[Updated 5/10/23] Easily build employee engagement and team build during your next virtual meeting with our help. One of the difficulties of remote teams is the lack of a water cooler. A place where people can casually chat about non-work subjects while grabbing a coffee or a snack. To help fill the gap left when we all left the office for the virtual space, we began experimenting with our interactions on Slack and in our daily team huddles. Here are our teams favorite ways to help build engagement, get smiles, stay in touch, and dig deeper than the work.
Our solutions and ideas use a combination of Slack, Zapier, Zoom, and more to get smiles. Read more
https://fireflyteamevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/blog_slack.png431936James Bennetthttps://fireflyteamevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ff_website_main-495x226.pngJames Bennett2023-05-10 00:01:472023-05-10 00:06:147 Slack Ideas to Stay Connected & Engaged On A Remote Team [Updated 5.10.23]
If the Great Resignation has taught the business world anything, it should be this:
Yes, you do have to care about the factors affecting employee engagement in your organization. If company culture is “the way things are done around here,” then employee engagement is “how your employees feel about the way things are done around here.”
https://fireflyteamevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/8-factors-that-affect-your-companys-employee-engagement-for-the-worse-blog-header.webp7241200James Bennetthttps://fireflyteamevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ff_website_main-495x226.pngJames Bennett2023-05-03 13:39:122023-05-03 13:43:488 Factors That Affect Your Company’s Employee Engagement For The Worse
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, activate means to “cause something to start working.” But with any luck, your employees are already doing that—working—and you’re here because you’re looking for ways to level up. If you’d like to make work more meaningful for both you and your employees, then pursuing an employee activation strategy can help (at least until someone comes up with a better term for it). Read more
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With our team building work, we at FireFly Team Events have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of different companies. Often when searching for great company cultures you’ll find articles highlighting fun work spaces like Pixar’s breakfast cereal bar or Google’s colorful and spiraling office slides. Now, I love playgrounds and sugary cereals as much as the next person, but how much engagement do those perks inspire? The following companies have a culture that extend beyond flashy Instagram fodder. Instead, they focus on policies and procedures that inspire communication, creativity and group identity.
Zappos
Zappos is no stranger to top lists. Whether measuring customer service quality or employee satisfaction, Zappos ranks high. This is likely due to the apparent lack of office politics. When interviewing, candidates are questioned not just about their qualifications, but their personality and values. This unique personality test ensures they will be a good cultural fit for the office. Zappos also rewards employees based on skill tests and reviews. The clear paths to growth reduces nepotism and politicking. They also have a strong unique corporate identity shaped by their core values including, “Create fun and a little weirdness.” Staff are referred to and treated as family, which breeds immense loyalty and drive. Read more
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Of course we at FireFly love playing games. We take every opportunity to play-test new challenges we offer on events. Games are more than fun, they are a valuable engagement tool. According to a Linkedin study, 46% of workplace professionals report that having a good friend at work is important to their overall happiness. Now, we’re not saying all your coworkers need to be BFFs, but engaging in friendly activities like office games can actually increase creativity and retention. When choosing a game to introduce to your office consider staff personalities, afforded time, and resources so that you can pick something best suited to your office. Here’s five ideas to get you started.
1. Office Games DIY: Mad Libs
Feel free to keep things simple with this idea. In a common area have staff list random verbs, nouns and adjectives that you feed into an office Mad Lib. At the end of the day or week, type it up and display it in the break room. Staff will get a chuckle and will want to offer different suggestions the next time. These are great entry level office games for employees who may not want to commit to something more involved. Read more
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It’s scary how excited I am for my favorite holiday at the end of the month. Halloween is a devilishly good excuse to get sugared up on candy, despite being a fully grown adult. We understand Halloween is on a spooky Tuesday this year, so you’re probably still expected to get SOME work done at the office. You can still embrace the spirit of the season and have some frightfully fun workplace play by dressing up in office Halloween costumes. I’ve compiled what I think are some awesome and creative ideas. I’m simply a foolish mortal though, so please share your wicked costume ideas in the comments or by tagging us on social media. We’re sure you’ll all look drop dead gorgeous. Read more
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Here’s your excuse to buy that rotating triple barrel precision shot Nerf blaster you’ve been eyeing in the toy section. Play, such as firing foam darts, is a valuable office team building activity that can actually increase productivity by providing employee fun. And yes, I’m serious about this. I never joke about fun.
The Power of Play
As children we are encouraged to play to strengthen our creativity, build problem solving skills and improve communication. Once we grow up however, we’re expected to stop playing and focus on “work”. Work tends to involve using creativity and communication to solve problems, so why does play suddenly become unimportant once our ages pass the range listed on toy packaging? Scientists like Stuart Brown have been studying the correlation between play and success at the National Institute for Play. Psychologists have begun encouraging adults to harness the power of play so that we can continue to reap the benefits of it.
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Now that Pokemon Go has decimated the US workforce’s productivity, it’s time to talk employee engagement. Pokemon Go has done what you as a manager need to be doing – it’s building engagement. It provides users with value, exercise, recognition, anticipation, and a sense of purpose. How can you as a manager help your staff discover value within your organization? What can you do to encourage strong interpersonal relationships? With the rise of the millennial work force employees are starting to care less about what they’re doing and more about why they’re doing it. The ability to find meaning and purpose in one’s work is rapidly becoming the number 1 reason for staff retention. If you can tear your team away from Pokemon Go try these 5 employee engagement ideas. (battling in a Pokemon Gym doesn’t count)
1. Develop a Health and Wellness Initiative Employees recognize and appreciate when their company cares for their well-being. Not only does having wellness programs demonstrate that you value your staff, but healthy employees tend to be more productive and less absent. Work with your staff to develop a wellness program that aligns with their interests. You could organize a kick ball team, have a weekly yoga class, or even offer healthy snack alternatives at the office. Your employees will feel better about themselves, and about the company they work for.
2. Recognize Staff Accomplishments I’m not saying gather your staff in a circle and sing “kumbaya”. Unless everyone wants to, then definitely do that and send us footage. Instead, ensure that your employees know YOU are aware of their hard work and achievements. It should be a clear recognition and a regular occurrence. Defeat divisive competition by making individual accomplishments team wins and celebrate them together. Promote a culture of encouragement and congratulations. Many offices have a seldom used compliment box, punch it up by having an occasional drawing and offering gift cards to the complimented and the complimenter. This spreads goodwill among all the staff. Read more
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Put a spray paint can in your team members hands for an unforgettable graffiti team building outing!
Amazon.com’s App Store team asked us for a unique team outing in Dana Point. They’re a new team that works well together but their manager is working to elevate them to amazing. He wanted to dig a little deeper using creativity as a vehicle for interaction. Our Team Graffiti paired them up with a facilitator and a world class graffiti artist, ManOne Graffiti Artist. The team explored the concept of individual identity through graffiti “tags’ in Lantern Bay Park by the Laguna Cliffs Marriott. Each member created their own graffiti name, called a “tag” in the graffiti world. A tag is more than just a name it’s an identity much like a corporate brand. Colors, letter style, and writing style are important to establishing identity. As they shared their new tags with each other ManOne offered tips and technique mixed with colorful graffiti history. Markers in hand they turned our graffiti walls into a colorful feast for the eyes.
Corporate Teams in the Graffiti World
The graffiti equivalent of a team is known as a crew. Every artist has a one or more crews that they identify with. Crews provide safety, inspiration, help on large pieces, and family. The correlation with a project team resonated strongly with Amazon. The Amazon.com group was now a graffiti crew and ManOne graduated them to spray paint. After an interactive graffiti lesson, together they chose a word that has meaning and relevance to the team and their goals at work. Using the word “craft” the crew chose their colors for their final masterpiece on canvas. ManOne sketched it out in paint on a primed cotton canvas and the crew took over. They filled in the piece taking turns using the colors they’d chosen. ManOne took over after all the color was filled in and showed us why he’s a master of his craft. Hey added outlines and depth that made the canvas come to life.
Engage Your Team
Building engagement amongst team members is more than theme days in the office. It takes effort and additional investment by management. Finding unique ways like our Team Building Graffiti event is a great direction to go. Ready to plan your next meeting? Call us and let us help you get the most out of your team – Firefly Team Events – 877.267.1939
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Ready To Plan A San Diego Corporate Team Building Event? [updated 2023]
If your group is lucky enough to be in San Diego for your next team building event we’ve collected some great ideas for you. Of course there’s the beach, Sea World, the Wild Animal Park, and Comic Con, but when you really want to learn more about both the town and your team consider these San Diego corporate team building activity suggestions. We’ve updated the list to feature a few more for 2023.
San Diego is a big city made up of awesome areas and neighborhoods. Our favorites are Balboa Park and the Gaslamp District. In Balboa Park you’ll explore the lush gardens, Spanish architecture, and numerous museums. If you’re wanting an evening team building activity we’ll send you on a culinary adventure through the Gaslamp District. Hop on the trolley to see the sights and enjoy the culture of the town. Our San Diego scavenger hunts don’t just send you to look at cool stuff though, you’ll be completing challenges and snapping pictures to win your team 1st place.
Fun in the sun is the idea behind our Iron Team Challenge. It’s our version of a Survivor or Olympic style team event. Gather your crew, slather on the sunscreen, and hit the beach or park ready beat the competition in team building challenges you’ve definitely never played before. Get to know your team in a totally different environment and engage in friendly competition. Our Beach Olympics will have teams cheering as they build trust, communication and strategy. We design all of our challenges to maximize participation and minimize single player domination.
As you explore the city you may notice beautiful works of art spray painted around the town. The walls of North Park feature world class artists that you might find on one of our events. A professional graffiti artist joins us to help your team create a custom street art image featuring a word that resonates with your team. Corporate teams enjoy expressing their personality while having fun with the paint. It’s a big, bold, and colorful exploration of messaging and innovation. We guarantee your team has never done anything like this.
There has never been a time in the history of the world where adults cheered this madly when a balloon pops. It’s wild! We give each team a remote control car and have them build a new body for it complete with sharp pointy things. After attaching a balloon to the back they battle their opponents in our wrecking pit. Last team with an unpopped balloon is the winner for the battle. It’s fast paced, collaborative, and hilarious. Fresh ideas are gold in team building and this is one of the best.
Each team will turn a full size surfboard into a message of positivity and inspiration for veterans in the San Diego region. San Diego is home to the highest concentration of military personnel in the world. We partner with organizations that use surfboard as a form of therapy to process trauma. The veterans learn how to surf, how to find silence on the water, and build new relationships. They keep the boards so they can continue to learn and heal.
Staying near San Diego in Carlsbad? No problem! Our team of locals will be able to coordinate a memorable and engaging team building event in any area of San Diego.
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Firefly Team Events
