Series of activities and exercises to counter the “all work and no play” in the offi ce

FUN AT THE WORKPLACE!

AugustWorse Dressed Day

Instead of a ‘Best Dressed Award’, employees are asked to dress their worst.

The judging panel decides on who is the Worst Dressed Person

Alternatively there can be a separate award for men’s and women’s category

The winners may be presented with a hand mirror with a tag labeled “Mirror-cracking material!”

MONTHLY EVENTS

September:

Eid Milan Party in an outdoor setting with stalls for food, mehndi, games for children and a gift bag presented to each family. Gift bag contents:

Eid Greetings card Chocolates

Evening program, Duration about 5 hours.

October:Ludo tournament. An inexpensive activity that can be done in the offi ce meeting rooms. Requirements10 boards (or more for 40+ participants)1-2 roomsTime duration 3-4 hours.Winner gets a small prize or trophy

MONTHLY EVENTS

November“Are you smarter than a 5 th Grader?”

Questions based on 5th grade course-books Participants have to answer as many correct questions as

they can The team with the most correct answers wins a mock degree

and graduation cap. Duration 3-4 hours Each team has two members Participants can choose questions from Math, Science,

Geography, History, English Literature, Urdu Literature, English Grammar and Islamic Studies.

Participants cannot choose more than 2 questions from the same subject category and have to answer questions from each subject.

MONTHLY EVENTS

DecemberSlogan and Best Photo Caption Contest

Slogan Contest Employees are divided into groups and develop in-house

campaign slogans or themes HR department forms the judging panel and decides the top 10 The best slogan/theme is voted on by the entire companyPhoto Caption Contest The same teams are given a single photo that is circulated

around The team who comes up with the best caption is given a prize Prize can be a photo-keychain or photo-frame.

MONTHLY EVENTS

JanuaryAppreciation Grams

This activity can be carried out separately in each department or project team.

Each person takes a piece of paper (the size of a sticky note) and has to write a few lines of appreciation, thanks, word of advice or good wishes for the future with their name at the end.

Each person has a small box labeled with their own name and the boxes are exchanged with other people until every person has put a note in the box.

This activity is best done in small groups Max 15 people in a group

MONTHLY EVENTS

Humor Board Keep a soft-board near the coffee machine where

employees can add jokes, riddles, puns or anything that they would like to share.

You can also add inspirational quotes or start a poll related to co-workers such as

Who is the most helpful? Who comes late to the offi ce the most? Who drinks the most amount of coffee or tea before 11 am?

MORE IDEAS TO PERK UP THE OFFICE

Play dough activity Ask employees to create animals, objects, even their bosses,

anything which makes them happy The objects can be kept in a shelf where they are visible to

employees

Jigsaw Puzzle Competition Give each team the same jigsaw puzzle Whichever team completes the puzzle the fastest, wins To make the competition tough, use 300-piece puzzles.

Samosa Complain Party Any person found being negative about the company has to pay a

fine of 20 Rupees which are collected in a jar. At the end of the month, the money from the jar is used to treat

everyone from the department to samosas

MORE IDEAS TO PERK UP THE OFFICE

Defend the Egg Make groups of 4 or 5 people Each team is given 1 egg, 3 pieces of straw, 2 papers and a

piece of paper tape/stapler with limited staple pins Each team has to invent an egg-holding device which not

only secures the egg but should be able to prevent it from breaking if dropped from a height of 5 feet.

Teams should be given a time limit of 20minutes to make their device

In the end, test each group’s device and give them 5 minutes to talk about why or why didn’t their device work and what they learned about team-work, what their team’s strength was, were there any weaknesses, etc.

PS: This activity is very messy and should be done outdoors.

MORE IDEAS TO PERK UP THE OFFICE

Banana DanceFun way to start off the day!

For referenceshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCIxO9I1p8I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_78Ck10tSE

MORE IDEAS TO PERK UP THE OFFICE

Speakers Qaiser Abbas(www.possibilites.net.pk) Sohail Zindani(www.learningminds.biz)

Training Corporations Navitus (http://www.navitus.biz) School of Leadership (www.sol.edu.pk)

MOTIVATIONAL SESSIONS

Get your staff involvedIts always a good idea to ask employees what they would like to do. Some people prefer having a half-day rather than indulging in activities which do not appeal to their taste.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS, ASK FOR PEOPLE’S OPINION

DON’T FORGET TO HAVE FUN!

WHATEVER YOU DO…