Hi All, Can fellow HR professionals suggest/share few ideas of engaging employees with various ongoing activities that can be executed to refresh employees and doesn't require them to spend much time on it.
For eg: Sometime back I had started this Quiz Contest wherein, I use to send a set of 10 General questions/puzzles/brain teasers everyday to all the employees(through mail) after lunch(usually people feel sleepy after lunch, so it was a good refreshment for them).I use to award a gift to people who had given fastest and most correct answers in a week. Again, employees with max. cumulative scores for a month were awarded separately.
I had received very good response on this.
Can you think of more such activities?
Thnks, :)
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
For eg: Sometime back I had started this Quiz Contest wherein, I use to send a set of 10 General questions/puzzles/brain teasers everyday to all the employees(through mail) after lunch(usually people feel sleepy after lunch, so it was a good refreshment for them).I use to award a gift to people who had given fastest and most correct answers in a week. Again, employees with max. cumulative scores for a month were awarded separately.
I had received very good response on this.
Can you think of more such activities?
Thnks, :)
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
Hi Pooja
You have set yourself a challenging assignment but an equally noble one. Unless you engage your employees with motivational inputs, getting peak performance is not easy.
Here are a few suggestions:
- use crosswords, scrambled words, jumbled proverbs etc
- On the spot quick talks of 1-2 minutes on humorous topics ; limit participation to 5-7
- Have a simple poetry reading / passage reading / book review
- Have a quote of the day and 3 participants from a team talk on it. The best team wins.
- Have a competitive Chinese whispers game between various teams; ensure at least 7-8 members in the team and use crisp passages or jokes
Whatever you do, ensure that the activity is not skewed to exceptional talent, overbearing participants and highly competitive individuals or else the others will be demotivated and won’t participate.
To balance, I suggest that you also include activities like a lucky dip, a quick game of housie with just the three line winners, spot prize winners (person wearing a red dress, having credit card ending with _ _ _ number etc
Feel free to write back for more such ideas.
Best wishes,
Jacob
Personality Development, Communication Skills and Written Communication – Website
Actspot's Blog – My Daily Inspirational and Motivational Blog
Academy for Creative Training – My Weekly Inspirational and Motivational Blog
From India, Mumbai
You have set yourself a challenging assignment but an equally noble one. Unless you engage your employees with motivational inputs, getting peak performance is not easy.
Here are a few suggestions:
- use crosswords, scrambled words, jumbled proverbs etc
- On the spot quick talks of 1-2 minutes on humorous topics ; limit participation to 5-7
- Have a simple poetry reading / passage reading / book review
- Have a quote of the day and 3 participants from a team talk on it. The best team wins.
- Have a competitive Chinese whispers game between various teams; ensure at least 7-8 members in the team and use crisp passages or jokes
Whatever you do, ensure that the activity is not skewed to exceptional talent, overbearing participants and highly competitive individuals or else the others will be demotivated and won’t participate.
To balance, I suggest that you also include activities like a lucky dip, a quick game of housie with just the three line winners, spot prize winners (person wearing a red dress, having credit card ending with _ _ _ number etc
Feel free to write back for more such ideas.
Best wishes,
Jacob
Personality Development, Communication Skills and Written Communication – Website
Actspot's Blog – My Daily Inspirational and Motivational Blog
Academy for Creative Training – My Weekly Inspirational and Motivational Blog
From India, Mumbai
Hi Pooja,
You may please think of a engagement committee consisting of employees from different depts. at different positions to generate ideas, organize and execute.
First decide the value you want to impart in employees through the initiatives:
You may consider
Individual Sense of achievement & recognition - Essay writings, Poetry, chess(Take care the activities should attract each n everyone equally i.e., should test the abilities of different kind of employees)
Team building or oneness -Theme based like wearing a particular color dress on a particular occasion, decorating cubicle or cabin, team sports,
Social belongingness - Social initiatives like spending a half day at a orphanage(gives a sense of valuing their life)
etc.
Reg
Hari
From India, Hyderabad
You may please think of a engagement committee consisting of employees from different depts. at different positions to generate ideas, organize and execute.
First decide the value you want to impart in employees through the initiatives:
You may consider
Individual Sense of achievement & recognition - Essay writings, Poetry, chess(Take care the activities should attract each n everyone equally i.e., should test the abilities of different kind of employees)
Team building or oneness -Theme based like wearing a particular color dress on a particular occasion, decorating cubicle or cabin, team sports,
Social belongingness - Social initiatives like spending a half day at a orphanage(gives a sense of valuing their life)
etc.
Reg
Hari
From India, Hyderabad
Hi Hari,
Thanks for your inputs.
As you and Jacob rightly pointed out it's important that these activities shouldn't be of interest to only certain section of the employees and should be varied from time to time so that everyone finds something of their interest one time or the other.
One more short term ongoing thing that I had started was various championships like Carom,Chess,scrabble competition etc.These championship usually last for a month or two and creates lots of excitement among employees.
Regds,
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
Thanks for your inputs.
As you and Jacob rightly pointed out it's important that these activities shouldn't be of interest to only certain section of the employees and should be varied from time to time so that everyone finds something of their interest one time or the other.
One more short term ongoing thing that I had started was various championships like Carom,Chess,scrabble competition etc.These championship usually last for a month or two and creates lots of excitement among employees.
Regds,
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
dear pooja
u can make a activity calendar for the year.
depending on the budget, you can punch in activities like
1. tambola
2. b'day celebration at the end of the month for the people whose b'day falls on that month.
3. some sports tournament.
4. incentives plan / activity like employee of the month etc.
regards
manish
From India, New Delhi
u can make a activity calendar for the year.
depending on the budget, you can punch in activities like
1. tambola
2. b'day celebration at the end of the month for the people whose b'day falls on that month.
3. some sports tournament.
4. incentives plan / activity like employee of the month etc.
regards
manish
From India, New Delhi
My experience is probably not helpful, but perhaps it will spark an idea or two. I used to move the furniture around. You can't do this every day, and the more wired the environment, the more difficult it is to do, but the physical exertion certainly woke everyone up, while the ad hoc teamwork it required was also great. The changed phsyical environment had a positive influence for days afterwards.
Mike Nugent
From South Africa, Johannesburg
Mike Nugent
From South Africa, Johannesburg
Hi pooja,
along wid the suggestions given by jacob and hari, i would also like to add that you may also hold a fashion show on a particular day whr the employees may be free to dress as they like apart from formals. moreover u can have an intersting calendar every month specifying the birthday or anniversary of the employees..
From India, Calcutta
along wid the suggestions given by jacob and hari, i would also like to add that you may also hold a fashion show on a particular day whr the employees may be free to dress as they like apart from formals. moreover u can have an intersting calendar every month specifying the birthday or anniversary of the employees..
From India, Calcutta
Employee Engagement activities are often confused with "Fun @ Work" activities, due to the similarities in formats and execution; and the terms are used interchangeably.
"Fun @ Work" activities are generally recreational in nature, reduces work-fatigue and monotony, enhances the "Quality of Work Life" and brings about more employee satisfaction.
However, Employee Engagement is a complex, powerful and profound concept, which can prove to be strategic differentiator in terms of competitiveness.
A company having "engaged employees" will ALWAYS OUTPERFORM an equal or a bigger company; because an Engaged Employee :
I am providing below, a few good, interesting links to enable members to understand better, the concept of Employee Engagement:
http://opcuk.com <link updated to site home>
http://opcuk.com <link updated to site home>
Employee engagement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For those interested in "Fun @ Work" activities that involve employees, here is a link that provides more than 100 activities that can be suitably performed in office :
<link no longer exists - removed>
Warm regards.
From India, Delhi
"Fun @ Work" activities are generally recreational in nature, reduces work-fatigue and monotony, enhances the "Quality of Work Life" and brings about more employee satisfaction.
However, Employee Engagement is a complex, powerful and profound concept, which can prove to be strategic differentiator in terms of competitiveness.
A company having "engaged employees" will ALWAYS OUTPERFORM an equal or a bigger company; because an Engaged Employee :
- understands the business context and can see the "bigger picture",
- is willing to "go that extra mile",
- keeps himself updated with the developments in his field
I am providing below, a few good, interesting links to enable members to understand better, the concept of Employee Engagement:
http://opcuk.com <link updated to site home>
http://opcuk.com <link updated to site home>
Employee engagement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For those interested in "Fun @ Work" activities that involve employees, here is a link that provides more than 100 activities that can be suitably performed in office :
<link no longer exists - removed>
Warm regards.
From India, Delhi
Thanks Raj for your valuable inputs.
The links certainly explains the difference between the two "terms" and that Fun @ work activities can be considered as a sub-set of Employee engagement activities and how these cannot be used interchangeably.
Regds,
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
The links certainly explains the difference between the two "terms" and that Fun @ work activities can be considered as a sub-set of Employee engagement activities and how these cannot be used interchangeably.
Regds,
Pooja
From India, Ahmadabad
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