Below is Epoch’s guide to special days and themes for the month of April!
This calendar is a guide for you and your team to use as you plan meaningful, internal events and activities virtually for the month of April. Bring everyone together and celebrate these special days as a team!
Add Epoch’s calendar directly to your Gcal or Outlook calendar, or download our 2023 Employee Experience Calendar PDF to be ahead of 2023’s cultural and holiday events.
Month Themes: Earth, Celebrate Diversity, National Volunteer Month, Stress Awareness
April is the month of growing. With holidays in April such as Good Friday, Easter, and Passover, it’s important to plan your events around these days to avoid any busy schedules. If you’re looking for an opportunity to destress or motivate the company, plan an event such as a happy hour or a trivia competition to get everyone in high spirits! Other themes for the month include earth, celebrating diversity, national volunteer month, and stress awareness.
The one day a year when you can play tricks on your co-workers (virtually) for a good reason. To celebrate April Fool’s Day get creative and have fun with the day. Use the classic “What’s behind you?” in a Zoom call or use a very realistic Zoom background and then jump out for a surprise.
Idea: Create a Joke of the Day Slack channel where employees can share their best (or cheesiest) jokes to continue the humor-filled day and give everyone a good laugh.
Even though most of the employees are still working from home, it doesn’t mean they can’t participate in this fun day as a reminder to get active and reduce their carbon footprint. If some employees like to get a morning coffee before their workday, suggest that they walk to their nearest coffee shop instead of driving. Recommend employees go for a walk on their lunch break to take some time outside and move their bodies.
Idea: You could even turn this day’s theme into a friendly competition on Slack where employees can share how far they have walked.
On this day, help bring awareness to Autism disorder and how your team can support others (even colleagues) with autism or who have children with Autism. Help run autism-friendly events or even host a Lunch & Learn discussing and educating employees on this topic. Learn more about Autism awareness here.
Idea: Remind your team members to wear blue on this day for kindness and to show their support for Autism awareness. Even share your support on social media by using the hashtags #WorldAutismAwarenessDay and #KindnessCounts.
World Health Day is a global initiative run every year by the World Health Organization to bring light to a specific health issue that needs to be addressed and the one that will be the focus of the year. The focus of 2023 is “building a fairer, healthier world”, which is fitting as COVID-19 brought to light the inequality of access to healthcare globally. Work needs to be done to ensure that all communities can access quality healthcare.
This important day in April is one to bring awareness about the harmful effects of bullying and harassment to those of the LGBTQIA+ community. It originated as a student-led movement and initiative to protest injustice. It can fully be adapted into being honored in a workplace setting as well with a vow of silence to show support.
Idea: Partner with your team’s LGBTQ+ ERG to offer support to those in need and provide a safe space where everyone can feel like they belong. Use this day as an educational opportunity to inform other employees about the meaning and importance of this day.
Celebrate this day with your co-workers by getting everyone to submit photos of them and their sibling(s) as children. Share these photos with all employees and everyone can see if there’s a resemblance or if an employee has many siblings everyone can guess which one is them in the photo.
If you have a pet make sure they know you appreciate them! Consider getting some pet treats and toys for any of your team members that have pets! You can also hold a photo competition for pets and give a prize to the person who sends in the best pet photo!
On this special day, you just have to get your team to make and enjoy a nice grilled cheese sandwich for lunch! Encourage them to even put their twist on this classic sandwich and share their creations in a Slack channel.
This special day is fun, easy, and super timely given the new at-home couture is a good PJ set! All your employees have to do is roll out of bed and start work in their pajamas! If employees share their looks on Slack you can even vote on who has the most creative PJs!
The month of April has such an important theme of focusing on giving back through social impact. The most timely week to take on virtual volunteering opportunities as a team is from April 18th to 24th. Social impact is something that should always be on your team’s mind as it is important to give back and support local communities and organizations.
Encourage each team member to complete a certain amount of volunteer hours to support a charitable cause that's important to them, or choose the same organization for the entire company to help.
Idea: Here is a list of virtual volunteering opportunities we put together to give you some ideas that will be fitting for your team.
Join all of the participants around the world and take action against climate change on April 22nd. Visit this helpful website for Earth Day that allows you to filter and find Earth Day events near you or even register your own event! You can even find local organizations near you and your team to help support local areas affected by various environmental issues.
Here is a list of the official Earth Day - Restore Our Earth Campaigns:
Idea: Have a company-wide Earth Hour where everyone can go offline and turn off all electricity in their home. A low-lift event idea is a park clean-up. Have employees get outside with a mask, gloves, and a garbage bag to clean up their local parks.
Help honor the individuals on the team who are in an administrative role. These individuals help keep the entire team and office running smoothly, but often their hard work can go unnoticed. Create a slack channel or encourage everyone to send a slack message to the administrative team members to show appreciation and gratitude for all that they do.
Bring your daughters and sons to work day is an educational program to introduce kids to the workplace and allow them to explore careers for their future. Encourage employees to bring their children into their calls and take them through their daily tasks for the day to spark the curious minds of young children. Find some ideas on how to run activities for this special day. Have employees show their kids what mommy and/or daddy do at work all day.
Idea: Encourage the parents on your team to bring their kids to work virtually by bringing them into their home office and engaging in various kids-friendly virtual activities throughout the day. Here are some kid-friendly activities that can be done from home.
In-person Idea: If it is safe to do so and your local restrictions allow for it, employees can bring their kids into the office for the day. Give the kids an office tour, plan fun activities for them throughout the day (plan activities around different age groups), and have a team lunch altogether.
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