Fun & Celebrations at Work!
December is considered to be the month of Occasions! These occasions specifically Christmas & New Year’s are a great way to bring all members of office together and celebrate through gifts, contests, food and decorations. These celebrations also helps in effectively managing and improving employee morale. When we encourage our employees to have fun, it seems to directly impact their productivity and sense of belongingness to the firm.
Considering the above, we had organized a small event on 23rd December on the occasion of Christmas & New Year. We started with the Secret Santa game and things were put into action nearly a week before the celebration day. During the entire week, employees who were Santa were supposed to get gifts / leave messages on their secret friend’s desk. On 23rd, we decorated the office with balloons, Christmas tree etc. and it was a sight to behold! Celebration started with cake cutting for employees who celebrated their birthdays or work anniversaries during the month. We then started with Secret Santa game where all the gifts were collectively kept near the Christmas tree. Every employee had to find their gift, guess what the gift was without opening them and based on that, they had to guess their Secret Santa. Team had a lot of fun with quite a few people being able to rightfully guess their Santa and some hilarious moments ensued when some others couldn’t guess. This activity took nearly an hour so we then moved to having snacks before starting the next activity.
Our next activity / game was the Christmas bell pass, where an employee was made to sit in between, blind folded and were asked to sing Christmas carols, while other employees sat in a circle encircling the person singing. The other employees were to pass the bell making a noise while the Carol was being sung. The person at center was then supposed to guess the person holding the bell when the carol ended. On guessing correct, the person guess was then let go and the person holding the bell was then to sit at center, sing carol and continue. The last person left was declared the winner. Bhima Patange won the game and was given a small gift. Congrats Bhima!
The day ended with a lot of impromptu dancing and singing by everyone in the team. Clearly, team had a lot of fun and was a memorable day for all. Amongst other reasons, we plan events / celebrations / outings to help employees learn the importance of teamwork and building trust in their colleagues. To this end, we also had an outing event during few weeks back during Diwali time. We had planned a team outing at Prime Time, R-city mall in Ghatkopar. Primetime is an after work hangout destination offering games, activities etc. to unwind after and have fun. We had made a special booking with them and as a part of that, every single person was going to enjoy a myriad of games and acitvities likes Bowling, Pool, Snooker, Archery, Paintball, Laser games etc.
Two teams were formed – and points allocated to people based on their performance in games and activites. It was a fun outing and the winning team was especially happy to receive small gifts on their victory. We spent a good 4 hours at the destination before leaving. And this was then followed by delicious dinner at The Green Hills restaurant at Powai. By the time we left, it was really late, but people were really happy and had fun!
We humans need a little amusement from time to time to de-stress ourselves from challenges we face in our day to day life. At the end of the day, it's important to try and ensure that the work-place you are working at is fun, inviting and people feel belonged and “wanting” to do better at work and take the organization to even greater heights.
