New Beginnings at Work: What Employee Engagement Activities Would You Suggest?

Hi everyone! Our corporate theme for this month is "new beginning." Are there any employee engagement activities that can be conducted on this theme? Please suggest.

To begin with, you can share the poem "New Beginnings" by Helen Steiner Rice to set the tone of the theme. (Do a Google search to get the words).

Employee Engagement Activities

You can then attempt the following:

- On one designated day, each employee is to ensure that he/she wears or adorns something new when they come to work. Post lunch or an hour before closing time, the employees will gather and try to identify the new object in another person's attire or style. This could also effectively be an exercise in being observant, paying more attention to our co-workers, etc. A couple of prizes can be given, e.g., for the person who lists out the maximum number of employees and their new display.

- Each employee can be encouraged to share one new good habit/resolution/learning they will attempt over the next year. Using a buddy system, pairs of people can encourage each other to monitor/encourage/give feedback, etc., on this resolution during the course of the year.

- Seek suggestions from the employees for some motivational activities to stimulate/uplift/improve the talents/knowledge/efficiency/effectiveness of employees.

- You can assign/rotate different departments to take charge of a Motivational bulletin board, which will be updated every week by the designated department. At the annual day, the department/contributors/best contributions, etc., can be recognized and rewarded.

Inspirational Resources

I would also suggest you visit the following inspirational and motivational blogs to get an idea of how I have attempted to share some "new thoughts" regularly:

- http://www.actspot.wordpress.com - Daily Blog
- http://www.poweract.blogspot.com - Weekly Blog

I trust some of the above ideas will ignite the "New Beginning" theme, sizzle, and dazzle the workplace.

Best Wishes.

Thanks for the ideas! I thought I'll also create a mailer and send the theme of the month to employees, asking them to send in their suggestions. This way, we can get to know what employees would like us to have, and we can also reward the employees for the best idea. Additionally, if we execute an activity selected by the employees themselves, they will be more motivated to participate.

Hi Wiggles, had you received any suggestions from your employees for motivational activities? Could you share those suggestions and the email you sent as information?

Thank you,
Himani

Thanks for the ideas, everyone! We did an "origami contest" for the New Beginning theme, wherein the best design was rewarded. Origami papers were distributed to all. The employees were supposed to create a design and relate it to a new beginning of the company. For example, if someone made a bird, then they related it to how "birds soar high." The contest brought out the creativity in employees.