"Holidays" / special days at your company

January 29, 2019 1:43 PM

The head of HR is disappointed we did not host an event for Martin Luther King Jr Day, and has asked for a list of upcoming holidays that we should be aware of. I've ..... found 30 pages of events. Please help me create a decent starting list!

We are a global company headquartered in the USA with offices in Mexico, France, Germany, Romania, India, and China. The scope of this list is events we can celebrate here in the USA - other locations can choose their own events to celebrate. But, because of our large german/romanian/mexican/french/indian/chinese employee base, it would be interesting to highlight some dates important in those countries as well.

My criteria for this list are days that (a) elevate the visibility of diversity at company, (b) promote civil rights, and (c) foster inclusion of non-majority groups and cultures.


These are the dates my team landed on, but I would greatly appreciate suggestions for other dates to include.

MLK – January
Black History Month - February
LGBTQ Pride - June
Hispanic Heritage - September
Human Rights Day (Dec 10)
Indigenous Peoples Day - October
International Women’s Day - March
Disability awareness days - July
Sustainability day – March

posted by rebent to Work & Money (20 answers total)

Juneteenth
APIA Heritage Month (May)
Various companies I've worked at in the past have also done stuff for Lunar New Year and Diwali.
posted by sunset in snow country at 1:50 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have no company as such, but may I offer National Poetry Month? Every year in April. Lots of opportunities for celebrating diversity.
posted by luaz at 1:50 PM on January 29, 2019

My company in the us has a party for Diwali.
posted by brilliantine at 1:51 PM on January 29, 2019 [3 favorites]

If your company is going to have Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Indigenous Peoples' Day (er, that's awkward, Indigenous people only get one day? I know it's the replacement for Columbus Day, and that from the perspective of being an office observing these holidays, you're probably only going to be doing one event on one day as part of this recognition for each), then you have to include Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May. (Not all Asian cultures celebrate the Lunar New Year.)
posted by Pandora Kouti at 1:51 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

-Earth day
-Juneteenth
-Take your child to work day
posted by mosst at 1:54 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

- Lunar New Year
- Eid al-Adha & Eid al-Fitr

Could you do an email survey of the employees at your location asking what holidays and other special dates that they'd like to celebrate and/or have recognized?
posted by smorgasbord at 1:58 PM on January 29, 2019 [14 favorites]

Definitely Lunar (Chinese) New Year and Diwali.
posted by crazycanuck at 1:58 PM on January 29, 2019 [4 favorites]

Rosh Hashanah and first night of Hannukah.
posted by jessamyn at 2:04 PM on January 29, 2019 [2 favorites]

I like the idea of acknowledging independence/national days in the countries where you also have headquarters. Quick google search suggests those are:
July 14 (France)
August 15 (India)
Sept 16 (Mexico)
October 1 (China)
Oct 3 (Germany)
Dec 1 (Romania)

I'd also throw in May 1 as International Workers' Day, which seems really appropriate for a global company (and also is a BFD in Europe).

Major cultural celebrations like Diwali, Eid, Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival are also good to include, as you may have people in the office celebrating those too. Any excuse to have gulab jamun and moon cakes -- though probably not together unless you want to induce sugar coma.
posted by basalganglia at 2:06 PM on January 29, 2019 [6 favorites]

For India I would do Holi and Diwali. My company is US-based and does not have a presence in India, but we do have a number of Indian employees, and this year they hosted a really fun Diwali happy hour.
posted by radioamy at 3:13 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

Rosh Hashanah and first night of Hannukah.

Just as a timing note on this one, most observant, or even semi observant, Jews are probably going to be taking the day off for Rosh Hashanah.

If you want to include a Jewish holiday, Passover also has a pretty good civil rights tie in (plus, macaroons).
posted by eponym at 4:54 PM on January 29, 2019

Yeah the best way to recognize the high holy days (Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur) is to make them firmwide days off. I’d advocate for Passover, Hanukkah, or Purim as your Jewish holiday to recognize.
posted by capricorn at 6:50 PM on January 29, 2019 [1 favorite]

November is Native American heritage month
posted by amapolaroja at 9:43 PM on January 29, 2019

My multinational employer has been known to send emails to all employees highlighting holidays observed in different faiths that were represented in the workforce, incl start and end of Ramadan. This was to both widen horizons but also ensure e.g. Muslim employees were not pressed to go to a business lunch or whatever. Quite often, there would also be traditional snacks/sweets related to event or country in the break room. It was low key, fairly budget friendly but achieved what it set out to achieve.

As you can see from the range of suggestions though this is a really broad request. I’d structure the various options (religious, secular, marking and informing vs small event vs big event) and meet with HR to get some more parameters, incl their budget for this, before doing more research -unless you find you have time on your hands.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:14 AM on January 30, 2019

We're a group of super nerdy scientists, so we do pi day, with pie competitions. (March 14th)

I'd look at your departments and see if there are days that are related to their jobs - administrative assistants day, bosses day, our safety group does something at some point in the year, we do stuff for national library week.

So I guess being less facetious, how they'd meet your criteria - as a group full of international nerds, we encourage things like pies from different cultures, then let people taste test, share recipes, learn about different cultures through silly food. And then our departmental days are just because sometimes it's nice to 1) recognize people for the jobs they do every damn day, and 2) let us educate you about the finer points of our jobs that you might not know about.
posted by librarianamy at 5:40 AM on January 30, 2019

Response by poster: Thanks so far for all the suggestions! A note - I am HR, and my task is to propose a list of dates that we will use to raise awareness across the company via posts on our intranet, themed lunches, etc.

Part of this project is to design a way for employees to promote the events they find important and share their culture. And to do that, we want also to have a few dates that HR puts on as an example.


Here is what I've heard so far

Cultural awareness months:

Black History Month - February
APIA heritage month - May
LGBTQ Pride - June
Hispanic Heritage - September
Native American Heritage Month - November
Women's history month - March
Disability awareness days - July

Notable holidays:
Indigenous Peoples Day - October
International Women’s Day - March
MLK – January
Sustainability day – March
Human Rights Day (Dec 10)
Lunar new year - Feb 5
Juneteenth - June 19

Religious holidays:
Diwali - October
Ramadan (may-june)
Rosh Hashanah - September 29
Yom Kippur - October 8
(are there similar religious holidays for... christianity/catholics/orthadox christians?

National holidays:
July 14 (France)
August 15 (India)
Sept 16 (Mexico)
October 1 (China)
Oct 3 (Germany)
Dec 1 (Romania)
July 4 (USA)
posted by rebent at 6:09 AM on January 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Sorry if this is obvious, but your list reminded me - keep in mind that the date of Lunar New Year changes each year since it's, y'know, lunar :)
posted by sunset in snow country at 7:41 AM on January 30, 2019

Rosh Hashanah moves around as does the first day of Chanukah.

I'm also a big fan of mentioning the Solstices/Equinoxes.
posted by jessamyn at 8:29 AM on January 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Diwali and Ramadan also change every year as they are based on the lunar calendar as well.

I also wouldn't exactly characterize Ramadan as a holiday in the US-ian sense of the word (and definitely no themed lunches!), but you could celebrate Eid which is the end of Ramadan.

Ash Wednesday and Good Friday-Easter Monday are important to many Catholics I work with. (As is Lent, of course, but less visibly so.) Dates vary year to year. Christmas of course, which is Dec 25 for Western Christians and Jan 6 (I think) for Eastern Orthodox.
posted by basalganglia at 3:04 PM on January 30, 2019

(are there similar religious holidays for... christianity/catholics/orthadox christians?

Seconding "Ash Wednesday/Good Friday/Easter Monday/Christmas". The Eastern Orthodox dates for both Christmas and Easter may also follow a Lunar calendar, or be influenced by it in some way; it's a good idea to check. Most other Christian holidays are less "festive", so to speak; but a token observance of Advent, the four week lead-up to Christmas, wouldn't be a bad idea.

And the day before Ash Wednesday is celebrated in many places with Christian-heavy cultures as a general day-of-revelry. It's a secular tradition - people getting into the habit of getting all of their mayhem out of their system, indulging in all the indulgent things they're going to be giving up for Lent, with one last blowout. In some parts of the world this day is called "Shrove Tuesday", and the emphasis is on indulgent eating (to brace you for the light fasting people would be undergoing with Lent); in others, there's also a tradition that you eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. And then there are the parts of the world that call the day before lent "Fat Tuesday" - or, "Mardi Gras". And you will have no trouble finding ways to celebrate Mardi Gras, I'm sure!

Although that does suggest that a Mardi Gras observance as a "yay New Orleans" thing wouldn't be a bad idea either. It's a really unique culture that may just be fun to acknowledge for its own sake. (It's not all about drinking and flashing boobs, I assure you.)

Similarly, Purim may be another smaller Jewish holiday to celebrate. It's not a high holiday, but it sounds like it's just plain fun; its religious significance is from the book of Esther, in which an ancient Persian king was going to kill all the Jews in his empire (at the behest of one of his advisers) but the Queen - who was Jewish - talked him out of it. From what I've been told, it sounds like a combination of Halloween and Mardi Gras; people dress in costume, often in costumes depicting people from that Bible story, and just have a heck of a good time. (I've been told that there's a tradition that you should drink enough wine to the point that you're too drunk to tell the difference between that Persian king and his adviser!)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:21 AM on January 31, 2019