Employee Events You’ve Never Thought Of
Sometimes, it’s easy to let team building and employee appreciation fall by the wayside. When your teams are caught in the weeds or launching new initiatives that take up a ton of time, the ROI on spending valuable hours doing non-work related activities might feel questionable.
But, the truth is that your team is much stronger when they spend a little bit of time together outside of work. When your employees get to know each other better, they begin to develop more empathy for each other which makes working together easier and more productive. These events are also great for new employees to hear about on their first day as it tells them that their new employer cares about their staff. The secret to super awesome employee events is to do something enjoyable (and not cheesy or uncomfortable!) so today we are sharing ten team building employee appreciation ideas that your staff will love to read about on the company bulletin board, and will also help reward all their hard work.
1. Movie Nights
Do you want to level up your employee events? How about renting out a movie theater for your team? Many movie theaters have corporate event rentals available where you can screen a current or past movie for your team for a reasonable rate. Movie nights are a stellar way to bring all your team members together, show appreciation, share some popcorn, and watch an excellent movie on the big screen. If you pick a movie that everyone has been excited to see, this event is sure to be a hit for your team. If your teams are spread out in a remote arrangement, you can find apps online that allow you to sync up streaming movies from home as well. This can be another fun and simple way for human resources to reward employees.
2. Culture Showcase
Your team is likely comprised of people from various backgrounds, and it is great to celebrate diversity (and of course eat food.) Bring your employees together by hosting employee events that celebrate the different cultures represented in your office. Ask each person to bring a meal to work that represents their background. Ask them to write down a few words about their dish and bring enough for the office to try a sample. Then your employees can walk around, read about the recipes, and try a sample for themselves. Your employees may even find their new favorite dish in the process!
3. Book Clubs
Even the most hesitant reader can find a new joy in reading when it’s a break from work. Every couple months pick a book that’s popular or a book that motivates them in their work. Host a discussion with your team about the book that they read and let the employees guide as much of the debate as possible. You want your team to feel like joining the book club is exciting and not just another chore, so be sure to schedule your meetup time during the day as a welcome break from work and bring fancy coffees and snacks. You may want to pick a book on Audible for members of your team who are busy and don’t have time to pick up a book and read.
Bonus: we’ve got custom branded notebooks ready for your logo to go with your book of the month choice so that your book club members can take notes as they read on great quotes or thoughts to share with each other during your book club meetup.
4. Camping Night
Employee events are better when you can toast s’mores, tell scary stories, and sit under the stars. Rent a few cabins for your team and go into the woods for a bit of a retreat. Find some fun get to know you activities and keep the events motivating and inspiring. You want your team members to get to know each other better while also feeling comfortable during the camping trip.
5. Pizza Hangout
If your team is remote, you want to look for employee events that can be created in various ways. For example, the pizza hangout can be an event for a local team by going to a pizza restaurant in your city. Alternatively, you could send your remote team gift cards to pizza restaurants in their town and hop on Google Hangouts for a fun pizza night. Either way, your team is bound to have a fun night together eating pizza and chatting with others in the company.
6. Escape Rooms
Escape Rooms are perfect for your next employee event. Escapes rooms have a straightforward premise: use the skills of your team’s various members to escape before the clock runs out. You are given multiple clues to help you along the way, and they must be unlocked over time. Escape rooms are a casual, yet exciting way to bring your employees closer together while testing their teamwork skills.
7. Prized Possession
We all have things that mean the world to us, no matter how small. For a simple, intimate employee event, get your team members to bring their prized possessions. Then your employees can eat dinner, sit together in a circle, and explain why their prized possession means so much to them. This event can also easily be translated into a remote team event via Google Hangouts for your teams all around the world.
8. Group Fitness Class
Do you have a lot of fitness buffs on your team? Use that as an excuse to bring in a fitness instructor to do a group fitness class for some of your employee events. Many group fitness classes require little to no equipment like Zumba, or you can rent space at a gym to do other classes like cycling or kickboxing. This event will bring your employees together and instill in your group the power of health and fitness. You can reward employees and keep them fit and healthy at the same time. Many companies offer a gym membership, or discount on one, and whilst this is a great benefit for the individual employee, taking a class together is much better for bonding as a group and helps different teams get to know each other on first name terms. You could even make custom t-shirts for all those who are interested in doing fitness classes together to really go the whole distance in terms of group bonding.
9. Arts & Crafts Night
Arts and crafts nights are a great employee event idea because at the end of the night your employees will have something they can take home to remember the event. There are a few ways that you can pull off this employee event:
- Host a corporate event a local paint bar in your town. Paint bars provide everything you need for a fun night of painting as well as an instructor to teach your employees how to paint the art.
- Send a simple arts & crafts project package to all of your remote workers. Then you can hop on Google Hangouts with your team and paint the craft together.
These fun activities can work no matter how spread out your team is. This is a creative way to go the extra mile and help improve moral, maintain a good work life balance and help with employee retention.
10. Museum Adventures
Last, but not least, museums make for excellent employee events. Going off site, to your local museum (or a museum slightly outside your city) would make a great weekend event for your team members. Let your team members bring some members of their family while soaking in some new information and getting to know their coworkers. Many museums offer group discounts, so if you can bring multiple people from your office, you can more than likely save a bit of money on the experience. A day trip is a great way to show staff appreciation.
Conclusion
Employee events and employee appreciation days are designed to improve employee morale, bring them closer together, and make them feel like a valued part of your team. Taking a few days out of the year to host employee events will help your employee engagement significantly which is vital for any company. Employee events range in price, but you will never regret hosting an event for your employees. It is also worth setting up an employee appreciation program to ensure that employee recognition is placed high up in the priority list since this type of activity can be neglected in a busy office if it is not incorporated into the overall business strategy. These types of events can help build a great company culture and motivate employees to produce good work so can be an inexpensive way to improve the bottom line of a business.
Originally published 03/15/2018, updated 01/11/2023.
