’ cultures. In this way, you will also develop a friendly working environment where all the employees collaborate and work together without hesitation.
Read about the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
