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Playing fun games in the office on Fridays for around 5 minutes can help you break up the day, ease up stress, and help remove creative blocks. Work can get quite stressful sometimes, and some fun Friday games can help maintain a work-life balance.
By the time everyone reaches Friday, they just want to be able to lower the stress. Thus, having a bit of fun in the workplace can actually be beneficial. That’s precisely why the primary goal of fun Friday games is to reduce stress and promote fun team-building activities for employees.
Many corporate offices have implemented things like a dress-down Friday or a relaxed atmosphere. Moreover, there are many fun Friday activities that can be done at the office and online.
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9 Fun Friday Games To Play In Office
Here are some of the best Friday fun activities in the office that you can organize for your employees. These are fun and help keep the morale of the employees high.
1. Cards Against Work
Required Number of Players: 4-8
Time Limit: No Time Limit
If you’re looking for a Fun Friday activity that’s out of the box, we’ve got just the game for you.
Presenting our latest card game, Cards Against Work.
From malevolent micromanaging to petty parking issues, the popular fill-in-the-blank format you’ve played (or heard of) now brings all the entertaining things about your workplace together. Mildly offensive, mostly fun.
We had to actually constitute a rule that if it was “too real”, people shouldn’t play the card. Would recommend you buy a pack for work to play with your colleagues and a pack for playing with the colleagues you like. – Aishwarya Hariharan, Atomicwork
All work and no play makes your org culture pretty dull. Glad to have super fun peers at inFeedo who didn’t mind starting a meeting with cards against work. – Sameera Khan, Director of People, inFeedo.
How to Play
- Players are called employees. Each employee picks up ten white cards every round.
- Every round, one employee becomes the manager. Like a corporate participation certificate.
- The manager picks up a purple question card.
- Every employee tries to win the manager’s heart with the funniest answer to the question or prompt.
- Manager picks funniest answer and employee wins a point. Others feel dejected.
- Ok mama, now manager change.
- Repeat until break is over, or work dread takes over.
2. Charades
Required Number of Players: 10
Time Limit: No Time Limit
This fun Friday game is a classic for a reason. But before you judge this as too stereotypical, you can add your own office twists to it by changing movie names with familiar office terminology such as “client deadlines, night shift, quarterly reports” and so on. You can include anything that your team would have a big laugh over.
How to Play?
1: A player from one team is selected by the other team and given a movie name.
2: The player then enacts the movie name and conveys it to his or her teammates without talking or pointing out any objects.
3: If the team guesses the correct movie name, they win a point; if not, then the opposing team gains a point.
4: Continue steps 1 to 3, and the team with the maximum points wins.
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3. Don’t smile
Required Number of Players: 6 to 10 people
Time Limit: 10 minutes
Don’t smile is a team-building game and is incredibly simple. It can be helpful for new employees to lighten the pressure of a new job. This fun Friday game can also be used to distract team members from stressful projects or situations.
How to Play?
To play this fun Friday game in the office, ask all the team members to sit or stand in a circle. After that, get all of them to stare at each other for as long as possible without smiling. The last person to abstain from smiling wins.
4. Murder mystery
Required Number of Players: Small groups of 3 to 5 team members
Material Required: Post-it notes, pen, and paper
Time Limit: Approximately 45 minutes
A murder mystery is one of the best fun Friday games for the office. Moreover, this game needs everyone to get involved. It is a kind of team-building activity that everyone is bound to love.
This party game is incredibly popular for being entertaining and because the winning team has to have superior team collaboration and problem-solving skills.
How to Play?
You will have to follow the instructions on your chosen murder mystery scenario, passing out invitations, name tags, suspect files, and maps. Let the team free in groups of 2 to 3 and see who figures out the murderer first. Furthermore, your group will rally around the main goal, i.e., solving the mystery and finding the murderer.
5. Scavenger hunt
Required Number of Players: Small groups of 3 to 5 team members
Material required: Various ‘trophies,’ pen, paper, and post-it notes
Time Limit: 30 minutes
A scavenger hunt is one of the most effective fun Friday games in the office that helps people interact and collaborate. Furthermore, smartphones and apps have made it possible to do scavenger hunts anywhere.
How to Play?
1: First, create a list of items that groups must collect together or tasks that they have to complete.
2: For each task a team completes, they get the next clue for the next trophy.
3: The team that manages to find the maximum number of trophies wins.
6. Never have I ever
Time Limit: No time limit
How to Play?
Each player holds up five fingers. Thereafter, one by one, each one says something that they have never done before. For example, “Never have I ever driven a car.”
Anyone who has done the said thing puts a finger down. The last person still holding up the fingers by the end of the game is the winner.
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7. What’s on my desk?
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Time Limit: No time limit
How to Play?
In this fun Friday game, the team members upload a picture of their desk setup. All pictures are collected and showcased in a common setting.
Ask employees in turns to guess whose desk it is. The person with the maximum correct guesses is the winner.
8. Hangman
Time Limit: No time limit
How to Play?
Hangman is a guessing game where one player has to think of a word or a sentence and the other players try to guess it by suggesting letters. The chances are limited, making the game interesting.
Hangman helps in increasing the vocabulary of team members while having fun. This activity can also become a conversation starter in the future among the team members.
The reason why it is one of the best in-office fun Friday activities is that it pushes the entire team to work together and guess the word successfully, thereby uniting them.
9. Five seconds rule!
Time Limit: As long as you can go on
Rules: In this game, you ask questions from the other team or individual. The answers are to be given within 5 seconds or you are out. The questions can be made fun of or tricky ranging from your personal to professional lives. This is a great way to know your colleagues.
Check out another round of fun games in the office here.
8 Fun Friday Online Games For Work From Home Employees
This list consists of all the fun Friday games for work-from-home employees. Working from home also induces stress for employees and it’s a known fact. So, here are a few of them.
1. Know your colleagues
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Time Limit: 10 to 15 minutes
Rules: Start a conversation and complete this quiz.
Do the following exercises:
Match the fact to the colleague (the more unique, the better)
Would you rather? (be tasteful)
Trivia based on likes/dislikes, favorite hobbies, etc.
Objective: Keep the game clean as the purpose of team building for work from home employees is to build mutual understanding among your employees.
2. Photo of your life
Time: 15 to 30 minutes
Rules: Each group shares a picture of something related to their life. Anything that tells a story about the employee – their pet, favorite mug to drink coffee, their favorite TV show, or even the view from their house will work. After sharing, you can ask the remote employees to share their stories behind the picture they shared.
Objective: This remote team-building fun Friday game can act like an icebreaker when you play this for the first time or a new employee joins the company. It is a fun, surprising way to know one another and creates a friendly atmosphere.
3. Two truths and a lie
Time: 10 to 15 minutes
Rules: You have to host a video conference on Zoom and ask each remote employee to tell three truths and one lie regarding themselves. Also, keep the lie realistic so it won’t be easy for everyone to guess. Further, the other employees need to guess what the lie was and whoever guesses the correct answer gets points.
Objective: Playing this fun Friday game with other work-from-home employees helps to get rid of any awkwardness as it makes the environment light and fun. Besides, it is a great way to know one another.
4. Revealing quiz
Time: 10-15 minutes
Rules: Match the fact to the exact colleague or play a themed trivia (based on traditions, any celebration, Bollywood, etc.)
Objective: The purpose of the game is to build a sense of integrity within employees. It is one of the best team-building games for remote workers.
5. Skribbl.io
Time: Variable
Rules: Skribbl.io is an online Pictionary game in which every member gets a turn to choose one among three words displayed and draw it on the screen. Other players need to guess the right word from the drawing. The players who guess the word correctly get points along with the member who was drawing.
At the end of the game, the player with the highest score wins.
6. Among us
Time limit: 10-15 minutes per game
Rules: This online game takes place in a space-themed setting where all participants are astronauts in two roles: Crewmates and Impostors. Both look similar in appearance. The Crewmates have to eliminate the suspected Impostors through voting and also complete some tasks to win. The Impostors, on the other hand, have to secretly sabotage the mission either by killing the Crewmates or by causing a disaster that cannot be overcome.
7. Gatheround
Time limit: Varies according to the requirements
Rules: Gatheround is versatile and allows you to design an event or virtual gathering for your team to bond together.
To save you from planning an event, Gatheround offers ready-made templates for you to create an event. For example, you can host a one-hour session to promote bonding among your team. You can start by appreciating their work and the conversations can expand to meaningful topics. Similarly, there are periodic sessions available for cross-team conversation, new teammate welcomes, and workshops on company values.
8. The higher lower game
Time limit: As long as you keep giving the right answer
Rules: It is a simple game in which you just have to say whether a given option has higher or lower monthly Google searches as compared to another option. You are out as soon as you give a wrong answer.
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Conclusion
These were some sorted few games from the long list of activities that you can conduct for your employees. After all, employee happiness is a major part of team building and works wonders toward organizational growth.
There are many ways to ensure employee happiness – providing group health insurance, regularly team-building activities, team outings, etc. So, do you think you will organize some of the above fun Friday games for your employees?
Need some more juice, read our blog on 10 Fun Games In Office That Promote Teamwork.
FAQ
Q. How can organizations measure the impact of these fun Friday games on employee productivity and morale?
A. Organizations can conduct surveys before and after implementing fun Friday games. This helps assess changes in employee satisfaction. Regular feedback sessions also provide insights into morale. Moreover, monitoring productivity trends offers quantitative data. Together, these methods paint a clear picture of the games' impact. Hence, companies can fine-tune activities for maximum benefit.
Q. What are some strategies for including remote or hybrid employees in these games, ensuring they feel as engaged and included as their on-site counterparts?
A. To include remote employees, organizations can host virtual game sessions. Utilizing video conferencing tools bridges the gap between on-site and remote staff. Additionally, planning activities that require collaboration across locations fosters inclusivity. Ensuring games are accessible to all, regardless of location, is key. Therefore, a mix of online and offline activities ensures everyone feels part of the team.
Q. Are there any considerations or precautions that need to be taken to ensure that these games do not inadvertently exclude or make any employees feel uncomfortable?
A. It's essential to choose games that respect diverse backgrounds and preferences. Creating a safe space for feedback allows employees to voice concerns. Also, offering a variety of games ensures there's something for everyone. By actively seeking input on game selection, companies can avoid discomfort. Thus, sensitivity to individual differences enhances the positive impact of fun Friday activities.
