An engaging Friday filled with activities should focus more on every employees’ heart rather than their minds. Employee engagement is quite low in workplaces where managers are burdened with work, employees are not satisfied, and the overall workplace atmosphere is in shambles.
Employee engagement has been in the industry for a long time now but only around 25% of the workforce is really engaged with their organizations.
Often managers believe employee-engagement activities to be a one-time thing but on the flip-side it’s an ongoing and dynamic process. Therefore, to gain the actual benefits of employee engagement, everyone must adapt in accordance with the changes occurring in the workplace and around the world.
After exhausting themselves for the whole week employees deserve a good break. The reason behind calling this trend ‘Friday fun activities’, is to boost employee motivation and engagement with each other and the company.
The term ‘activities’ simply defines itself as something to be done. Friday fun activities for engagement are a great way to get people involved and engaged while also showing the employees that you do care about their physical but most importantly mental well-being.
In this post, we will share the best employee engagement activities to boost employee motivation and increase job satisfaction.
Best Friday fun activities to engage employees
1. Employee of the week initiative
According to research, a prime reason behind people jumping jobs is because of the lack of appreciation they obtain from their organizations and supervisors.
An employee of the week award goes to the people who are punctual at work. They provide consistent, high-quality performance. They are excellent team players. One of these employees can be found in any company. It’s likely that your organization has one as well. Spot them by hosting employee of the week activities.
Acknowledging hard work and accomplishments at work motivates the staff, promotes healthy competition, and fosters a great work environment. Higher motivation leads to increased engagement, happiness, and, eventually, retention.
As a result, the “Employee of the Week” activity is a terrific way of showing your employees that you notice and value their efforts, and is one of the most effective activities to boost employee motivation.
2. Feedback Fridays
One of the most effective and undervalued tools in your collection of employee engagement activities is feedback.
According to the Harvard Business Review, a majority of people (57%) prefer constructive criticism to praise and recognition (only 43% ).
In fact, providing helpful feedback is crucial to boosting communication skills and retaining people. Regular feedback is an excellent way to keep your staff informed about their progress and, as a result, is an important aspect of your employee engagement plan.
3. TGIF Meetings
Google is a fantastic tool and there’s no denying that.TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) meetings are one of the rungs on its greatness ladder.
What happens in these TGIF meetings that makes them such a good example of employee engagement?
The company’s upper management shares the full week’s events with the rest of the staff. An open Q&A session is conducted during which anyone can express their concerns regarding the company. That means complete and utter transparency, which builds trust and loyalty and enhances engagement.
4. Friday Potlucks
A potluck is essentially a meal gathering in which each attendee brings a different (typically handmade) dish to offer. It’s all about socializing over food at its most basic level.
It’s less about what cuisine to bring to a potluck than it is about enjoying the act of sharing food with your fellow people. In terms of Friday activities for engagement, organizing a potluck is also simple.
Organizing a potluck is a relatively less expensive option that is simple to put together, creates a sense of shared culture, and raises the overall pleasure factor. It also allows you to strike a balance between your professional and personal lives. Furthermore, when teams dine together, group dynamics improve, and productivity rises.
With so many advantages, you should organize a workplace potluck as soon as possible.
5. Encourage Employees To Pursue Side Projects
Most of you won’t believe it if we say that encouraging your employees for side projects will keep them engaged and motivated.
But in reality, it’s true. Letting your employees get involved in side projects will let your employees know how much you care about them and their growth.
One of the other advantages of taking up personal projects is that they force employees to think out of the box, get their imagination going, and manage their time properly.
Employees will be more thrilled to show up at work as a result and will be more engaged as a result.
6. Three-day weekend
Bringing the hard-work and dedication of your teams into the spotlight, your organization can always arrange a program for a while where employees can have two additional Fridays off. This initiative creates a few three-day weekends during a month and employees are encouraged to enjoy time with friends and family.
7. 5 Seconds Rule
A person must answer the question within 5 seconds, as the term suggests. You can make these questions as easy or as difficult as you want. The questions can be categorized into a variety of fields, from personal to professional. The only stipulation is that you must respond within 5 seconds!
8. Karaoke Sessions
Who doesn’t enjoy singing unapologetically? It’ll be 10 times more entertaining if they do it in front of their coworkers. This simple singing activity will help your coworkers become more at ease with one another and break the ice.
9. Egg Drop
Being one of many games to engage remote employees, egg drop requires you to use every part of your brain, including parts you didn’t even know existed! You may personalize the game to fit your workplace environment by introducing levels and adjusting the height. The goal of the game is for the group to protect the egg that has been given to them by constructing structures around it. This game will foster teamwork while also teaching problem-solving skills.
10. Three Truths And A Lie
This game has aged beautifully, much like great wine. This classic game can be played in a group or a small circle, with each player making four assertions. There will be three truths and one lie in these. The rest of the group must guess which of the four lies is the truth. This is the coolest icebreaker and team-building activity you can go ahead with.
11. Guess The Song
This contemporary Antakshari version is ideal for a relaxing weekend get-together with your coworkers. People can be split into two groups, with the rest of the audience guessing the songs based on their melodies. All of the Bollywood nerds would want to show off their 80s and 90s acumen!
12. Chinese Whispers
This age-old activity from our school days is ideal for laughing our troubles away! Anything and everything can be passed down from a line of participants, whether it’s a sentence or a 15-20 letter phrase, with the final result being a lot of laughs! The players and spectators will be laughing until their bellies hurt with this game.
13. Jigsaw Puzzles
Instructions –
- Split the players in equal teams.
- Distribute the jigsaw puzzles to each team with same difficulty level.
- The teams have to solve the puzzle in a specific period of time.
- The team that solves the puzzle first will be the winner.
5 Fundoo Friday Games To Engage Remote Employees
With hybrid as the new normal, it would not be wise to ignore the few virtual employees. Here are five things you can try out with your hybrid staff to have an engaging time and experience.
Virtual Bingo
A game as old as your parents. With half the staff working from home, bingo is a sure-fire technique to keep your employees engaged during a virtual meet. The winner in a game of virtual bingo that’s organized by groups of people can always have pizza party, perhaps, or a takeaway from their favorite eatery? Be innovative!
Pictionary
Allow your employees to predict what you’re painting by surprising them with your good or not-so-good artwork. This fun activity will undoubtedly relax your employees’ minds and improve their interactive side.
Charades
Play Charades to show off your inner actor in addition to embarrassing yourself with your melodic voice in karaoke and gorgeous doodles in pictionary. Whether it’s a film from your age or one from a previous generation, the sole goal is to enjoy and play games to engage remote employees from the comfort of your home.
Mobile Games
Post-pandemic era – we found truckloads of group mobile games that everyone can engage in. From games like Pubg and Rummy to Ludo and Among Us, there are many games that a group of people can play together.
To connect in real-time, platforms like discord also became famous to give everyone a place to connect with each other at once.
Never Have I Ever
This game to engage remote employees must be included because we’re talking about games that can be played from the convenience of our own homes. Grab a glass of any beverage and reveal some truths to your coworkers. Let the craziness begin with this entertaining game, which we’re confident will lead to you learning more about your colleagues and coworkers.
A Word From Zimyo
These were just a few ideas for a fun Friday to improve employee motivation and engagement in your organization. After all, employee satisfaction is an important aspect of team building and contributes significantly to an organization’s success.
You can achieve employee wellbeing in a variety of ways, by providing a variety of benefits, like earned salary advances, insurance, quick loans, etc. Some fun and engaging activities like regular team-building events, team excursions, and so on. These enjoyable activities may seem to be a lot, but they will serve as an excellent ice-breaker at the end of the day. This extra benefit of conducting games to engage remote employees will undoubtedly provide staff with a weekly break from their usual tasks.
You can also implement some modern day HR and engagement platforms to augment your employees’ experience and drastically enhance your organization’s productivity.
