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Fun at Work: Enliven Your Culture

2012-10-15 12:23:57

Bob Nelson, May 1, 1999

Water wars. Consider this way to help a group adhere to ground rules it has previously agreed to: Give group members toy squirt guns and authorize everyone to use them on someone who isn't abiding by a rule. (This works best outdoors, of course.)

Make it more meaningful. Incorporate a sense of fun into your corporate award presentations to keep them from being cookie-cutter experiences and to make the awards more memorable for recipients at no additional expense. For example, have a chorus sing a letter of praise, have a treasure hunt or a drawing, crown someone with paper clips, or create a bulletin board devoted to each reward recipient and ask for written contributions from the entire staff.

Start out right. At Business First in Louisville, Ky., the advertising department sends a broadcast voice mail daily with a motivational message -- a joke, a success story, or whatever helps employees enjoy what they do for a living.

A soapy celebration. Hire high school students to wash employees' cars in the parking lot.

Keep meetings on track. Microage Computer in Tempe, Ariz., charges latecomers to meetings $1 each and distributes the money to those who were on time. Other companies use a coin bank and charge meeting attendees a quarter for interruptions, tangential comments, and so forth, using the money later for team celebrations.