Are you looking for a fun, original and interactive way to strengthen cohesion within your teams or to motivate your employees? Workplace competitions are an effective way of engaging and rewarding your employees while reinforcing their sense of belonging to your organisation.

We’re going to share with you some ideas for competitions or interactive events that can be launched in-house to challenge teams in a fun way.

SUMMARY

• The benefits of interactivity and games to motivate employees
• Our ideas for corporate competitions
• 5 tips for launching workplace competitions

In 2006, Netflix decided to organise an open competition to improve its recommendation algorithm CInematch. The prize is an exceptional 1 million dollars.

Armed with user data, employees of the video-on-demand platform competed to design an algorithm capable of outperforming Cinematch by predicting how users would rate a new film based on their previous preferences.

Three years later, two teams managed to beat Cinematch and ended the competition. This example clearly shows that, used wisely, in-house challenges can be a good way of pushing employees to excel, strengthening collaboration and team cohesion.

On a day-to-day basis, internal competitions can have a number of benefits for your company.

Training your teams the fun way

Rather than organising a traditional training workshop or seminar, a company can opt for an interactive competition. It’s an excellent way of transmiting information in a more entertaining way and boost internal communication.

You can raise awareness of a CSR initiative (such as environmental protection) by organising an interactive quiz around the theme, or a competition such as the Fresque du Climat. In this way, employees are kept informed of the company’s long-term strategy and are regularly involved in its implementation.

Reinforcing a sense of belonging to the company’s values

Internal competitions and surveys, for example, are a simple and effective way of collecting feedback. They will help to improve the company’s internal culture so that it better reflects the expectations and aspirations of its employees. But other team-building challenges are just as relevant for strengthening employee support and improving the company’s image internally (and externally).

Like Netflix, you can challenge your teams by involving them in certain choices (logo change, new product design). The fun, interactive format will bind employees together around a common challenge and help new ideas to emerge.

Boosting team cohesion and stimulating performance

Internal competitions also contribute to employee motivation and productivity. After all, it’s when you’re having fun that you’re most effective, simply because you don’t feel like you’re working.

This gamified format is also an excellent way of rewarding the most motivated employees without creating tension within your teams. Everyone can take part and has a chance of winning a prize (tickets for a show, a trip offered by the company, etc.).

The whole point of workplace competitions is that they can take any form you like, depending on the specifics of your organisation and the objectives you want to achieve. If you’re looking for ideas for workplace competitions, here are some suggestions that you can adapt to your teams.

1. The photo contest

Photo competitions are a great way to unleash employees’ creativity and encourage them to share their personal experiences at work. Phillips, for example, has used this approach to strengthen its employer brand and facilitate future recruitment. Philips employees were invited to share photos of themselves at work on social networks via the hashtag #LifeAtPhilips.

2. The in-house culture quiz

Quizzes such as Trivia (a quiz with several choices of answers) are also a fun mechanism that is particularly well-suited to the corporate world. It’s an excellent way of testing employees’ knowledge of the organisation’s history and values, and strengthen cohesion and a sense of belonging within its teams.

3. The performance challenge

When organised fairly and inclusively, performance competitions are an excellent way of boosting employee motivation. One of the most popular forms of performance competition is based on key performance indicators (KPIs), particularly within sales teams. This internal competition rewards employees who have exceeded their sales target.

4. The treasure hunt

A treasure hunt in the company’s physical offices (or in a virtual recreation for remote teams) is also an excellent way of engaging employees. The company can hide surprise prizes on its premises or within a gamified application.

5. The winning calendar

The game is therefore an original and effective way of engaging employees and strengthening team cohesion within the company. Be careful, however, to ensure that everyone can take part and that it does not create unhealthy competition between its employees.

Adictiz recommends that you :

• Think about the objectives you want to achieve with your in-house game and choose the right format accordingly;
• Choose an easy-to-use gamification tool to organise your digital competition and enable all your employees (even those working remotely) to take part.
• Get your employees involved to come up with new ideas for in-house competitions;
• Choose the right rewards and prizes to motivate your employees;
• Ask for feedback once the internal marketing campaign is over to assess its impact and improve future initiatives.