12 Fun-Filled Employee Morale Activities

There are a lot of ben­e­fits to a hap­py employ­ee. With improved morale comes increased team­work, greater lev­els of reten­tion and improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Mod­ern busi­ness­es are con­tin­u­al­ly look­ing at how to boost employ­ee morale with no cost — for­tu­nate­ly, we’ve done the leg­work for you. We’ve com­piled a list of employ­ee morale activ­i­ties and staff morale boost­ers that will quick­ly and effec­tive­ly unite a team, lift its spir­it and incen­tivise it to go that extra mile for your business.

Dis­cov­er twelve fun office games to boost morale with­out break­ing the bank below.

While you’re here, explore how con­tin­u­ous per­for­mance man­age­ment can boost employ­ee morale.

1. Watch Indi­vid­ual and Team Strengths Shine with Trivia

Triv­ia is a great way to get employ­ees to work togeth­er, while also get­ting them engaged and ener­gised. If you have a vari­ety of ques­tions and sub­ject areas, it allows employ­ees of dif­fer­ent back­grounds and tal­ents to show off their strengths. It also gives indi­vid­u­als a chance to get to know a bit more about one anoth­er. Triv­ia is fun for all types of per­son­al­i­ties and — to make it more rel­e­vant to work — you can even throw in a few work or com­­pa­ny-relat­ed ques­tions to help enforce com­pa­ny cul­ture.

2. Get Endor­phins Flow­ing with an Employ­ee Sports Day

Did you know that exer­cise has the abil­i­ty to improve men­tal focus and per­for­mance? What’s more, most employ­ees are eager to be more fit and active, but they lack the oppor­tu­ni­ty and moti­va­tion to do it alone — par­tic­u­lar­ly if they are stuck behind a desk for eight hours each day.

As a quick morale boost­er, con­sid­er imple­ment­ing reg­u­lar sports days for your employ­ees. It will give them some­thing to look for­ward to and get their endor­phins flow­ing, which is a great way for them to bond. You can even encour­age a lit­tle friend­ly com­pe­ti­tion by pro­vid­ing prizes. The sports don’t have to be tar­get­ed towards those who are nat­u­ral­ly gift­ed and fit — they can include games such as bowl­ing, clay pigeon shoot­ing or darts.

3. An Employ­ee Scav­enger Hunt

Scav­enger hunts aren’t just a fun pas­time for chil­dren — a lot of adults secret­ly enjoy the chal­lenge of being sent off in search of ran­dom, hard-to-find objects, mak­ing this one of our favourite employ­ee morale activ­i­ties. In the weeks pri­or to the hunt, get your employ­ees involved and ask them to send you anony­mous sug­ges­tions for items that they believe should be includ­ed in the hunt. Once you have com­piled a list, split your employ­ees into teams and watch them work through the check­list. This is a great team-build­ing activ­i­ty, as well as being lots of fun.

4. Intro­duce Themed Office Days

You might take great pride in your office’s pro­fes­sion­al­ism and for­mal dress code, but now and then, it might be a good idea to loosen the reins and have a lit­tle fun. Themed office days allow employ­ees to be a lit­tle cre­ative with their ensem­bles. Pick a theme and let their imag­i­na­tions run wild. Whether your employ­ees are encour­aged to turn up as their favourite lit­er­ary hero or com­ic book supervil­lain, themed office days are a proven morale boost­er.

5. Organ­ise a​‘Work and Fam­i­ly’ Picnic

We spend so long at work that our cowork­ers become a sec­ond fam­i­ly. To boost morale, con­sid­er host­ing a fam­i­­ly-friend­­ly event or out­ing dur­ing work hours. Organ­ise a pic­nic or a bar­beque. It will help every­one to feel more con­nect­ed and allow rela­tion­ships to devel­op and solidify.

6. Encour­age Healthy Com­pe­ti­tion with Fit­ness Contests

Some com­pa­nies decide to take a seri­ous stance on issues such as obe­si­ty and imple­ment office​“Biggest Los­er” style com­pe­ti­tions and con­tests. You can use tech­nol­o­gy such as Fit­bits to track and com­pare steps — these con­tests allow employ­ees to pri­ori­tise fit­ness while inter­act­ing and engag­ing with their colleagues.

7. Amp up the Ener­gy with an Escape Room

Escape rooms are boom­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty around the world, and they are now being tar­get­ed towards employ­ee and morale build­ing schemes. Escape rooms involve employ­ees being​“locked” in a room with their col­leagues for a giv­en peri­od. They then need to find and solve clues to allow them to escape. These rooms involve employ­ees work­ing togeth­er and divid­ing up tasks to solve a con­vo­lut­ed puz­zle, all while a clock ticks away in the back­ground. This requires a lot of team­work, com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coop­er­a­tion, and your employ­ees will like­ly leave the room stronger and more united.

8. Start a Book Club

Start­ing an employ­ee book club can seri­ous­ly help to unite your work­force and boost employ­ee engage­ment. What’s more, it’s extreme­ly cheap to imple­ment and easy to organ­ise. Once a month, set a book title and a time and place where your team will meet to dis­cuss a book. If you want to make the book club even more rel­e­vant to your work­place, you can pro­pose non-fic­­tion books relat­ing to per­son­al growth and self-help — a genre asso­ci­at­ed with extreme­ly suc­cess­ful indi­vid­u­als.

9. A Dai­ly Huddle

A pre-match hud­dle is pop­u­lar for ath­letes — it serves to ral­ly them and get them enthused and ener­gised for the task ahead. Con­sid­er doing some­thing sim­i­lar with your employ­ees. Incor­po­rat­ing a dai­ly hud­dle into your office activ­i­ties will only take a few min­utes, but it could prove to be one of the most pow­er­ful morale boost­ers and employ­ee engage­ment tools in your arse­nal. Cov­er progress towards organ­i­sa­tion­al goals and any rel­e­vant obsta­cles, and use the oppor­tu­ni­ty to moti­vate and inspire your employ­ees with great leadership.

10. Vol­un­teer as a Team

Inter­est­ing­ly, it has been found that an act of kind­ness of any type can boost hap­pi­ness. Know­ing this, it would be a great and char­i­ta­ble idea to go vol­un­teer­ing as a team — this can help employ­ees feel good about them­selves and feel con­nect­ed to one anoth­er, as well as to their community.

11. A Video Con­fer­ence Social

Social con­nec­tions play an impor­tant role when it comes to employ­ee morale. You want your employ­ees to feel a sense of belong­ing and of being part of a tight-knit team. Dur­ing the recent lock­down in the UK, many com­pa­nies have tak­en advan­tage of video con­fer­ence socials, where employ­ees get togeth­er at the end of the day or the end of the week and catch up. There is no real aim or direc­tion to these meet­ings — they’re mere­ly a chance for peo­ple to con­nect and unwind togeth­er, but you’d be sur­prised what a dif­fer­ence they can make.

12. Cel­e­brate Birthdays

Small ges­tures can mean a lot to employ­ees. Take the time to cel­e­brate employ­ee birth­days, even if it’s with some­thing small. Send them a hand­writ­ten note, get your cowork­ers to sign a card or organ­ise a birth­day cake. Our jobs end up mean­ing a lot to us, and our careers form a big part of our iden­ti­ty. It is great for morale when employ­ees know that they mat­ter to their organ­i­sa­tion and that their impor­tant mile­stones aren’t overlooked.

If you oper­ate a remote team, morale should be a huge focus for you. To find out how Clear Review’s per­for­mance man­age­ment soft­ware can help you boost morale and per­for­mance in your remote team, book a free demo today.

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