Games to Play at Work

When work is a daily routine, games to play at work serve as a refreshing break. If the monotony in work becomes boredom, games become a nice break after which those at work can return back fresh and relaxed. If employees are expected to work productively, they should be given the chance to take a break to enjoy. Games at work serve this purpose and the employees on playing for a while can get back to work all set to work fruitfully.

The true satisfaction at work is possible only when work is a blend of work and play. Without the 'play' component at work, human beings would become robots, which they are not and never want to become. Games being a part of work serve the purpose of establishing the fact that human beings are not machines and help in living up to this fundamental fact of one's professional life. Yes, the fact of work life is that human beings are not machines and that they have a life to live!

Playing games at work are refreshers and also efficient team builders. There are many games that can be used to foster team spirit, invite wide participation and encourage a cooperative nature amongst employees. A team is about working as one. It is about working together towards attainment of the company goals. A team is about working in cohesion, taking everyone along and being effectively guided along the path of professional growth. Team building games can serve as stimulants, which promote this spirit among team members while instilling in them the values needed to be a team player. The games to be played at work should encourage team players. Let us look at some team building games.

Games to Play at Work
A simple game to play at work can be to introduce oneself or you can ask the team members to introduce each other. The introduction must be made creatively like by attaching a suitable adjective to one's first name or giving each one the name of an idea or an object that is the best representation of his/her personality.

Strive to Survive is one of the games to play at work. In this game, each team is given a scenario and the team members together decide the plan of action. Design your own scenarios, which will require the team members to arrive on a common consensus and take quick decisions. For example, lay out a list of a number of items before each team and ask them to prioritize the items based on which of them are most needed for one's survival. You may ask the team to list out 10 such items that strike their minds and judge the teams on what items they come up with. You can put up a scenario like a natural disaster or an occurrence of a bomb blast and ask them to decide who will be preferred to survive in case only a fixed number of people can remain safe while others will have to sacrifice their lives. Ask the team members to play different characters and see them decide on who is preferred to survive the disaster.

Another game that can be played at work is called 'Animal Instincts'. The name is interesting and so is the game. Ask the team members in each of the teams to decide among themselves animal sounds to associate with certain actions. For example, a bark indicates bending down, a quack indicates running and so on. List a series of such actions and ask one of the team members from each of the group to be blindfolded to perform the actions. Now the other team members guide the blindfolded person to do the correct actions as per the list given to them. Animal sounds are to be used to guide the player. This game is about planning creatively, making logical relationships between animals and actions. This game fosters effective communication between the team members.

You can hold an interesting quiz for the teams. Include questions about the company they work for. You can include questions about the team members themselves. You can ask the team members questions about the company products, the organization history or even something about the employees like their expertise, their area of work or even their birth dates. The answers to these questions will reflect how well the employees know each other and their organization.

A game called 'body language' could be played at work. Ask a member from each of the teams to spell a word by means of his/her body language and ask the other teams to guess the word that is being spelt through 'body English'. This game is again about making logical associations and can also be helpful in improving the communication through body language.

There can be many such games or you could devise some that suit best for your team. Remember to cater to the interests of the majority and invite the participation of one and all. Aim at building a sportsmanship in each of the employees and moreover the spirit of being one! It is not about winning or losing; it is about playing as a team!