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office games

Build Employee Engagement With These 5 Office Games

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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

Halloween office costumes

10 Office Halloween Costumes That Are #OfficeSquadGhouls

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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

workplace creativity

Workplace Creativity Cultivated: Try These 5 Simple Tips

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“If you love what you do, you never have to work another day in your life” – Marc Anthony.

Every company has the potential of offering a fun, energetic and creative environment.  This is a positive place where people can be trusted to do their jobs because they are happy and inspired by their employer’s engagement strategy.

An engagement strategy is a business plan that focuses on keeping employees engaged in the work they are doing.  This can be accomplished by making cultivating workplace creativity a priority.  Cultivating workplace creativity is proven to increase employee productivity, retention, and sales.  As a result, companies have larger profits and happier workers.  Many companies have engagement strategies, but fail to implement them.  So try these five simple tips and see how workplace creativity strategies improves your business.

GAMIFICATION

Apply motivational techniques to everyday tasks to improve workplace creativity.  Video games hook their users with quick responses, goals, badges, transparency, competition, leveling up, and collaboration.  These same methods can be applied in the workplace.

  1. Quick Responses. Use weekly meetings to provide feedback and evaluations. Encourage employees to offer ideas via email and respond daily.
  2. Goals. Set clear, achievable, short term goals
  3. Badges. Provide awards or praise when employees reach these goals. Some companies use a point system.  Employees accrue points for reaching short term goals which can then be accumulated and traded in for larger prizes.
  4. Transparency. Let each employee know where they stand vs other employees.
  5. Competition. Transparency, goals, and badges create competition in the workplace. Competition is a great way to keep members engaged and cultivate creativity.
  6. Leveling Up. Offer training and opportunities for advancement
  7. Collaboration. Encourage people to team up, bounce ideas off each other and assist each other in reaching the goals.

Read more

los-angeles-team-building

5 Fresh Ideas for Los Angeles Team Building Events

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I love L.A., we love it!  We could sing all day of our love for Los Angeles. You will too when you see the endless team event opportunities in the City of Angels.  Team building is not only a fun mental break for your employees, but it also shows them that you value their well-being.  According to a Gallup study, 75% of workers leave their bosses, not their companies.  Be the boss your employees don’t want to leave while strengthening team bonds with these top Los Angeles team building activities. Read more

Anaheim team events ideas

5 Fresh Ideas for Anaheim Team Events

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I recently attended an expo at the Anaheim Convention Center.  It may have been a Disney fan convention.  My nerdy-ness knows no bounds.  If you are brought out to Anaheim for a sales conference or meeting, know that the city has so many unique venues for a team outing.  What was once just sprawling citrus groves is now jam-packed with entertainment options.  I’ve compiled my favorite ideas for Anaheim team events below.

1. Disneyland Scavenger Hunt

We’ll start with the giant mouse in the room.  Anaheim is most widely known as the home of Disneyland.  Its popularity is all encompassing and certain to peak with the upcoming addition of a Star Wars themed land.  I love Disneyland for all the great photo locations throughout the park.  Grab your team for FireFly’s most magical team building challenge: a scavenger hunt at Disneyland Resort.  We’ve run hunts both in the park and exclusively in the adjacent Downtown Disney shopping area so theme park admission isn’t always needed.  This option is great for staff that are bringing their families with them or teams that like to be a bit Goofy!

2. Escape Room Anaheim Team Events

FireFly’s love of escape rooms is well documented.  In fact, our facilitators have collectively completed over 50 rooms.  One of our absolute favorites is Cross Roads Escape Games, located in Anaheim!  We attempted their Hex Room together and had a blast.  Themed after the scary movie genre, we had to race to solve the case of the murderer and find our own survival tokens.  The Hex Room is unique because each participant is placed in their own room with limited communication to the rest of the team.  More so, its a unique challenge that benefits from a thorough debriefing afterwards.  Consider contracting an experienced facilitator to help your team draw meaning out of their experience.

3. Sports Go Sports!

Anaheim is home to two great sports teams.  The Angels baseball team and the Ducks hockey team.  Tickets to one of their exciting games is always a good incentive reward.  Make your team the star by booking Anaheim team events at the Honda Center or Angel Stadium.

4. OC Foodie Paradise

If you have any foodies in your group, you’ll need to visit the Anaheim Packing House. The building is one of the few remaining structures from the agricultural era of the town.  Take a culinary tour through the two story mecca of southern California cuisine.  You’ll often find local musicians performing free concerts here, so it’s a great spot for groups wanting food and entertainment on a budget.  This trendy spot is popular among locals so we recommend using Anaheim’s superior public transit to arrive stress free.

5. I.P.A. I.Q.

It might be due to the high population density of service industry workers, but Anaheim is home to some really good bars.  So if you like craft beer, Lyft over to Bottle Logic Brewing.  Craft beer made from SCIENCE!  You can even get your brew in a chemistry beaker.  I like their bar for the wide open seating area that’s perfect for mingling or as a setting for our Game Showdown.

Anaheim is a great city that extends beyond the tourist attractions.  If you’d like to enjoy the town with a kick awesome team building twist, contact us at james@fireflyteamevents.com or 877.267.1939

how successful teams make team building count

How Successful Teams Make Team Building Count

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Congratulations on completing your team building experience!  You should now have a super powered team that is completely perfect.  No?  Your team is only mostly perfect?  Well, that’s because your team building should never be “completed.”  The value of any team building comes from reflection and implementation.  The actual activity, while probably awesome and Instagram-worthy, is neutral in achieving your goals.  Follow these strategic steps to create value for your team in between epic outings. 

Debrief, Debrief, Debrief!

During your event one of our team building ninjas likely led your group in a discussion about how your team performed during the challenge.  Your company likely already has a debriefing procedure or strategy in place to discuss how projects turn out. Debriefing is where we examine the experience to find the value and actionable data. The key with team building debriefing is the actual activity is inconsequential.  The specifics of what your team did to accomplish a team building challenge doesn’t matter nearly as much as how your group functioned. 

Michelle Cummings, a leader in team development and coauthor of A Teachable Moment warns “If participants are not allowed to reflect on their experiences and relate them to the outside world, then a lot of the learning may be lost” (Cummings. “Effective Debriefing Tools and Techniques”) Gather the team together once you’re back at the office.  Engage with the staff about how they felt and what they noticed after the activity.  You can even ask each member to write down one take away from the event. Utilize these takeaways as talking points in the future. Check out Cumming’s guide “Effective Debriefing Tools and Techniques” for some great ideas on switching up your debriefing technique. It will keep things fresh and interesting.  Read more

Team Building with Visit Huntington Beach

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Visit Huntington Beach staff

Visit Huntington Beach staff

We had a great day out with Visit Huntington Beach in Central Park. They have a wonderful staff working hard to make HB a great place for visitors! It was a two part day with team building challenges in the morning. In the afternoon we facilitated a brainstorming session to develop a new Mission and Vision statement. Thanks Visit HB!

Need to work on communication, trust, or leadership? Interested in new brainstorming and creativity techniques? Give us a call at 877.267.1939

 

 

Orange County Team Building Idea – Wipeout Warrior

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You have NEVER seen a team building event like this one!!! Bring your team out for an amazing corporate team building event where you’ll be climbing, falling, building, and jumping around our crazy fun course! Located in the heart of Orange County we’ve taken elements of the TV shows Wipeout and American Ninja Warrior and created Wipeout Warrior.

How it Works: You and your team will have access to all of our challenges for the Practice Phase. You’ll need to figure out who will represent your team on each one during the Game Phase. After the practice session it’s GAME ON!!! Your team will rotate through each challenge station and try and outscore the other teams. But watch out…. we’ve come up with some hilarious twists that keep your team thinking, reaching, and laughing all the way to the winners podium!

This team building event is only available in Orange County and only available through Us. Our location is within 10 minutes of John Wayne Airport, Irvine, and the Anaheim Convention Center. We’re within 25-35 minutes of Laguna Beach, Huntington Beach, and Newport Beach.

Not part of a company? Still want to play? Call us! We love fraternity groups, sororities, bachelor parties, bachelorette parties or whatever your group is!!!

orange county team building

Irvine,CA Team Building with AutoAlert

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AutoAlert brought HUGE spirit and energy to the Iron Team Challenge we created with them! Their enthusiasm was high during the challenge rotations and jumped even higher during the final “Gauntlet”. We want to thank them for letting us be part of the AutoAlert family for the day. Check out some of the images from Mason Regional Park in Irvine where we held the team building event.

If you’re interested in your own team building in Orange County, please contact us at 877.267.1939 or james@fireflyteamevents.com

View video –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQdjyzce4Os

You can see additional Photos at https://www.facebook.com/fireflyteamevents

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Amazing Race with TJX – Orange County Team Building

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team buidlingWe had a great time partnering with TJX Companies! We met them in Laguna Beach at the Surf and Sand Hotel to kick off an Amazing Race  style team building event! It was early but the crew from TJX tackled the rally books we gave them like champions. After some laughs and a brief strategy session they were off and running down Pacific Coast Highway solving clues, finding photos, and answering trivia questions. Thanks TJX!

Want to plan your own team building Amazing Race Style event? Contact us at 877.267.1939 or james@fireflyteamevents.com

Read about our version of Amazing Race – The Throwdown Challenge