Easy wins to boost team culture in your business (no alcohol required)

A client recently asked me a question that got me thinking:

What are other commercial real estate principals doing to bring their people together without relying on alcohol?

Not long after, I noticed all the buzz on LinkedIn about R U OK? Day.

That got me thinking about how many days throughout the year could be leveraged to build camaraderie within your team — and how these days also offer great content for your social media and newsletters.

If you’re not taking advantage of these calendar moments, you’re likely missing out on opportunities to strengthen your culture, engage your team, and grow your brand.

With that in mind I’ve decided to dedicate an entire podcast episode to this very topic.

In episode 191 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership, I cover key dates throughout 2025 that can help you foster a positive workplace culture and provide practical tips on how to observe them.

To make it even easier for you, I’ve also created a calendar that highlights secular events you can recognise in the office.

If you’d like the calendar, just send an email to [email protected] with ‘2025 Calendar’ in the subject line, and we’ll send you a PDF of it for free.

This way, you’ll have both the episode and a handy reference to keep your team engaged in meaningful ways every single month of the year.

If you're looking for simple, effective ways to bring people together and make a positive impact on your clients and community, give this episode a listen. It’s packed with easy wins.

Episode transcript

If you're a business owner and you want some quick, easy wins that will help you build your culture, that will help you show respect for the people in your business and the communities in which you operate and also grow your brand, your personal brand, your company brand, well, I've got a whole feast of ideas for you in today's episode.

Hello, welcome to episode 191 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host Darren Krakowiak. Really appreciate you joining us for today's episode.

I'm here to help commercial real estate principals create a business with the right people in the team, serving ideal clients inside a business that just works. That's what we're all about.

Well, the inspiration came for today's topic from two places. One, from one of my clients who was just asking me around, what are my other clients doing to use events that are on the calendar to build culture?

And also, because I noticed a couple of weeks ago, R U OK? Day was getting a lot of attention on LinkedIn that day, but I had no idea that it was coming up.

And I thought, "Geez, I wish I had just sent out a note to some of my clients who perhaps aren't part of franchise networks or in bigger companies, so they don't get someone from HR or head office telling them that R U OK? Day is coming."

How can we inform people that these days are happening and then give them tools and resources that help them do the things that I mentioned at the top of the show, right?

It matters to recognize some of these days because we want to build culture.

Friday drinks is not so much a thing as it used to be. A lot of my clients are in Suburban locations. So, a lot of their people drive to work. So, therefore they're probably not going to hang around and have beers or wine after work.

So, what can we do to bring people together? Also, what can we do to show respect? And the ideas that I'm going to share with you today are specifically made sure they're all secular.

So, I just want to acknowledge that of course, you can choose to recognize Ramadan for Muslims or Diwali for Hindus or any number of Christian days like Easter or Ash Wednesday, for example.

But showing respect is not only about recognizing people's religions. There are other causes, other events that you can recognize as a business owner that will show that you have some awareness of people who are in your business and clients of yours and in the communities in which you operate without being to the exclusion of others.

And the other thing that this is about is creating some content or having some sources of content, some inspiration that you can use for posts on social media for your newsletters that you're sending an email blasts, to your client lists and your prospects and to all of your contacts, so we want something to talk about.

And definitely, if you do events around some of the days that I'm going to tell you about today, you'll have plenty of content that you can share in those ways.

So, what I'm going to do is just run through a few of the days. This is not prescriptive, but it's not meant to be exhaustive.

I think I've captured most of the big ones that we probably want to be observing that are non-religious. But if I've missed one, let me know. And we'll update a resource.

We're going to create a calendar around this, so there's information for business owners that are looking for ways to bring their teams together and recognize some days that might be appropriate to recognize.

So, at the start of the year, everyone's on holidays in Australia until the second or third week of January.

But then once you've got everyone back, there's Lunar New Year. Now, a lot of people will call this Chinese New Year, but in the interests of exclusiveness, I want to say that it's Lunar New Year because in Korea it's called ‘Seollal’ and in Vietnam it's called ‘Tet’.

And the Lunar New Year is just the beginning of the New Year based on the lunar calendar. Probably has a more Asian flavor in terms of the countries that recognize it.

But that's an easy win that you could recognize and observe in your office. Lunar New Year generally in January, sometimes in early February. January 29th is the date in 2025.

Now, February is not so much going on in terms of days to observe. But I think February is a great time for you to be looking at doing internal retreats or offsite strategy days.

But if you don't have anything planned and you want to do something in February, well, you can observe Valentine’s Day on the 14th of February. And I'm sure you can imagine many ways that you can celebrate that day in your office.

As we move into March, on the 8th of March is International Women's Day, which is an important day around gender equality and recognizing that more needs to be done in terms of violence and abuse against women.

And my tip for you on International Women's Day, because most commercial real estate principles are men, is to not say that we're recognizing this because, "Well, I have a daughter." Or, "I have a sister." Or, "I have a mom."

But rather you can say that, "We're celebrating International Women's Day because gender equality is important. It's important if you have a sister or a daughter, if you don't have a sister or a daughter." So, that's something to do in March.

In April, you've got Earth Day on the 22nd. And this is a day where it's celebrated all around the world so there's a lot of different ways that you can do it. You can check out earthday.org if you want more information.

I've seen businesses turning off their lights at certain times of Earth Day, but you can also relate that back to some sustainability initiatives that you might be doing in property management. Or, some of the sustainability features of properties that you are currently carrying as listings.

In May, an important one is the Administrative Professionals Day, which is previously known as Secretary's Day. That happens on the 2nd of May in 2025.

There is a similar thing that happens in the US, which is called Administrative Professionals Week in the last full week of April.

And this is all about recognizing the work of some of the unsung heroes within our business; the secretaries, the admin assistants, the executive assistants, the personal assistants, the receptionists, and all of those types of administrative support professionals.

If you've got a virtual assistant, you could also recognize them with a gift and some gratitude.

Also in May is IDAHOBIT Day, which stands for the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. It happens on the 17th of May. And it's basically around raising awareness of discrimination and violations of LGBT rights.

Now, you may have a personal view that this is not important. But I want to let you know that with this one and with a couple of the others that I'm going to talk about, it may not be personally important to you, but it's probably important to one or more members of your team in terms of their family or their friends who may fall into one of these categories or be a beneficiary of one of these causes.

So, it's an opportunity for you to do something which maybe isn't part of your priorities, but is important to people in your team.

And you can invite members of your team to take ownership of the way that your team looks to recognize and observe these different days.

National Sorry Day on the 26th of May, probably also falls in that category. May or may not be important to you, but there are probably some people in your business who think that commemorating the stolen generations and ongoing reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is an important thing.

June, there's not a lot happening in June. So, the only thing I could find in June, and please let me know if there's something better that we could observe in June to bring everyone together, is Vegemite Day on the 16th of June.

So, Vegemite came to Australia in 1923. It was 100 years ago or 102 years ago when you celebrate it in 2025 to replicate British Marmite.

And then they gave it to the troops in the Second World War and it became a whole thing, Vegemite, right? It's a very big part of Australian food culture. Celebrate it if you choose.

Have you ever tasted those Vegemite croissants? My local bakery does this Vegemite and cheese croissant, really good. Maybe you could do that.

In July, a couple that you can observe. One is NAIDOC week. So if you're not doing Sorry Day, you might want to do something around NAIDOC week, which stands for, , the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee.

It's a week-long event and a lot of companies do something to observe it through their social media. And you could look to do an event around that as well if you wanted to.

Really important one, which I believe for commercial real estate, if you have a rent roll, this is a non-negotiable, you must recognize National Property Managers Day.

It'll probably on the 25th of July in 2025, based on when it's usually held in previous years. But I don't think the Real Estate Institute has named what the date for 2025 is yet. But you'll be informed by the REIA in your state when it happens.

And this is all just about recognizing the contribution of people in property management because it's a specialized and often demanding profession, and it does play a very important role in our industry and for our clients.

In August, a non-controversial one that we can all get behind is Daffodil Day on the 22nd, which is the Cancer Council of Australia raising funds for cancer research, prevention and support services. 

In September, R U OK? Day will happen on September 11th. It's a non-profit suicide prevention organization that revolves around the slogan "R U OK?", just to advocate for people to have conversations with others, to connect with people on an emotional level and to address social isolation and to promote community cohesiveness.

On a similar level, I guess, on the 10th of October is World Mental Health Day. So, you could look to observe that as well.

And it again, might not be clearer obvious to you that that's an important day for anyone in your office, but it very well could be and it probably definitely is for at least some people in your office that they care about.

They will care about someone who has mental health challenges, so, a good one to also recognize the importance of.

Halloween, of course, is on the 31st of October. Sort of bit of a controversial one in Australia. Some people say, "Oh, it's more of a U. S. thing." But it seems to be growing and growing in terms of its penetration in Australian culture.

My easy win for you on this one is just give everyone in your business a packet of lollies or a packet of caramello koalas, and so they've got treats in case someone rings their doorbell asking for a trick or treat. Easy win. Doesn't cost much. It recognizes the day.

Now in November, if you're not in Victoria and you're not on holidays, you've got Melbourne Cup Day. Very easy win, happening on the 4th of November in 2025. It'll be on the 5th of November in 2024.

Next up, we've got Remembrance Day on the 11th, which is observed to recognize the end of the First World War to honor armed forces members who have died in the line of duty.

Stop at 11 a. m. to remember those who have fallen in the line of duty in service of their country.

And Movember is an event that promotes men's health issues that runs for the month of November, where men might choose to grow a moustache just for the month of November to raise awareness around issues like prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men's suicide.

So again, you could do an event or a series of events around that. And certainly, plenty of opportunities for content.

Now, December, you probably have your year-end party. And by the way, year-end party was a term we used to use in Korea when I lived there instead of Christmas party because not everyone is a Christian.

So, you might want to call it year-end party. Maybe you're angry that I said that, I don't know. But anyway, have your Christmas party if you want to have your Christmas party.

But there's another thing that you can do in December, which is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

You might say, "Well, I don't have anyone disabled in my team. You could very well have somebody in your team who believes that supporting the causes of people with a disability is an important thing to recognize.

So, that's my list of days that you can look to observe as a business. And they're going to help you with bringing people together to showing respect and also creating content to share on social media and in email blasts and in other places.

I'll create a resource for you as well. That's got all of this information summarized for you, so you can pick and choose the days that you do choose to recognize in your business.

That's our episode for today. Thanks so much for listening, I will speak to you soon.