The Strong Connection Between Employee Engagement And Productivity
When we think of a productive workplace, our mind goes to an environment where employees don’t raise their heads from their desks, work overtime, don’t really speak to their peers, or may not even take breaks. While these unfortunate circumstances occur in many modern workplaces, they’re not essentially productive. When employees get their work done but feel stressed, pressured, and overwhelmed, they soon feel burned out, leading to low performance. However, what works like a charm for productivity is employee engagement. This means a motivated workforce that is excited to work every day, collaborates with their colleagues and is passionate about what they do. But how can you achieve that?
What Is The Best Way To Engage Employees?
Engaging employees is an ongoing process, and there’s no definitive answer as to what’s the best way to do it. It’s whatever works for them and your company. However, there are some common components in every workplace with motivated employees. The first is communication. Your staffers need to always be aware of the company's goals and any changes happening. You can encourage open communication and active listening through team, or one-on-one, meetings, company-wide announcements, or check-ins.
Then, you must cultivate a positive work environment. This means encouraging collaboration among peers, organizing team-building events, and, most importantly, ensuring that everyone feels comfortable and respected. Every single employee, no matter their background and diversity, must feel included and valued and be offered the same opportunities as their colleagues. People must be free to express their ideas and opinions and be celebrated for their contributions regularly.
Although all these foster a positive and healthy work environment, we’re still missing one important element: fun. Below, we’ll explore 25 employee engagement games you can play online with your employees, connecting the teams and boosting their morale for maximum productivity.
25 Online Employee Engagement Games
1. Trivia
Organize regular team meetings for a round of virtual trivia. Carefully choose the categories and questions, and make sure to increase the difficulty level as you go along to make it more challenging. From pop culture to history or sports, the category options are endless, so you’ll never get bored.
2. Online Scavenger Hunt
Online scavenger hunts require your employees to form groups and find hidden items within a certain number of minutes or hours. Create a list of items or tasks for the team to follow, and award a prize to the one that finishes first. For example, you can have them take a picture with their pet and send it to the group chat, solve riddles, or create a dedicated website that they’ll have to explore and find clues on.
3. Virtual Escape Rooms
Your staffers can enjoy the thrill of an escape room from their couch or home office without missing out on the fun. There are multiple platforms or video games for online escape rooms, where your team is virtually locked up and has to solve a series of puzzles to escape on time. It’s a great opportunity for collaboration and collective problem-solving that will connect people and make them work together for a common goal.
4. Bingo
Create customized bingo cards with work terms, office inside jokes, or facts about the company and the employees. Then, let the bingo balls reveal which box to check off until someone shouts "Bingo." It’s a fun game that will bring lots of laughter and create a sense of friendly competition. Plus, it will generate some new inside jokes and unique moments for everyone to remember.
5. Wordle
Wordle is an online game that involves guessing a five-letter word. Players get six chances to make a guess, and after each guess, they receive feedback in the form of colored tiles that let them know if a letter matches or is in the right position. Set up a meeting and give everyone half an hour to solve the daily Wordle riddle. Then, each person shares their screen, and the person who guessed the word with the fewest tries wins.
6. Charades With Emojis
During this game, each person will send a series of emojis to the company group chat or the meeting's chat, representing a movie. It's exactly like charades, but colleagues will have to guess the answer not by the hand movements but by the emojis sent. It's a game that sparks creativity, puts everyone's minds to work, and gives your team a good laugh.
7. Pictionary
Everyone enjoys a round of Pictionary, but what if you made it digital? In online Pictionary, your teammates gather in a virtual space and, in their turn, begin drawing the word they chose. The rest try to guess the word based on the person's drawing. It's surprising to see how some people interpret different words or drawings, and it will be interesting to see who's the hidden painter among you (or who definitely isn't).
8. Two Truths And A Lie
This game is perfect for getting to know each other within the company. Each employee takes turns and shares three facts about themselves. However, only two of them are true. The others have to guess the false one. This creates many conversation topics, reveals stuff you may not even have imagined about your peers, and brings everyone closer.
9. Online Karaoke
The good old karaoke can have an interesting new twist. Organize an online karaoke night, with email invitations and all, and see your co-workers' love for music and singing. Ask them to send you song requests, and create a setlist where everyone will have the chance to sing at least one song. Put on the songs' karaoke videos, share your screen, and let the fun begin.
10. Virtual Board Games
There are multiple platforms and game hubs where you can enjoy a session of your favorite board game online. Whether you want to do it company-wide, where everyone gathers in small groups, or during breaks, there's always a board game that can meet everyone's needs. From Scrabble to Settlers of Catan, or even a mysterious round of Cluedo, this activity will never bore your employees.
11. Talent Show
Can you host a virtual talent show through Zoom? Sure! Imagine everyone in your company showcasing their special or hidden talent, from upper management to frontline employees. It's a friendly setting, celebrating each person's unique abilities, no matter if it's piano or imitating animal sounds. Everyone's welcome to contribute, as it will be a judgment-free activity with the sole purpose of having fun.
12. Photo-Sharing Contest
Make the company group chat thrive with a photo-sharing contest. Set a theme like "pets," "recent selfies," or "favorite vacation spot" and encourage everyone to send a contribution. The photo with the most likes or reactions wins, and the person sharing it can choose the next contest's theme.
13. Book Club
Encourage your co-workers to delve into literature by creating a virtual book club. Everyone interested can recommend a book for the club to read and meet in a month to discuss it and find the next one. This is the perfect setting for ideas to flourish and different opinions to get heard, and it will also help with brainstorming for work matters.
14. Virtual Fitness Challenges
You don't have to be present at the office to join a fitness challenge. You can create a virtual one where everyone can keep track of their progress and announce it regularly in meetings or other communication channels. For example, set a realistic step goal, have everyone send their daily or weekly steps, and see who's going to win the challenge fastest.
15. Movie Nights
What if you could unwind occasionally, watching movies with your peers at work? Choose a theme or genre, request recommendations, and vote on what you want to watch next. Then, either play it simultaneously or watch it from someone's shared screen. After it ends, you can discuss it over a soft drink or coffee, and bond with your teammates.
16. Coding Challenges
Coding challenges don't sound fun, but they can be. Gather all your tech-savvy employees and organize a competition where they can show off their coding skills to create new projects, either for the company or for anything else they want. For those who know about programming languages, it will be a great chance to apply their expertise to something that's not work-related, while collaborating with colleagues from other departments too.
17. Virtual Volunteering
Social media campaigns, donations, working voluntarily for an organization remotely, and even creating a social media post for a cause all count as acts of volunteerism. This will give extra meaning to their work, making employees feel fulfilled and happier to give back to the community in any way that they can.
18. Language Exchange
Do you employ people who speak multiple languages? Then they can teach their peers a thing or two. Ask your employees if they're interested in learning a new language or other cultural characteristics of different countries, and then pair them with a colleague who's a pro at this. By doing this, you promote diversity and show that you value everyone's background and knowledge.
19. Video Game Tournaments
Gamers or not, your staffers will enjoy participating in or watching a video game tournament. Whether it's a famous football game or a survival contest, create groups and allow your employees to compete against each other by comparing their scores in the same game. You can even create a video game live-streaming account for the company and broadcast the tournament there for all the employees to watch if they want.
20. Virtual DIY Workshops
For your creative employees who enjoy a peaceful and cozy hobby, you can set up virtual DIY workshops. Take a break from work, open up a meeting, gather supplies, and chit-chat with your co-workers as you all watch DIY tutorials together. Knitting, crafting, making jewelry, or handmade soaps—the choice is up to you, and you can try a different one each time.
21. Storytelling
In virtual storytelling sessions, employees participate by sharing personal stories, a funny thing that happened to them, or even a mysterious occurrence. This activity creates a deeper connection with colleagues and gives them plenty of opportunities to laugh, or spark other emotions too.
22. Happy Hours
Your dispersed team doesn't have to miss out on cocktail happy hours. Log in with your favorite drink in hand and relax, talk, play games, or even work together with your peers. Even if you don't fancy alcohol, you can always brew tea or drink juice.
23. Comedy Night
For the jokester among you and the ones that fancy a good (or not) joke or two, turn your next meeting into a comedy night. Those who feel up to the task can write a short comedy routine; others can share their favorite pun or even their favorite funny video from the internet. It's nice to laugh together with your peers, especially after a busy workday.
24. Virtual Museum Tours
Lots of museums around the world offer virtual tours of their exhibitions on their websites. You can try a different museum each month, and after the tour, discuss what stayed with you the most or what you learned that you will definitely apply in your life.
25. Music Sessions
Online music sessions can help employees relax and enjoy some music with their teammates while continuing to do their work or other tasks. You can ask someone you know who plays a musical instrument to host a little concert via Zoom, or simply share your favorite playlist with everyone and talk about music interests, genres, and singers all you want.
Conclusion
The above ideas for employee engagement games are sure to add an element of fun and collaboration to your team, making it more motivated and productive. And if you wonder how you can keep track of all the fun activities you do, your employees' scores in the games, and the hours you spend relaxing and focusing on what really matters, then your answer is by using employee onboarding software. These systems not only help you welcome new members but also manage your existing ones and keep track of any data you want, including keeping notes, organizing events, creating presentations, and more.
