Looking to motivate your employees, or improve team communication? Consider using office challenges to encourage teamwork, and communication and boost morale. After all, a little friendly competition can make the workday much more fun. Below are some of the top office challenge ideas you should consider for your workplace.

Lunch Cook-Off

Hosting a friendly lunch cook-off is a great way to put employees in a good mood. It also allows employees to share their skills in the kitchen, and their favorite foods. This is a great way to encourage social activity throughout the day. To organize a cook-off follow these steps;

1. Pick a theme for your cook-off. Ideas include meatless meals, salads, crockpot meals, chili, soup, or even themed to a particular country.
2. Select a date for the event, ensuring that employees have ample time to plan for the event.
3. Decide when during the day the contest will be held. For example, 12 pm-2 pm or 11:30 am-1 pm. Keep in mind employees' responsibilities and schedules when choosing the time.
4. A few days before, prepare the kitchen/lunch room for the event. Make sure you have enough bowls, plates, and cutlery for employees to try the dishes.
5. Set up a voting system. You can either have a team of judges picked at random, or allow all employees to vote for their favorite dishes. Ensure you have a range of categories like flavor, presentation, spice, authenticity, etc. Then make sure to have a people's choice award as well.

Consider prizes for the winners of each category, even if it’s just an extra break. You can also choose to have regular cook-offs every quarter, or month. Just make sure you change up who the judges are each time.

Seven-Hour Sleep Challenge

Many of us work in high-stress industries, which can affect our mental health. The seven-hour sleep challenge aims to promote mental health and wellness by encouraging sleep. Here’s how it works;

• Select a time frame for the challenge, whether it’s a month or a quarter.
• Select a way to track sleep hours. You could use a spreadsheet to track all hours or small items like decorative pebbles for participants to collect when they sleep seven or more hours.
• Remind participants to record each time they sleep for a minimum of seven hours per night.
• The winner is the participant with the most pebbles or the highest amount of sleep hours in the spreadsheet.

This challenge is a great way to encourage work-life balance, especially in high-stress environments, or during a project deadline. Well-rested employees are more likely to be productive, and happier at work.

Skill Learning Challenge

Encourage your employees to learn something new. It could be a new language, hobby or work-applicable skill like graphic design. As a business owner, you just need to ensure that they have the time to work on it.

• Start by finding employees that will teach other employees a skill or hobby.
• Set a timeframe for the skills challenge. For example, 2 weeks, a month, 3 months, etc.
• Set up a sign-up sheet for employees to select which skill they would like to learn. Remember to keep signups at a reasonable number, say 3-5 people in each skill group.
• Set up dedicated time in the workday for each group to work on their skill. This should be a maximum of 15 minutes, 4 times a week to ensure it doesn’t interfere with work tasks.
• Once the challenge is over, have employees demonstrate their new skills with a demonstration or quiz.

By encouraging your employees to learn new skills while being paid for it, you can only boost workplace morale but also communication.

Productivity Challenge

Challenging your employees to demonstrate their productivity can be an engaging office challenge. Productivity can be difficult to measure, especially across departments. Consider using criteria such as punctuality, communication, teamwork, and contribution. Find a way to track each of these. For example, punctuality could mean signing on to their computer before a certain time. Contribution could be measured by participating in meetings. Grade each department or team on the criteria to determine the winners. Consider also having individual awards for employees in each category.

Schedule regular awards for productivity each month. This helps to recognize those employees putting in the extra effort and helps boost morale within the office.

These office challenge ideas allow you to achieve specific goals within your business while having a fun office environment. Having fun at work is crucial, especially for businesses looking to retain employees while offering amazing service to clients.