10 Fun-filled Activities to Help Boost Team Morale

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Good morale is vital to keeping your team’s health and productivity up, and as a manager, it’s your job to find ways to boost morale. One simple way to do this is to schedule a fun activity for your employees to do together.

Keep reading to find activity ideas, as well as tips on how to make the most of your morale-boosting efforts.

Key Takeaways:

• Fun and team-building group activities like trivia nights or escape rooms can boost morale.

• Consider having your team volunteer or create art together.

• Listen to suggestions and feedback from your team about activities that they think would be fun.

10 Fun Activities to Boost Team Morale

1. Embark on a Scavenger Hunt

   You can update the classic scavenger hunt by giving employees a list of things to collect or photograph around your office or town.

   The week before the scavenger hunt is set to take place, have employees send you anonymous suggestions of things that they would enjoy searching for or photographing, and compile a list of twenty or so of the best suggestions. Split employees into teams and set them to work on the checklist.

   The first team to complete the list wins.

2. Take Part in a Trivia Night, or Host Your Own

   Having the team play a game of trivia doesn’t mean you all have to march down to a seedy bar. Many kinds of venues hold trivia nights, and it might even be worth planning your own.

   General trivia can be fun for all types of personalities, and if you do decide to host your own, have fun prizes ready for the teams who come first, second, and third place.

   Trivia is a great way to have people work together and get to know each other better, and having a variety of questions gives everybody a chance to contribute.

   You can even have a trivia night with remote employees over a video call.

3. Try Your Hand at an Escape Room

   When you go to an escape room, you’re “locked” in a room with your team and have to find clues and decipher puzzles so you can “escape” the room before the timer runs out.

   The rooms generally range from being beginner-friendly to being extraordinarily difficult to escape, and they usually take about an hour or so to complete.

   In an escape room, employees must work together and allocate tasks to one another to solve the clues and puzzles. The level of cooperation required may cause a few conflicts during the game, but your employees will likely come out with some hilarious stories and a stronger sense of camaraderie and teamwork.

4. Play a Game of Two Truths and a Lie

   Two Truths and a Lie is a simple game which best played when participants don’t know each other well. Have the team take turns stating three “facts” about themselves, one of which is untrue.

   Following a person’s revelations, his or her coworkers must guess which of the three statements is, in fact, a lie. Encourage statements that veer away from everyday facts such as “I went to school in x city” to reveal something more interesting about a person.

   It’ll give your employees a chance to get to know each other better and hopefully work as an interesting conversation starter. It’s also a way to give your employees some boss-sanctioned social time.

5. Volunteer Together

   Volunteering has been shown to be helpful in diminishing stress, increasing happiness levels, and providing a sense of purpose — all positive traits for both your employees’ professional and personal morale.

   Find a cause that the team can get behind — perhaps taking a vote to determine the most popular — and take a few hours to volunteer for an organization related to it.

   Volunteering as a team will help to strengthen old bonds between people and create new ones, as well as provide a positive service to the community. It’s amazing the new connections that can form when you take your team out of their regular routines.

6. Create a Tower to Top Them All

   Using just spaghetti sticks, a yard of tape, a yard of string, and a single marshmallow, teams of employees must compete to create the tallest tower, complete with their marshmallow perched on the top.

   The game — which is easier said than done — requires cooperation, creativity, and patience, making it an excellent team bonding activity. It also gives employees a chance to laugh, be creative, and work with their hands, boosting morale as well.

7. Have Employees Draw Blind

   This game does two things for your employees: It brings attention to the different ways people communicate, and it gets them laughing.

   To play, have two employees sit with their backs to one another, and give one a picture and the other a pen and paper.

   The employee holding the picture must describe it to the other employee without specifically mentioning the items contained within it. The employee drawing has to recreate the picture as best they can based only on their partner’s description.

   For example, the picture might contain a sunrise over an ocean. The first employee would not mention the words “sunrise” or “ocean” but instead give directions such as “draw a line across the page, and a half circle on top of that line.”

8. Have a Sports Day

   The endorphins alone make exercise a great way to bond and boost morale. Consider taking a day away from the office and hosting an afternoon of friendly sports competitions for your employees.

   Unless you’re working with a department of athletes, keep the competitions silly and low-key so that everyone can participate. Think a granny shot competition at a basketball hoop, a silly obstacle course chalked in the parking lot, or bowling with oranges and empty soda cans.

   The time outside moving and laughing will do everyone good and help boost morale.

9. Create Art Together

   Art can be a great way to unwind and let your creative juices flow, so consider doing an art-based activity the next time you notice your team needing a morale boost.

   Go to a ceramic painting shop and let everyone pick out their own piece to paint, take a pottery class together, or buy everyone a simple paint-by-numbers kit and work on them together over a cup of coffee.

   Even less artistic teams will likely enjoy these cathartic activities — and may get a good laugh out of it too.

10. Take a Cooking Class

    A cooking class can be a great way to give everyone a break from the daily grind. Plus, they get to create something delicious, which is always a mood booster.

    Find a local beginning cooking class to sign up for, taking into account any dietary needs or preferences. You may even be able to find an instructor who will come to your office to do a private session.

Tips for Choosing Morale-Boosting Activities

• Realize it takes more than group activities to improve morale. Yes, these activities can be fun and helpful, but they don’t take the place of more substantial efforts to boost morale.

  For example, if your team is worn out from excessively long shifts and to-do lists, restructure the schedule, hire another person, raise their pay, or take some work off of their plates before you schedule a fun activity.

  The fun activities should be one small piece of your overall strategy to keep morale high, not your entire strategy.

• Get your team’s input. Forcing your team to do something that they don’t find fun won’t do much to boost their morale, and it may actually do more harm than good.

  You might be surprised at the creativity your team will show when it comes to suggestions for activities, and who better to design fun activities for employees than the employees themselves? Take suggestions at your next meeting, and implement some of the best ideas in the future.

• Be considerate with scheduling. A group game day won’t be an effective break if your team members are just thinking about all the work they’ll have to catch up on afterward.

  If it’s a busy season, choose a quick activity to do during your regular team meeting time and save the longer ones for quieter times of the year.

  In addition, ask your employees which dates and times would be best for them. This is key to helping the activity be a morale booster rather than an annoyance.

• Plan the activity during work hours. Whenever possible, have your morale-boosting activities during work hours. This turns the activity into a break from work rather than another work event to go to.

  There are exceptions to this, though, such as if your office needs consistent coverage and someone would be left out of the activity, or if employees express that it would be more stressful than helpful to do an activity during work hours.

  If you do have the activity during employees’ off time, though, keep participation entirely voluntary.

Fun Activities to Boost Morale FAQ

1. How can I boost my office morale?

   You can boost your office morale by listening to your employees, addressing their concerns, and planning fun activities.

The first step to boosting office morale is to show your employees that you care about them by actively listening to their concerns and needs.

Once you do that, you need to make every effort to address as many of those concerns as you can. This may mean fighting for raises and bonuses, hiring another person to lighten the load, or saying no to projects that will overload your team.

Then, once you’ve shown your employees that you care about them and will fight for them, plan some fun activities to do together. This will give them a break from work, allow them to blow off some steam, and enjoy just socializing together for a little while.

When employees know they’re cared for and are happy at their jobs, they tend to work harder, care more about their tasks, and stay at the company longer.

Morale boosters can play a huge part in keeping employees engaged and mentally and emotionally healthy.

You could play a quick game, allow everyone to wear casual clothing, or take turns bringing donuts and coffee in the morning.

Potluck lunches and fun employee-of-the-week ceremonies — complete with a tacky trophy — can also be fun ways to mark the end of the week.

Final Thoughts

Fun activities for employees to boost teamwork don’t have to take a lot of time out of the workday, or even require too much organization.

Why not try creating marshmallow towers or having an informal trivia game after your next staff meeting? You might be surprised at the prolonged positive effects a simple game or activity can foster.

Author

Caitlin Mazur

Caitlin Mazur is a freelance writer at Zippia where she has written 140+ articles that have reached over 1 mil viewers as of June 2023. Caitlin is passionate about helping Zippia’s readers land the jobs of their dreams by offering content that discusses job-seeking advice based on experience and extensive research.