Corporate events bring employees together and help companies promote teamwork. Planning post-COVID team-building activities like an office scavenger hunt can help employees reconnect. Scavenger hunts contain challenging clues that help entertain, educate, and unite participants. Employers can tailor their scavenger hunt to match the corporate values they want in their team.
How to Plan for an Office Scavenger Hunt
The ultimate corporate reunion requires intricate organization and planning for the event to be successful. Scavenger hunts involve a combination of multiple details to foster skills like social interaction and critical thinking. Here are some tips on planning for the ultimate corporate scavenger hunt:
Gather Information About Your Employees
Corporate events involve employees with different interests, preferences, and levels of competition. Despite the differences, everyone should feel part of the event for a memorable experience. Gathering details about your employees ahead of the scavenger hunt can help with inclusivity.
While your human resource department may have information about your employees, these details are formal and often don’t reflect an employee’s personality outside of work. More information about their interests and abilities helps make organizing the scavenger hunt easy.
Use questionnaires and employee-engagement surveys to get first-hand information about employee preferences and abilities. Asking your staff about their preferences helps capture data accurately so you can learn what will appeal to them. Such information will help make the scavenger hunt organization process smoother.
Brainstorm Corporate Scavenger Hunt Ideas
A scavenger hunt is as good as the challenges you include. Corporate events often have an end goal you should remember when planning the scavenger hunt. Brainstorm the scavenger hunt theme and ideas with your team for a unique experience.
Start by deliberating between an in-office or city-wide scavenger hunt. Depending on the time of the year or the company calendar, you can personalize the activities to match the season. Personalize the quest to match the interests of most participants for overall success.
Brainstorming scavenger hunt ideas should also include thinking of clues for participants. Proper planning at this stage improves employee satisfaction and helps them acquire or strengthen skills like teamwork and critical thinking.
Organize With Other Parties Involved in the Event
Corporate scavenger hunts involve multiple participants, so you need supplies for a complete experience. You may also need partners depending on where you will host the hunt. Coordinate with any partners or vendors beforehand to avoid surprises.
Proper organization makes planning your event a breeze. Some scavenger hunt organizers will have apps you can use for your event to reduce the cost of supplies. Such apps are easy to operate and have a score-rating system to help quantify team success.
Select Teams Beforehand
With the desired effect in mind, you should decide which employees to team up with. Some employers allow scavenger hunt participants to group themselves, but such an approach could create imbalanced teams. Pre-selecting teams help create balance, making each participant’s skills valuable to their respective group.
Selecting teams beforehand simulates workplace projects where employers pull employees from different departments. Each employee’s skills should complement another’s for a successful scavenger hunt. With pre-selected teams, team members can learn to collaborate outside their comfort zone, fostering teamwork.
Send Out Invites to Employees
While planning a hunt, you need to inform participants of the event early. Sending out invites to your employees via email allows them to know about the event and confirm attendance. Advance notice lets employees include the event in their schedule, increasing turnout.
From an organizer’s perspective, sending out invites early helps with budgeting for the event because you know how many people to expect. Members who confirm attendance also assist with team planning for the ultimate experience.
Allocate Time for Refreshments and Gifts at the End of Your Event
When planning office events, employers should make them less formal. Allowing participants adequate time outside the schedule for one-on-one interactions can help make the event successful. Allocate time for refreshments after the hunt to help employees catch up with their respective teams and create friendly bonds.
Once the results of your scavenger hunt are out, reward your winners. Gifting helps motivate employees to strive for success. Common gifts include days off, paid vacation, or cash prizes.
Possible Themes for a Scavenger Hunt
The possible themes for an office scavenger hunt are nearly endless. You can do an in-office or out-of-office hunt. For in-office, you can have employees stay around their desks or have them explore the building. Out-of-office hunts could take place on the building grounds or in a certain range away from the building. Here are some ideas for scavenger hunts.
In-Office Hunt
For in-office scavenger hunts, employees are given a list to complete. They should either collect the items or take pictures. One type of list could focus on finding everyday things. For example, finding a coworker with the company logo on their clothes. Or finding the person with the most open tabs on their browser. You can have employees focus on their team area or have them explore other departments in the building.
The winter season is full of holidays, so it is easy to tailor an office scavenger hunt to any of those. You can tell people ahead of time to wear ugly sweaters and on the day of, one part of the scavenger hunt could be to take the most pictures with people wearing ugly sweaters. Teams could decorate their sections with holiday decorations and other teams can come and look for a specific item in the area.
Outdoor Hunt
Employees need to get out of their chairs and away from their desks occasionally. An outdoor scavenger hunt works well for this. If employees stay on the company property, tailor the tasks to company-specific things like finding as many company logos as possible or spelling out the company name with letters from car license plates.
If you go off company property, have teams look for funny street names or funny business names. Teams could go to other businesses and look for specific items like a shirt with the company colors.
Enjoy Your Office Scavenger Hunt
Post-COVID team building helps foster relations among employees after years of virtual working. Office scavenger hunts help employees acquire skills that can be useful in the workplace, like teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving. Planning for the scavenger hunt allows everything to flow seamlessly for the ultimate experience.
