How to Engage the Office in Fun

Corporate culture is a very important part of a company's success. It can mean the difference between low employee retention and an expensive turnover rate. If the nature of your business lends itself to be stressful or employees often work more than the 40-hour work week, adopting a few stress-relieving, fun experiences may boost morale, camaraderie and sales.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Sure, the holiday party, summer picnic and occasional morning donuts can be a pick-me-up, but employees should look forward to more than a semi-annual, routine event. If your company is small, it's easy and efficient to include everyone in the fun-making. For larger companies, departmental or divisional events work well. Inter-departmental events and competition between departments will promote synergy among departments that may work together but not play together.

2. Keep the event to after hours, before hours or weekends. Since the last thing most people want to do is spend time at work while off work, the event should be kept to lunch breaks when possible. Revolving card games, board games, and electronic games during the lunch hour is easy and inexpensive. Most employees have different lunch schedules, so a rotating schedule will give everyone a chance to play. Supply pizza and beverages, keep score, and reward the winner.

3. Buy an old arcade game for the employee lounge and post the top scores in the employee newsletter.

4. Let the employees promote and administer an event.

5. Invite an early morning review for a book, TV show or movie. Do this weekly or monthly.

6. Sponsor a company ping pong tournament, badminton or darts.

7. Have a quarterly poker tournament and play for charity.

8. Get out in the community and visit a retirement home or animal shelter.

9. A personal favorite is the lunch-time movie. If your office is located near a multiplex, supply the tickets and let employees enjoy themselves. If you have a lot of parents in the office, this is a treat.

Tips & Warnings

• Senior management should always take part in some or all of these events or activities.
• Not all events will appeal to everyone. You should stress participation is on a volunteer basis only, and of course, events should not be offensive to anyone culturally.