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A new year. A new opportunity to make changes. And create a newly engaged workforce.
Forget the typical boring team-building and ice-breaking activities – ‘2 truths and a lie’ I’m looking at you! Kick off 2020 with 12 months of employee engagement activities aligned with international days of recognition to help you transform your organisation.
Creative employee engagement ideas
JANUARY – Help people get their geek on
Celebrate the role of education in all our lives by promoting learning and development (L&D). Why not give an allowance per employee. Learning something new can help people manage stress and anxiety and build resilience. And empowering your employees to decide what they want to learn will make them feel more valued.
Align with January 24 – International Day of Education
FEBRUARY – Cultivate some healthy hearts
Seeing your people eating at their desks or not taking a proper break? Promote heart health and cardiovascular fitness by scheduling a lunchtime activity such as a run or walk. Don’t forget to take a snap and tag us! @VirginPulse .
Align with February 14 – Valentines Day
MARCH – A workshop on Zzzz
People generally know that to live a healthy lifestyle, you need to eat healthy and do exercise. But a lot of people overlook the importance of sleep. Educate your employees and help them get more Zzz tonight.
Align with March 13 – World Sleep Day
APRIL – Time for Trivia
Prepare some questions relating to safety in your workplace. Get everyone into teams. The winner gets a prize! Bonus points for clever team names optional. But not for the usual culprits – ‘The Quizzard of Oz’ or ‘Let’s Get Quizzicle’.
Align with April 28 – World Day for Safety and Health at work
MAY – Dive into diversity
Get your people bopping along to the latest Bollywood beats. Slapping and tapping the djembe drum. Or balancing and breathing through Tai Chi moves. A great way to promote diversity and expose employees to different cultural traditions!
Align with April 21 – World Cultural Diversity Day
JUNE – Plants. Paperless. Plogging.
Did you know that almost three-quarters of workers said they’d be more likely to work for a company with a green footprint? Think introducing plants around work, encouraging people to go paperless or a lunchtime plogging session.
Align with June 5 – World Environment Day
JULY – On your marks. Get set….
Run your own office Olympics or a team challenge. Stuck on ideas of how to make this work? Check out Virgin Pulse’s solutions that range from fun challenges to comprehensive health and wellbeing platforms to suit your needs.
Align with July 24 – The Olympic Games begin
AUGUST – Fun Fundraising
Help those affected by crises around the world, by hosting a fundraiser at work. It could be a simple morning tea asking for a donation from all employees. Or turn it into something more fun by holding a raffle, a silent auction or a table tennis tournament!
Align with August 19 –World Humanitarian Day
SEPTEMBER – Friday thank yous
Optimistic thinking. Improved wellbeing. Better relationships. It pays to practise gratitude! Get together your team, department or office (if you have a small one) and ask everyone to thank someone for something they’ve done that week.
Align with September 10 – R U OK? Day
OCTOBER – Get cookin’!
Organise a cooking class to promote meal-preparation. Not only is it healthier, but it can help people save money too. Take it a step further by seeing if your local refugee centre runs cooking classes, so you can support a good social cause at the same time. The secret ingredient? Love.
Align with October 16 – World Food Day
NOVEMBER – Let out the LOLs
Exercise is one of the most effective ways to reduce stress at work. And that’s something that should be encouraged all year round. But if you’re looking for something different, why not take your people to a local comedy show. And help them reap the benefits of a good belly chuckle.
Align with November 4 – Stress Awareness Day
DECEMBER – Make an impact
It feels good to do good! Organise the opportunity (or ideally opportunities) for your employees to give back to the local community and make a positive impact on another life. Be that human, animal or plant.
Align with December 5 – International Volunteer Day