6 Ways Your Facility & Workforce Can Honor Memorial Day
Your workplace may hold casual celebrations for seasonal festivities such as Halloween, and you likely take some quiet time around Christmas. What about holidays such as Memorial Day? While Memorial Day is 
often celebrated as the first long weekend of the summer, it’s actually a day designed to honor those who have served our country. Honor veterans and family by creating new traditions at your workplace. This is an important topic and iOffice can offer some insights and suggestions.
1. Take Time to Remember
While Memorial Day is a time to celebrate our country and our families, it began as a day to honor those who have served. Many of your employees have family members who have served in the Army, Navy, or Air Force. Encourage them to bring photos and memories of their relatives and create a display of memorial photos and messages that you hang on a tree for Memorial Day. Over time, you can recreate the landscape near your business with these meaningful Memorial Day trees.
2. Attend a Parade
Even if you’re open on Memorial Day, give your workforce time to pay their respects to those who have served by attending or watching a Memorial Day parade. You can also create wreaths and donate them, or consider entering a float of your own in a community parade.
3. Become Active Volunteers
On or around Memorial Day, consider taking the spirit of the day into practice. Fund-raise or volunteer for an organization that helps veterans. If you have a regular volunteer program at your workplace, highlight opportunities to volunteer throughout the year with veteran support organizations.
4. Take a Moment to Observe the Day
If your workplace stays open on Memorial Day, encourage employees to come dressed for the occasion in the colors of the flag, and hand out flags and flag pins to your employees. Take time to observe some of the most important elements of the day. Fly your flag at half staff until noon, and hold a flag ceremony in the morning. At 3 pm, take a moment to pause to remember.
5. Connect With Your Customers
Memorial Day is a day to gather community memories as well. In your social media posts, talk about your Memorial Day activities. Ask your customers to talk about what Memorial Day means to them and ask them what they are doing to celebrate.
6. Celebrate Family
Memorial Day often falls on a warm spring weekend, and it’s the perfect time for spending time with family and friends. Celebrate family on Memorial Day by having an annual barbecue or ice cream social event on Memorial Day or on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, complete with historic or patriotic-themed activities and recipes such as layered red, white, and blue cakes. Children can color flags, hold old-fashioned games such as sack races, or create poems about this important day.
When you’re working in facilities management, you have the opportunity to help your workforce create a pleasant working environment. From effective facilities management software to creating space for community celebration, your role is to set the stage for an effective, efficient, and connected working environment.
Taking the time to honor and celebrate holidays is a great way to help make the workplace a fun and happy place. When you’re looking for tools to enhance your ability to support your employees in their everyday work, look at iOffice. Our software will help you manage your space, maintenance, assets and inventory so that your employees can excel in their positions and lead your facilities to excellence as well.
