The Office Olympics: How to Gamify Everyday Tasks for Some Competitive Fun

Are you struggling to keep your team engaged during 9-5? Is your team avoiding mundane tasks? Do you wish there was a fun, innovative way to combat burnout and inspire team building? We have a solution for you: The Office Olympics.

Office Olympics is a gamification-powered way to turn every workweek task into a mini-competition. With different game elements, mini-games, and challenges: you can turn every day into a fun-filled experience while increasing productivity and improving efficiency. These experiences are invaluable tools to keep your team happy while improving their communication and collaboration with coworkers. 

We’re here to walk you through how to successfully gamify the workplace experience and host your first Office Olympics. So you can use gamification to boost employee morale and improve job satisfaction.

Let’s dive in:

What is Gamification?

Before hosting your first Office Olympics, you need to understand the strategy behind it. Gamification is the process of using game mechanics in a non-game context. Studies suggest this strategy is one of the most effective ways to motivate people and increase productivity and engagement. 

Common game elements include:

• Leaderboards
• Progress Bars
• Mini Sales Games and Competitions
• Rewards and Incentives 
• Badges

You can turn every day in the office into a fun-filled experience. Why does this strategy work? It’s similar to how a video game works. When you play a game, there are different levels and achievements to get to the next level. 

Every time you beat a game or pass an award – you get a hit of serotonin. This dopamine boost will continue to inspire you to keep pushing yourself further in the game. 

When introducing Office Olympics, you use the same strategy as video games – just in a work environment. This means you, your coworkers, your business, and your overall company culture will reap the same benefits. 

How to Host a Successful Olympic Games in Your Office

Before you break your team into groups and start planning out your games, there are a few things you’ll need to consider to ensure the experience is successful. 

Here are four tips for hosting:

Set The Clock

The best way to motivate your team and add a layer of urgency is to set a timer or give your team a time frame. Who can send ten prospecting emails in less than 5 minutes? This means members can book three demos in under two hours. Adding a timer will give your team an extra boost of motivation they need to take on mundane tasks with confidence.

Use a Point System

A point system is a game element your team can use to track their progress in real-time. With a point system, they’ll know where they stand in the ranks. Every time they receive a point for completing a task or winning a game- they’ll feel motivated to keep pushing themselves. 

Have a Reward System

Rewards and incentives make the employee experience fun. If your employees know they might receive a prize if they win a mini competition or come out on top of the leaderboard – it will motivate them to go above and beyond. 

When creating a reward system that works, you’ll want to consider your team’s likes and interests. Sending out a survey to gauge what rewards they would like will help you with increasing engagement and participation in the activities you have planned in the office. This approach is excellent for boosting team morale and creating a positive culture that meets the needs of your team.

Host Mini Games and Gamified Competitions

Looking for a way to add some fun to the workweek? Plan a mini-game or sales competition. This is a great way to inspire some healthy competition. Mini-games add a fun spin to a “boring” everyday task – inviting your team to tap into their competitive side. 

The best part? You can turn almost anything into a sales contest or fun game. Whether it’s a contest to see who can book the most demos, complete their project first, or renew the most clients. There is always a way to add a fun flair to every mundane task your team takes on.

The Best Office Olympic Games

The Office Olympics is a series of mini-games that you play during a specific period. Each game will inspire team building, competitiveness, and communication. If you want to fully commit to hosting an office Olympics for your team, consider hosting an opening and closing ceremony and handing out medals at the end of the series.

When thinking through the games you want to include in the game, you may make everything work-related and task-driven. While this is a great way to increase productivity and efficiency, you’ll also want to add fun-filled team-building experiences to keep your team on their toes and engaged.  

Here are a few games you can consider including in your office Olympics:

The Human Knot

This mini-game is all about communication, collaboration, and cooperation. To play, you’ll want to divide your team into groups of 5-12. Everyone will then stand in a circle and put their left hand in. 

Each individual will grab the hand of the person standing opposite. Then, repeat the process with your right hand. Now, your team must start unraveling the human knot without letting go of anyone’s hand. 

This powerful exercise challenges your team to communicate and collaborate with their coworkers. If they want to unravel the human knot, they’ll need to work together as a team – think they can handle it?

Egg Drop Challenge

To play the egg drop challenge, you’ll need to start by dividing your team into groups of 4-8. Give each team 50 drinking straws, 1m of tape, and one egg. Now each team will need to work together to build a structure that will keep the egg from breaking. 

Set the clock to 15 minutes, and let the games begin! Once the time is up, you’ll test everyone’s structure to see if the egg stays safe or breaks. The team whose egg doesn’t break wins!

This fun, out-of-the-box game will challenge your team’s critical thinking skills and encourage them to work together. 

Paper Plane Competition

For this mini-game, every team must make their own paper planes with the resources they can find around the office. Once everyone makes their planes, it’s time to put them to the test to see which paper plane will fly the furthest.

The Escape Room

Escape rooms are fun, interactive experiences that challenge your team members to think critically about their surroundings and solve puzzles. To create one in your office, set a theme, split your team into groups of 2 or more, and set a timer. 

Each team member must work together to solve puzzles and crack codes.

Whichever team can break out of the escape room first wins! If you aren’t feeling creative enough to create your own escape room from scratch, there are companies and online resources to build the experience. 

Office Chair Music Chairs

Your team likely knows how to play this one! Office game Musical Chairs is a fast-paced, fun-filled mini-game that gets your team moving. To play, set the chairs up in a circle and play some tunes.

When the music stops, everyone must find a chair. If they don’t find one, they’re out. Remove a chair after each round and repeat.

For more game ideas for your Office Olypmics, check out our recent YouTube video on How to Unleash the Magic of Team-Building With Spinify. 

Host Your Next Office Olympics With Spinify

Planning, tracking, and hosting fun-filled mini-games and challenges isn’t easy. As a leader in the workplace, you already have a ton on your plate. The last thing you want to do is shift your focus to build an effective gamification strategy to engage with your team. 

If you need help streamlining your task-orientated mini-games, Spinify is here to help. Spinify is gamification sales software. With our customizable dashboards and tools, you can turn every day of the week into a day filled with competitions, rewards, and recognition initiatives. 

Whether you’re engaging with your sales teams or your whole company – our software will automate your gamification strategy, helping you save time while improving productivity and efficiency.

Book a free demo today and unleash the fun in your office!