Employee engagement events are events that are designed to motivate and connect your team. They typically involve taking a break from work in order to focus on building camaraderie and morale. Below are just a few ideas for putting on a successful employee engagement event.
Get out of the office
While you can throw an employee engagement event in your office to save costs, a fresh change of scenery could help motivate your team. It will get your employees out of ‘work mode’ and make it feel more like a fun day out. You could also allow employees to not wear a uniform or relax any dress code.
Plan a fun team-building activity
An employee engagement event could be a great opportunity to bring your team together - including employees from different departments. A team building activity is a great way to unite your team. A few team-building activities that you can carry out from anywhere include:
Playing team board games or games like charades
Trying out some of these problem solving puzzle challenges
Planning a scavenger hunt with prizes
Playing Count to 20
Doing a group yoga class
Team-building activities for out of the office could include:
Trying an escape room
Getting everyone to take part in a cooking class
Going bowling
Planning a hiking challenge together
Heading to the beach and playing games like tug-of-war or punctured gallon
Going go-karting
Playing golf (or crazy golf) in 18 holes of golf
Enjoy some downtime together
Rather than planning something physical and interactive, you could consider something more passive and relaxing as a treat to your staff. This could provide a break from problem solving and competition that could help your team to loosen up - which could be beneficial if your team typically works in a high pressure environment. A few examples of such activities could include:
Enjoying a long lunch together
Going to a brewery/wine-tasting event
Attending a stand-up comedy event
Attending a sports event together as spectators
Planning a spa day out
Hire a motivational speaker
Another interesting way to motivate your team could be to hire a motivational speaker. This should ideally be a speaker who specializes in employee engagement and who has lots of great reviews. This is a chance to sit back and learn (although there are some speakers who may be able to put on more interactive events if you feel this is likely to be more engaging for your team). You can search for motivational speakers at sites like Executive Speakers.
Hand out awards
An award ceremony at the end of your event could be a great way of individually rewarding employees and showing your appreciation. You could get trophies made for the event or hand out other gifts. If you have a relatively small team, you could plan to make everyone feel valued by creating unique awards for each of your employees (don’t be afraid to throw in some funny and silly awards such as these ones listed at Darwin Box).