Your team’s productivity can make or break your business.
Companies with worn-out employees encounter a myriad of obstacles. They have high absenteeism rates, high employee churn, less production, or low-quality output.
However, with a highly energetic and productive team, you can put in more work into your marketing and sales initiatives, fulfill more orders, and have a positive work culture, which lowers employee churn.
Productivity Activities for Your Business
Invest in energizing your team, so they are more productive.
1. Run games or contests
You’d be surprised how organizing games and contests can do wonders to reduce your team’s stress levels.
Games are a great breather for employees, especially when they’re reaching the point of getting burned out.
You can solve free, online jigsaw puzzles with your employees to boost problem-solving skills, or even play productivity-boosting card games.
Run a quick contest to see who can finish the puzzles and card game first, and set up cool prizes for your contests.
You don’t need to spend thousands on the prizes. Think of something affordable, fun, and worthwhile.
Quick and on-the-spot fun activities will shift your employees’ minds from their stressful work to something lighthearted and fun.
Sometimes, that’s all they need to be refreshed and come back with a rested and composed frame of mind.
Bonus tip: Create leaderboards. Having one creates a sense of friendly and positive competition within your office. With a visible leaderboard, the impact of your contests and games lasts longer, since those who see the leaderboard remember the fun experience they had playing the game.
2. Conduct community service
Community service is awesome!
Not only does it give your employees a chance to do meaningful work, but they can also have a change of environment.
It’s not uncommon for people who do volunteer work to gain better social and relationship skills. They can learn more about themselves and their peers — helping your company cultivate a more cohesive team with a high level of self-awareness.
If your team is well bonded, they can work better. The work environment becomes conducive to teamwork and removes needless, destructive drama.
3. Invite motivational speakers
What’s the worth of a single “AHA!” moment? How about a powerful paradigm shift? Or perhaps a breakthrough from limiting beliefs?
They’re priceless, aren’t they?
If your employees encounter any of these, they are bound to be inspired and driven.
They’ll be energized to do their work, to accomplish more, to be more, and to contribute more.
Their change in mindset will drive them to be more productive and be more excellent in what they do.
That’s the power of inviting motivational speakers.
Even though your employees are just sitting and listening to the inspiring message of the speakers, the experience can be life-changing for them.
Just a single statement can turn your lifeless, demotivated employees into workhorses that produce double or triple of what they are currently producing.
Bonus tip: Choose a motivational speaker that specializes in topics you know your employees are struggling with. The relevance of the speaker’s material is important. The more the topic resonates with your employees, the higher their chances of getting inspired and empowered by the event.
4. Conduct financial literacy training
Employees who are buried in debt or worried about whether they have enough money to pay for rent are i-m-m-e-n-s-e-l-y stressed. If you’ve had your fair share of financial problems, you know how nerve-racking this can be.
That’s why helping your employees manage their finances better will improve their energy levels. When they aren’t burdened financially, they are less stressed and have more energy to deal with their tasks.
Before you put together a training program, run surveys or polls to know which finance topics your employees are more interested to learn. Some might be more interested in how to save, others about how to pay debt, while others might be into investing.
Bonus tip: Create mini-groups or accountability groups. That way, your employees can check on each other’s progress in improving their finances. With accountability groups, your team is more likely to get great results out of their training. If everything goes according to plan, your employees will end up having better financial habits, therefore, be more financially well off — which then lessens their stress levels.
5. Do a fitness challenge
Employees who live sedentary or unhealthy lifestyles are often tardy and sick.
That’s going to hurt their productivity, in return. Studies show a strong connection between health and productivity.
The healthier a person, the more focused and energetic they are to deal with their to-dos. In short, they’ll be more productive.
That’s why holding a fitness challenge can do wonders for your team’s energy and productivity levels.
For example, let your team use a wearable fitness tracker and monitor their number of steps. Those with the highest number of steps in a week can win prizes.
You can also track their gym attendance. Those who stay consistent or those with the most hours in the gym win the challenge.
Running fitness challenges will help your team perform their work at peak conditions and minimize instances of anyone calling in sick.
Bonus tip: Fitness challenges are best done regularly and frequently. Living a healthy lifestyle is a habit. Running one fitness challenge in a year won’t do you and your team much good when it comes to building healthy habits. A monthly challenge could work. In fact, depending on the dynamics of your fitness challenge, it might even make sense for you to do them on a weekly basis.
Health is wealth
The adage “health is wealth” doesn’t just apply to individuals — it also rings true even for companies.
The healthier the employees in your company, the more energetic and productive they become. This puts your company in a better position to create amazing products, market your services, and provide better customer support — all of which ultimately help to skyrocket your revenue.
Image: Depositphotos
Thanks for these awesome suggestions, Pratik! As most managers know, team building activities are useful for improving team dynamics, productivity, building trust, facilitating communication, and boosting teamwork.