Make team celebrations memorable

Whether it’s celebrating big accomplishments, extra effort, or career anniversaries, we have got you covered on fun ways to make the most out of your next virtual or in-person gathering.

Moments of gratitude

Offer employees the opportunity to recognize and show appreciation for the work of specific employees or teams in your department. Leaders go first to lead by example and build momentum.

Gratitude wall

  • Using an online whiteboard application like Miro, you can safely share some virtual space with your colleagues. You can kick the activity off by posting the first recognition comment about the team, then invite other team members to do the same.
  • You can also play “compliment tag” and encourage teammates to write a kind compliment upon receiving a compliment until the entire team has been recognized.

Introduce TEAMs Praise Application

  • The Praise app in Microsoft Teams helps users show appreciation to others in their organization through a variety of badge displays.
  • Admins can control what badges are available from the Microsoft Teams admin center. In the left navigation, go to Teams apps > Manage apps. In the list of apps, click Praise, and then select Settings. From here, you can choose to enable default and built-in badge sets and create custom badges.

Get to know your PACT or Service Award recipients

Develop a profile that highlights the employee’s favorite song, vacation spot, inspirational saying and share in a presentation. 

Icebreaker questions

Engage your team by asking them questions in a poll format at the beginning of the event with space in between for lively discussion. This helps to ensure that all team members are fully engaged by letting them share thoughts and experiences.

Zoom backgrounds

Have remote attendees use Canva.com or PowerPoint blank presentation to create unique Zoom backgrounds and encourage staff to use the background as part of a team contest like who has the funniest or most wanderlust background.

Scavenger hunt

  • Divide your group into smaller teams (using breakout rooms for virtual events) give them each a list to find, and allow a designated amount of time (no more than 15 minutes) for teams to collaborate and complete the challenge.
  • Award a prize to the winning team.

BINGO

  • Search online for various celebration or recognition BINGO cards
  • Make sure everyone has the card(s) ahead of time, or have them use a digital version and highlight the words that are called.
  • Assign one person to be in charge of announcing the words each round you play.

Mad Libs

  • Mad Libs is a phrasal template word game which consists of one player prompting others for a list of words to substitute for blanks in a story before reading aloud.
  • Search online for celebration or recognition related Mad Libs.
  • Break your team into groups to complete the Mad Libs and then come back together and have one person from each group share the stories. You’ll enjoy a good laugh together!

E-cards

Send an e-card to your team by using websites such as punchbowl.com or smilebox.com where you can customize the design/layout and write your personal greetings.

Be mindful with recognition giving

  • Be considerate of how your team members like to be recognize; not all employees are comfortable with public recognition
  • Focus on the things that bring your team together and unite you.
  • Don’t force participation.