Organizing a company contest is a great way to strengthen team cohesion and a sense of belonging to the organization. Depending on the format you choose, it can also be an excellent way to motivate your employees. It can also boost their performance and encourage new ideas to emerge.
Whatever your HR objectives, internal contests are an ideal way to engage your employees. They can also help improve your employer brand. In this article, we share 10 original ideas you can implement within your teams.
1. Treasure hunts in companies
Treasure hunts are a popular game that everyone knows how to play. Organized in teams, they can strengthen collaboration between employees. They are also a particularly interesting corporate game for onboarding. New recruits can discover the company’s premises in a fun way. They can also interact with all the teams to ask for clues, etc. For remote teams, treasure hunts can also be organized online.
2. The corporate photo contest
Photo contests and video contests are fun activities that stimulate creativity within teams. They encourage employees to think outside the box and innovate in order to come up with the most original visuals. As part of a company contest, this activity can be an opportunity to challenge employees to come up with new designs for a future marketing campaign, imagine a new company logo, or create an original advertising spot.
3. Quiz to test your knowledge
Quiz-style contests are also very popular team-building activities. During onboarding or at a company party, quizzes can be used to test your teams’ knowledge of the organization’s history and values. Quizzes can also cover broader topics, such as the company’s industry or a major marketing event (Black Friday, holiday season, etc.).
4. A hackathon to generate new ideas
In recent years, hackathons (a combination of the words “hacker” and “marathon”) have become a very popular format for corporate competitions, particularly in the technology sector. The concept is simple: the company sets a challenge for several teams, who then compete to design a new application (or simply a new product) within a set time frame.
The unique feature of hackathons is that they can be easily organized in person, at the company’s premises, or online. The best product (or product idea) will be rewarded with a prize (a cash prize or symbolic benefits). But above all, it will be developed and marketed by the company, which represents enormous recognition for the winning team.
5. A sales competition to boost sales
If there is one department where company competitions are commonplace, it is sales. Salespeople are used to challenging each other to see who will be the best salesperson and sign the most contracts. The company can encourage this healthy competition to boost the motivation and performance of its salespeople. It can also engage the rest of the teams to participate through a mechanism such as Fan’s Choice. All employees will then be able to bet on the team or salesperson most likely to win the sales contest.
6. Voting to choose the new product
As already mentioned, hackathons are an excellent way to generate new ideas. But rather than choosing the best idea to be developed, management can again ask all of its teams to vote for the prototype or product idea they would like to see marketed. To facilitate the voting process, the company could, for example, opt for a Fan’s Choice. The ideas would then be presented side by side and all employees could vote for their favorite proposal.
7. The Advent calendar in the workplace
The Christmas holidays are an opportunity for companies to bring their teams together and congratulate them on their work throughout the year. And what better way to reward your employees than by organizing an Advent Calendar within the company? Every day, employees will discover a new challenge or game that will allow them to win gifts (such as extra days off, goodies, invitations to exclusive events, etc.). The organization can vary the game mechanics, from a Wheel of Fortune to a One-armed Bandit.
8. The game of 7 values
9. Corporate bingo
Who doesn’t know the famous game of bingo? This card game can easily be customized with your company’s colors and the rules adapted to make it the perfect icebreaker. Employees will have to guess which of their colleagues has pets, the longest seniority in the company, or the best chance of winning an arm wrestling match, etc. The participants with the most correct answers (and who therefore know their colleagues best) will win a symbolic prize.
10. The charity contest
Company contests can also be an excellent way to give meaning to work and unite employees around shared challenges. For example, a company could challenge its employees to find the most original way to raise funds for a charity. Participants could submit their answers via an open quiz (an open-ended survey).
Another idea: organize a big cleanup of the neighborhood where the offices are located and reward the team that collects the most trash.
Organizing a contest at work is a great way to engage your employees and strengthen their sense of belonging to the organization. Be sure to choose a format that fits both your HR objectives and your employees’ aspirations. And offer attractive prizes that will motivate participants while rewarding your employees for their work. To help you launch contests more easily within your teams, check out our catalog of interactive activities!
