To Increase Productivity, Build An Authentic Corporate Culture Your Employees Will Love  

When we are younger, at school, there is recess, often involving lots of games and imagination  — and it can be good (and energizing) in the workplace to have a grown-up version of that.  We  call it “teambuilders.”

When I started my company, I knew I wanted it to be a fun place where people would want to come in every day, rather than dreading it.  So I considered everything from the furniture (IKEA is great for light, airy and modern styles) to lighting (IKEA, West Elm, Pottery Barn) to music (this varies depending on the office culture, but for example, you can use anything from Podcasts to movie soundtracks to old school rap to new wave to create the general feeling).  Even snack choices can be an important component (Trader Joe’s is an office favorite). The point is to try to construct the atmosphere and mood you want to work in each day.

And to go back to the beginning: in recess, games are as much about motivating and teambuilding as they are about fun.  At the office, a few hours out of your month can make all the difference in your team’s experience. Here are some examples of teambuilders we have created through the years (95% of the time they include breakfast or lunch — and cake of course!).

Ugly Ornaments Are Endearing

At our Annual Aesthetically Challenged Ornament Breakfast we decorate styrofoam balls to make holiday ornaments. All kinds of craft materials are placed on the conference table. Each person gets sixty seconds with the ball to decorate it, then the alarm rings and we pass the ball to the person to the right of us. By the time that ball has come back to the starter, it is quite aesthetically challenged. The point is, we all played a part in decorating them. We get a good laugh out of what our combined efforts created, and that is what makes our office holiday tree so special.

Alex, I’ll Take that Category for $1000

Watching Jeopardy is a tradition in our household. So this has naturally spilled over into the office. Quite often at our monthly luncheons we play IC Jeopardy (IC stands for our company name, Invitation Consultants). We break up into teams, and I host the game show, with categories such as Geography (questions about distances — for example, how long would it take to drive from our envelope supplier to our card display supplier, cross-country), Pop Culture (a fan favorite because we fangirl a lot here), ICers (this means questions about all of us working here; for example, guess the number of pets we collectively have), and I also incorporate seasonal categories. The upshot” we end up learning a lot about each other and about fun trivia.

Dreaming Up Themes

Our company is broken up into three departments: Gamma (customer service), Zeta (creatives), and Kappa (production).  Every October each department has a week dedicated to that team. The team creates a theme and then carries it through our activities during the week. My requirements are that there must be at least one day dedicated to learning or making, one day for teambuilding, one day for an event planned for the entire company, one day for a social event, and one day for a physically active event.

My favorite stand out “October weeks” over the years: “Decades Week” and “Man Week.” We are a predominantly female organization, and when the men of Zeta created Man Week, we knew we were in for a treat. A few of the activities were: a shaving contest (balloons decorated with male faces and shaving cream, where we had to shave them without popping the balloon); who could assemble IKEA furniture the fastest; and dressing in a three-piece suit the fastest (tying a tie was particularly hard for me).

During Decades Week created by Gamma, each day was focused on a different decade. My favorite day was dressing in 80’s aerobic clothing and jazzercising it up in the conference room., and without doubt my favorite end-of-the-week event was a fashion show put on by Zeta. The show was hosted by our web designer who was decked out in a 70’s wig and made sure his disco ball was hanging in the conference room while he emceed the event.

Our corporate culture here is steeped in teamwork, creativity and amusement. We have found that maintaining a jovial yet productive atmosphere has kept our employees happy and staying long. Come on now — who doesn’t love cake on a Tuesday morning, or drinking milk martinis on a Thursday afternoon?