Your March holiday calendar for HR: Workplace events & celebrations to plan

Welcome to February, HR and people leaders! With January now behind us, I hope you’ve had enough time to get settled back into your routines and projects. We’re back with our monthly preview of upcoming events, celebrations and observances that you can use to shape your employee engagement programming, internal communications theming and more.

This month, you can find a wealth of diverse opportunities for connecting with your employees in a variety of ways – from tasty treats to wellbeing interests and from professional acknowledgements to religious celebrations, March is a busy month with a lot to offer.

Let’s dig in.

Employee engagement & solidarity

Women’s History Month

March presents a powerful opportunity to honor and celebrate the contributions women have made throughout history and continue to make today. With key observances like International Women’s Day (March 8) and Equal Pay Day (March 12), organizations can engage their employees in meaningful conversations around gender equity and empowerment. Bring in a local community leader or tap your own organization’s female leaders for a webinar, presentation or simple conversation about the unique challenges women face in the workplace.

Irish American Heritage Month

March is also when we celebrate the rich cultural contributions of Irish Americans and their impact on our society. With St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th) as a highlight, this is a great opportunity for organizations to engage in activities that honor this heritage, from educational programming to festive events. If you have a recognition program, consider adding a special themed eCard for this month so employees can have fun with their messages of thanks.

Employee Appreciation Day

Employee Appreciation Day (March 6th) is the first Friday of March, and our favorite day of the year – although we do believe that recognition should be a year-round practice. EAD is the perfect opportunity to go big in showing your employees how much you appreciate their time, attention, productivity and loyalty. Host an event with a rewards segment – tenure milestones are a great shout here, but consider above-and-beyond actions, exceeded goals and big wins, too – and cater lunch. Or, check out our EAD hub for dozens more ideas and opportunities to celebrate Employee Appreciation Day.

More Dates of Note

• 8th - Daylight Savings Time begins
• 10th - Harriet Tubman Day
• 18th - Global Recycling Day
• 21st - National Single Parents Day
• 31st - Transgender Day of Visibility

Surprise mini literary theme

Sprinkled throughout March are a surprising number of literary and adjacent-themed holidays to celebrate. If your organization has a content or editorial team, consider taking an opportunity this month to connect with and celebrate them, their work and successes and how their work contributes to organizational success. World Poetry Day may be harder to celebrate than National Proofreading Day, but you may have an enthusiast on staff who would love an opportunity to share their knowledge and passion with their colleagues, who may just love an opportunity to learn something new.

World Book Day could also serve the perfect opportunity to get an employee book club off the ground if your organization has an enthusiastic leader or committee. World Storytelling Day could be a brilliant opportunity for your content marketing team to re-examine their customer profiles and product talking points to ensure best alignment. It could also be an opportunity for your various leaders to present on the value of storytelling in the marketing and sales pipelines, and anywhere else it’s important to your organization.

• 2nd – Read Across America Day
• 4th – National Grammar Day
• 6th – World Book Day
• 8th – National Proofreading Day
• 20th – World Storytelling Day
• 21st – World Poetry Day
• 27th – World Theater Day
• 30th – National Pencil Day

World religion highlights

Religion is an important part of life for millions of people around the country, and acknowledging the celebrations our people are anticipating is a great way to reinforce with your employees that your organization cares about them as whole people, outside of their productivity metrics. Offering a word of celebration, enthusiasm or well wishes suited to the theme of the holiday is a fast, easy way to build internal community and boost cross-cultural understanding and belonging.

• 3rd – Holi (Hindu spring festival)
• 19th – Last day of Ramadan
• 20th – Eid al-Fitr
• 29th – Palm Sunday

Wellbeing opportunities

March’s dynamic collection of wellbeing-focused observance dates are a strong lead-in to April’s Stress Awareness Month and May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, emphasizing the importance of wellbeing in our workplaces. With observances like National Nutrition Month, awareness and professional recognition days, this is an opportune time for organizations to implement and promote initiatives that address stress management and mental health support – particularly those with deskless and frontline populations.

National Nutrition Month

National Nutrition Month is a time to highlight the essential role of nutrition in promoting overall health and wellbeing. Organizations can seize this opportunity to offer resources and activities that encourage employees to make healthier food choices, contributing to enhanced wellbeing and increased productivity in the workplace.

Attach healthy recipes to your internal communications this month. Ask employees to share their favorite healthy recipes, snacks and drinks with each other. Implement a special produce-themed eCard to your recognition program for the month. And don't forget to observe National Spinach Day on March 26th!

Awareness dates

• 1st – Endometriosis Awareness Day
• 8th – 14th – Patient Safety Awareness Week
• 12th – World Kidney Day
• 12th – World Glaucoma Day
• 13th – World Sleep Day
• 20th – World Oral Health Day
• 21st – World Down Syndrome Day
• 25th – National Cerebral Palsy Awareness Day
• 30th – World Bipolar Day

Professional recognition dates

• 6th – National Dentist's Day
• 16th –20th – Neurodiversity Celebration Week
• 17th – World Social Work Day
• 19th – National Certified Nurses Day
• 30th – Doctor's Day

Sanctioned fun

Just in case you don‘t have enough fun on Employee Appreciation Day, International Day of Happiness (March 20th) follows just a couple weeks behind – another opportunity to make your people‘s day! Facilitate social events that prioritize joy, laughter and connection and create a custom eCard or two for employees to bring smiles to each others’ faces.

And, looking in a completely different direction, March 25th offers us Manatee Appreciation Day, an opportunity to highlight one of Earth’s incredible – and incredibly adorable – creatures. Sprinkle pictures of manatees into your comms or eCards (see if you can pair with the International Day of Happiness cards to bring extra smiles!), drop some fun facts, or donate money to a conservation fund to support your CSR commitments.

...And make it delicious

Who doesn’t love a treat? We put National Spinach Day up with National Nutrition Month, where it belongs (while delicious, not a treat). These dates celebrate treats that may fly in the face of a diet, but they’re sure to put smiles on faces. Pick one or many, or work with your employee resource groups to host “pot luck” events so people can sample their colleagues’ favorites, building connections, strengthening community and driving employee loyalty.

• 1st – National Peanut Butter Lovers’ Day
• 5th – National Poutine Day
• 7th – National Cereal Day
• 14th – Pi Day
• 14th – National Potato Chip Day
• 19th – National Chocolate Caramel Day
• 20th – National Ravioli Day
• 28th – National Something on a Stick Day

Learn more about how Reward Gateway | Edenred’s suite of employee experience solutions can help you make your corner of the world a better place to work.