Team Building Ideas and Morale Boosters

Let the fun commence! Here are 10 ideas for throwing year-end office festivities. This time of year can be stressful, but also full of gratitude, wonder and joy! Set the tone with simple, impactful workplace activities that spread the spirit!

Not only do year-end office festivities offer a way to have some fun, but they are a strategic way to show employee appreciation and enhance employee engagement. Be true to your culture — what would be authentic and enjoyable? Tap some creative minds and enjoy the process!

Top 10 Year-End Office Festivities

Volunteer together at a food pantry or host a holiday meal at a shelter. Bring employees together to give back to the community, offering unity, perspective and goodwill to all who participate.
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This summer doesn’t look or feel like most summers.  If you traditionally host a staff picnic, BBQ or summer retreat, it’s likely that the pandemic prohibited you from holding those events.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t still have summertime fun. While the heat of the season is here, host a virtual ice cream social!

Consider providing team members with a Certificate for Ice Cream from gThankYou which can be redeemed for any brand and flavor of ice cream at major grocery stores across the U.S. Certificates are available in $5 and $10 values.

Let’s start this blog post with kudos for you for hanging in there during these uncertain and challenging times.  That you’re taking the time to click on this post shows your commitment to staying engaging with and supporting your remote employees.  So hat’s off to you for remaining curious and committed to bringing out the best in your staff.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a host of challenges to everyone and we are seeing that people are dealing with those challenges in different ways.

Maybe you already had remote employees at your company so your challenge was expanding that scenario to many more employees.  Or perhaps you are like many companies who find themselves dealing with a remote workforce for the first time. 

Engaging Remote Workers Is Increasingly Necessary

Building employee loyalty is worth the time and effort

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What’s the secret to employee motivation? Using extrinsic rewards to turn on intrinsic rewards, according to researcher and author Paul Herr.

What is more essential to drive employee motivation — rewards and recognition, or engagement?
Both, according to employee motivation expert Paul Herr. You don’t have to choose!
Instead, “combine the best of both worlds by extrinsically rewarding managers who become skilled at pressing the motivational ‘buttons’ (of employees)” — in short, using extrinsic rewards to turn on intrinsic rewards.
Herr explores this innovative approach to employee motivation in his recent Incentive Research Foundation paper, “Using Behavioral Economics Insights in Incentives, Rewards and Recognition: The Neuroscience.” You can download the paper here.
If your employees landed a major financial windfall tonight, would they still show up at work tomorrow? (more…)

The software company Epic Systems, located in rural Wisconsin, has a strong employee engagement ethic. (Photo via E. Nekervis, Flickr)

The software company Epic Systems proves you don’t have to be located in Silicon Valley to attract tech talent or have a vibrant culture of “epic” employee engagement.
Epic attracts employees from far and wide to its campus situated amid farm fields outside Madison, WI. The company has mushroomed in recent years and now employs more than 9,000.
Epic has a reputation for good pay, great culture and a quirky, fun-filled campus that provides many on-site amenities to employees.
A rare interview with Epic founder (more…)

The flexibility to work when and where you want is a valued workplace benefit, especially this busy back-to-school time of year.

As summer winds down, the workplace gift employees appreciate most is a flexible schedule!

As people take last-minute summer outings and families prepare kids for the new school years, work/life balance is more important than ever.

Late August is especially challenging for parents and caregivers sending older kids off to college and preparing younger ones to go back to school. There are some responsibilities people just need to take care of during a workday, like meeting their child’s Kindergarten teacher or attending mandatory parent school meetings.  A little flexibility this time of year can go a long way to building employee loyalty and morale.  It’s a valuable workplace gift indeed – and it’s good for your business, too!

Give Workers the Workplace Gift of Flextime!

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Photo by Francesco Corallo, Flickr

Workplace wellness benefits not only employees, but your business, too! As the CDC posts in “Wellness at Work,”

“Ideally, the office should be a place that not only protects the safety and well-being of employees but also provides them opportunities for better long-term health.”

It’s an important employee benefit, but it also improves your bottom line. In “8 Ways to Promote Wellness in the Workplace,” Inc. contributor Lauren Lastowka notes:

“Wellness programs are linked to greater productivity, less absenteeism, and a reduction of long-term health care costs.”

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Photo via James Wu, Flickr

It’s no secret that it’s essential to engage workers if you want optimum company performance. And who doesn’t? In the next few weeks we’ll look at ways to engage workers across a variety of businesses. Here’s a closer look at how to engage manufacturing workers.

The power of workplace engagement

First, some overall information about employee engagement. Alison M. Konrad, a professor of organizational behavior and the Corus Entertainment Chair in Women in Management at Ivey Business School addresses engaging workers in “Engaging Employees Through High-involvement Work Practices”:

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