Friday fun activities are a staple of many offices.
You’ve probably enjoyed a session of office olympics or an impromptu scavenger hunt at the end of the working week before. These games aren’t just great for boosting employee morale, they can help give tired workers that last push they need to make it past the final hurdle.
Sadly, many businesses that have adopted remote working neglect the concept of Fun Fridays.
Some companies neglect remote workers in favor of office-based teams, while others simply don’t believe it’s possible to incorporate them into remote working models. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. With a reliable conferencing platform at your disposal and a little creative thinking, it’s easy enough to make Friday something worth looking forward to for everyone.
How Can All Employees Be Encouraged to Participate in Games?
Even if your remote teams are productive and delivering the goods when it comes to project deadlines, you might find it challenging to get them to engage in more social activities.
Thankfully, it’s fairly easy to ensure maximum participation when you incentivize fun Friday ideas.
One of the simplest ways to ensure employee engagement for your interactive presentation is to hold your fun Friday activity sessions during the working day itself. If you expect people to sign in once the working week is over, don’t be too surprised if those online sessions look sparse.
Worried about eating into those daily workflows? Why not combine an online lunch hour or happy hour with fun Friday games and activities? You can even bring prizes into the mix. These can be as simple as gift vouchers for online retailers or paid vacation days. You can read more about our virtual happy hour ideas here.
Furthermore, make sure you’re actively promoting your fun Friday plans. While everyone’s bound to get an invite, it’s easy for these to get lost in an email inbox. Underline your plans in internal newsletters, and, if you’re hosting regular virtual meetings, include a reminder in your meeting agenda.
How to Have a Fun Virtual Friday with Gloww
With Gloww, you can bring the social element back to your teams, even if everyone is working remotely. This user-friendly platform is accessible to everyone, no matter what type of device they’re using.
What’s more, creating a fun virtual Friday session with Gloww couldn’t be simpler; go to our Fun Friday team building template, and get started!
Need some help putting together a session? Take your pick from a range of ready-made templates. If you have a good idea of what you’re doing, you can also create one from scratch, with endless scope for layout customization.
Looking for interactive elements? You’re spoiled for choice with the Gloww interactive presentation templates. Live polls and surveys are ideal if you want to engage everyone at once, while immersive games put the fun back into Friday. You can even bring collaboration tools into play if you want participants to work together on challenges.
15 Fun Friday Activities
Ready to get your fun Friday planning underway? Below are just some of the ways you can use Gloww to engage your employees at the end of the week.
Music Trivia
Trivia games are a safe bet if you’re looking to get everyone involved. Just about everyone enjoys music, so why not frame your trivia sessions around what’s currently making waves in the charts? Keep it simple with famous number-one singles from history or make things more interesting with guess-the-tune games. Have a look at our list of music-infused activities, as well as our 80’s music template.
True or False
True or False is another crowd-pleaser that’s bound to get everybody in the mood for the weekend. If you’re worried about this game being too simple, don’t be afraid to mix things up with out-of-the-box question topics.
Draw Your Plans
Weekend plans are a popular conversation starter on a Friday. With Gloww’s Digital Whiteboard and Scribble features, you can put a fresh twist on this go-to topic by asking everyone to draw their plans instead.
Word Cloud
Gloww’s Word Cloud feature is the perfect way to get everyone talking. Use it to ask everyone what they have in store for the weekend or frame your questions around the working week itself.
Live Buzzer
Gloww’s Buzzer feature can be used for a multitude of different games. Whether it’s a simple trivia quiz or pop culture puzzler, this will make a welcome addition to your virtual Friday get-togethers.
Polls
Polls are another handy way of seeing what makes your employees tick. Keep it casual with questions about weekend plans, or ask questions relating to work and ongoing assignments.
Dubbing
If everyone has downed tools for the week, you can now have some real fun. Get players to dub over pre-recorded videos or clips sourced from the web. You can pull clips from newsreels or popular television shows.
Useless Talent
Most of us have a secret talent, but the majority of them are pretty useless. Nonetheless, a fun Friday session is the perfect showcase for those less than impressive skill sets.
Employee of the Week
Just because you’re working online, doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to those tried and tested motivators for your employees. While some companies choose to mention employee of the week winners during meetings, doing so during a virtual Friday gathering is a great way to round off the week.
Group Pic
Perfect for fostering a sense of community. Cap off your Friday fun session with a group photo. You can even play around with backgrounds and animations.
Scribble
Everyone loves a game of Pictionary. With Gloww’s Scribble feature, you can easily incorporate this classic game into your virtual Friday events.
Yes or No
Otherwise known as 20 Questions, this party game always goes down well. One person guards the answer, while everyone else has to guess what it is by asking yes or no questions. Think about awarding points and handing out prizes at the end of the month for the highest scorer.
Hangman
You probably played this classic guessing game as an end-of-semester treat back during your school days. Replicate that school’s out feeling by hosting a game of hangman during your virtual Friday session.
Random Participant
Add some excitement to your online games by using a random picker to put someone on the spot. You can use it to pick players for games, ask someone to reveal a secret about themselves, or assign employees to teams for other activities.
Spin the Wheel
Gloww’s Spin the Wheel feature is another nifty tool for bringing some jeopardy to your online get-togethers. Use it to single someone out to face a forfeit, pick someone to play a game, or simply dish out prizes to whoever’s name the wheel lands on.
FAQs
If this is your first fun Friday session, make sure you’re including plenty of icebreaker games so remote workers can warm up to each other.
Trivia challenges always work well (have a look at our movie trivia template), and you can use Gloww’s Word Cloud feature to play things like the emoji game. Word association is another tried and tested classic, while any visual game will make a welcome addition to your online session.
If you want to keep employee morale high and retain staff for longer, as a part of your team building activities, make a habit of ensuring everyone leaves the working week with that Friday feeling. You can intersperse smaller games throughout the day or bring the working week to a close slightly earlier than usual so teams can engage with each other for longer.
The best team-building games are the ones that encourage collaboration. Think about assigning your employees into teams for company-wide trivia challenges. Problem-solving activities and fact-finding challenges are other great ideas.
Hosting Fun Friday Events with Gloww
If you’re looking for an effortless way to improve employee morale, it’s high time you bring the fun back to Fridays. With Gloww, it’s easy to host laid-back virtual get-togethers with remote teams as everyone gets geared up for the weekend.
Use interactive elements like polls and surveys to see how everyone’s week went, or mix things up with immersive games and collaboration tools. The happier your employees are when they down tools on a Friday, the more recharged they’ll be when they get back to it on Monday morning.
Eager to get going? You can start using Gloww today. If you want to discover some of our premium features, why not explore our pricing plans? Still have questions? Drop us a message via the online contact form.
