Contests lighten the mood in the office, helping employees feel a sense of satisfaction and motivation. The goal of the contests is to engage all of your employees and making them feel like valued members of your team. The contest itself encourages camaraderie between employees, while the prizes awarded to the winners provides extra incentive and motivation for participating employees.
Sales Numbers
If your business runs on sales, challenge your employees to a sales contest. Set a specific time frame for the contest. The participants aim to make as many sales as possible in the contest period to win. Measure by the number of individual sales or the dollar amount that each employee makes in sales.
New Business Contracts
A variation on the sales contest is to identify the winner by the number of new business contracts she establishes during the contest period. Depending on your industry, finding new clients sometimes takes a long time. This contest idea usually works better with a time frame of several weeks to give all employees a chance to maximize the number of new customers they secure.
Fundraisers
A contest based on a fundraiser adds a charitable aspect to the workplace competition. Choose a specific charitable event or organization to support with the contest. The way you involve employees depends on the selected charity. For example, if you want employees to participate in a walk-a-thon for a local charity, challenge them to form teams to see who finishes first or raises the most money. To raise money for a specific charity, place a donation can in each department. The department who donates the most money in a certain time period wins the contest.
Team Building Contest
A contest that requires staff to work as a team helps encourage teamwork that transfers to the workplace. Create a competition that the teams must complete together. For example, set up an obstacle course through the workplace that team members must complete while tied together. Another option is to present each team with a complicated business scenario that might come up in the industry. The first team to successfully resolve the situation on paper wins.
MVP
An MVP award allows you to reward employees who make a major contribution to the workplace. If your workplace is project-based, name one person as the MVP for each project after it is complete. If the work is ongoing in nature, award the MVP prize once a month or on another regular schedule.
Employee Nominations
Work contests don’t always have to come from the management team. Letting employees decide on winners gives the staff a sense of control. Allow employees to nominate their colleagues for special awards, such as the most helpful staff member or the most positive attitude. Choose a different voting theme each week and allow staff to vote during that time frame.
Essay Contest
An essay contest encourages employees to think about the positive aspects of the workplace and share those with others. Each employee writes a paragraph or an entire essay on a specific work-related theme. The entries may also be a general experience the employee had at work. Choose the most inspiring essay as the winner. Post all of the essays so employees are able to read them and find motivation from their colleagues.
Pop Culture Contests
Workplace competitions don’t always have to deal directly with work to offer a motivating break from the usual workplace drudgery. Create an entertaining workplace competition during lunch breaks occasionally that relate to something outside of work. You might host a game show style competition based on pop culture, such as a Family Feud type game. Another idea is to create your own workplace version of Survivor. The activity helps employees relieve stress so they feel renewed and better able to tackle work when they return to their desks.
Team Decorating or Costumes
This contest idea encourages teamwork and camaraderie in individual departments or work teams. The members of each group or team come up with a costume idea to wear on a designated day. The team with the best costumes wins the contest. Another option is to have each department decorate its work area based on a particular theme.
Wellness Contests
A wellness contest makes healthy lifestyle changes more enjoyable for your employees. Healthy employees are less likely to be absent from work, are better able to handle stressful situations and are more likely to be productive. Base the contest on weight lost, amount of exercise performed or similar wellness actions.
