Does your employer do anything fun?

The PS2 or XBox is always nice, but it does have the danger of being over-used, especially if there is an intense game going on.  We had one in our conference room at one of the offices and it was actually a nice decompression tactic.  Find out which system any of your employees already has, so that they can bring in some games and you don't have to buy a lot of them.

With only 5-7 people, fussball/air hockey may be tough to find someone to play against.

Easy answer: NO

Carry on.

I guess my workplace is different b/c "fun" would be not spending more time in the office (e.g. let everyone go home early).

You could have a designated "board game" hour on Wednesdays where everyone has to drop what they are doing and play "chutes n ladders." 

Actually, I think anything that allows you to discuss work AND play at the same time is a great idea.  Take for example the idea of having a dartboard in a conference room, you can have a brainstorming meeting while playing darts.  You can even place pictures of the boss on the board.

I could be wrong, but the reason things like ping pong tables and pool tables work with huge break room / lounge areas is because the engineers tend to "live" at the office.  I don't know what your work set up is like, but if you have 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. type employees, all you are doing is cutting down on the time they work.  But if you have "nights and weekends" type employees - then this is about taking a "mental break" before getting back at the grind.

Plus, whenever I've been to clients that have people using these "lounge" activities, they are usually brainstorming about work ideas, just getting out from in front of their computers or white boards.

I bet it gets used...just after hours.   

I work in the public sector so we are restricted my many rules. 

My boss does occassionally get free tickets to sport events.  He will have a trivia contest or scavenger hunt to win.  

Two weeks ago, he personally gave away $100 of his own money.  I won!  And I ate well that night.   

Free food is always appreciated.

Please don't do any "mandatory fun" events - they're not fun.

If you're going to do a pizza/beer lunch type thing, don't expect folks to stay late to make up for the unproductive fun time.

You probably know the 5-7 employees far better than we do.  What kinds of things would they enjoy that you would be willing to provide? 

Cater in a lunch, and have some open discussions about growth opportunities for your business (which can include process improvements).  Is there an area of your company where you know you need a better process (or control)?  If you "rant" a little about a process you're willing to change, you might encourage them to be honest with their own rants, and more importantly help identify new and better solutions. 

In short, no my employer doesn't offer anything fun. But a good friend of mine does work in such an office and here's what they do:

offer pto for pats on the back (usually kicking off at 12 on a Friday or b4 a holiday)

jeans, t- and flip flop days

Lunch parties for big events like big football games, nascar races, non-holiday holidays (like Valentines)

Gift cards for perfect attendance or pats on the back

Ice cream sundae party on the first official day of summer

teamwork competitions where the winners get to leave early on a Friday

*People normally go crazy for pto.

Another friend who supervises hourly folks set up a basketball court in their warehouse and as soon as they get all their work done for the day, they shoot hoops. While on the clock.  You think this would logically cost the company a bunch of money but their warehouse was rated #1 in the country for efficiency.  And when the boss got a bonus for that, he split it with his workers...

Thanks for the ideas.  I'm no real concerned about people "making up the time".  We all put in way more than 40 hours a week so I cannot ask for a more dedicate group of people.

We also have a VERY flexible vacation and time off policy (Want time off?  Can you do it and not have your projects suffer?  Then have at it!)  We don't keep track of vacation or PTO.  As long as people do not abuse it I've found they police themselves very well.  Therefore kicking off early is not a huge benifit as they could do that pretty much anytime.

I'm looking to help build a stronger team so working hours activities is probably the best bet.  Oh and I promise no "mandatory fun outings".  I agree those are the worst.

My old company was fun.  They had keg parties in the break room for events like bridal showers and baby showers.  We had nights out with free food and drinks after each boring quarterly meeting.  Every summer they threw a huge beach party at a nice club.  We had a small gym in the office and the boss hired a trainer to be there every day from 6am-9am.  He had one of those corporate massage places come a few times a year and do chair massages for everyone.  He sponsored me for my Team in Training race - $2,500!! 

The best part is that even though I don't work there anymore I still get a perk.  I asked my friend to do a race in Disney with me.  She's a VP at the company.  She decided it would be a really fun team building event to train together so now her whole department is going to Disney to do a 5K.  Since I came up with the idea and used to be in that department they're bringing me - on the company!  

My boss plays games with us - i.e. Phrase of the Day.  Everyone gets a secret phrase.  You have to use it on everyone during the day.  Whoever guesses the most phrases gets $50.  

We also do happy hour occasionally.

Today there was a contest to guess what he'll shoot on his golf game (he's on vacation this week).  He gave us a few clues.

Things my company did that were fun:

A couple of times a year we had a "bake-off" or some other type contest where people brought in their home-made goodies (the bosses got some sort of catered lunch, like submarine sandwiches) you tasted everybody's stuff and voted on your favorites, while all just hanging around and talking.

The winner got some sort of gift certificate.  I won one once - $50 to Borders which was cool.

We also did the same thing with Halloween and a costume contest.  EVERYONE in my office (about 25 people) dressed up for Halloween.  We then would have lunch at about 1 or so,  with a few Halloweeny type things (smoking punch etc.) vote on the costumes and just hang around chatting.

We also did really fun summer party type things where we would all go to some amusement park - have a company picnic have a little bit of discussion about the company and how this was "thanks for being great guys" and then we'd all go play (families were invited, I think they paid for up to 4 people).  

I think Airhockey, pingpong, etc. would be fun as well, the Xbox thing yeah, but you've already got the drawbacks of that one.  What might be really fun is to get a couple of actual arcade games, especially if you could get a couple of two-player, then people could go head to head.  Don't know what that would cost though.

Get some suggestions from your employees as well - cause they might have some good ones. 

Things my company did that were fun:

A couple of times a year we had a "bake-off" or some other type contest where people brought in their home-made goodies (the bosses got some sort of catered lunch) you tasted everybody's stuff and voted on your favorites, while all just hanging around and talking.

The winner got some sort of gift certificate.  I won one once - $50 to Borders which was cool.

We also did the same thing with Halloween and a costume contest.  EVERYONE in my office (about 25 people) dressed up for Halloween.  We then would have lunch at about 1 or so,  with a few Halloweeny type things (smoking punch etc.) vote on the costumes and just hang around chatting.

We also did really fun summer party type things where we would all go to some amusement park - have a company picnic have a little bit of discussion about the company and how this was "thanks for being great guys" and then we'd all go play (families were invited, I think they paid for up to 4 people).  

I think Airhockey, pingpong, etc. would be fun as well, the Xbox thing yeah, but you've already got the drawbacks of that one.  What might be really fun is to get a couple of actual arcade games, especially if you could get a couple of two-player, then people could go head to head.  Don't know what that would cost though.

BTW, I think pizza or whatever is good, but make it random not "expected."  So, they were really great last week doing something, buy pizza on Friday.  I think that's better than, hey, 2nd Friday of the month - Pizza!

And, oh yeah, ANYONE'S B-day, they got a cake, and we all sang happy B-day and had cake, ice cream and soda.  That was really nice too.  Sometimes you got a combined cake, with 3-4 people at once since of course, they didn't want to be having cake etc. every day for 3 days straight.