Let’s be real for a moment here – sometimes work is not fun. That’s why they call it work, right? The problem with not having fun at work is that it can start weight on us negatively. If we are constantly under stress while at work it can lead to burn out, lower quality work and even resentment. Using fun to help relieve some of the everyday stress at work can improve your quality of work and make it more enjoyable. It also helps encourage innovation and creativity, while increasing employee satisfaction.

Here at Language Marketplace we believe in having fun while you work. To help you have more fun at work we have put together a few ideas that you can use.

Daily Activities

Having fun in the office shouldn’t be something that happens sparingly. You want it to be a more regular occurrence to give your employees something to look forward to. One great way to do this is to create a daily ritual. This could be a joke board that gets changed daily in the office or a morning newsletter that includes updates for the day and always something to make you smile. You could even have a “meme of the day” get sent to everyone in the morning to encourage laughter. Having employees submit their favourite memes on the regular to one person will help you distribute them on the daily to keep things fun.

Monthly Outings

Heading out with your colleagues or employees is an easy way to encourage fun around work. Scheduling outings monthly helps give your employees something to look forward to that isn’t in the office. The great thing about monthly outings is there are so many options: bowling, dinner, lunch, escape rooms, etc. The options are endless. You can take polls each month to see what the activity should be and go with the highest voted one. It’s also great to schedule these outings on lunch break or an afternoon where everyone can take time off work. This will help increase the attendance to these events as many people will have after work commitments.

Friendly Competitions

There is nothing like a good friendly competition at the workplace. The options here are also endless like monthly outings and can be coordinated with other major events happening in the world. For example, you can host your own Olympics at the office, while the world is watching the real Olympics take place. Another great idea is to have a step competition. It encourages your employees to get and move, while promoting healthy habits.

Friendly competitions are a great way to increase group activities and company culture. You can create a competition around many different things allowing you to have multiple throughout the year.

Don’t forget to crown your champions and let them have the bragging rights!

Holiday & Birthday Celebrations

A great way to add in monthly activities is through birthdays and holidays. Celebrate birthdays by decorating desks, having cake or any other way that will light up your employees. Sing, dance and have fun. If you have a lot of employees, you can create a monthly celebration for all birthdays and work anniversaries to be celebrated at one time.

 Celebrating holidays as a workplace is a lot of fun. You can decorate the office, send fun emails, and even create competitions to go with them. Be inclusive of as many holidays as you can to give everyone the opportunity to celebrate and learn with each other.

The next holiday is St. Patrick’s Day – why not host a pot of gold scavenger hunt.

Let’s Have More Fun

To make all these fun activities possible, you should create a Fun Committee. Have a few people involved that can help coordinate and plan each event. Allow this to be a part of their role to decrease their stress and let the fun begin.