Workplace Competitions Ideas for 2023

No one can underestimate the essence of teamwork when working towards a common goal. Without a doubt, teamwork is the driving force behind unified team efforts. One of the best ways an organization can foster teamwork is by hosting workplace competitions.

Workplace competitions are friendly games and contests where coworkers play a part win prizes or recognition. These competitions aim at boosting team morale, bonding the team members, and instilling certain professional skills.

While contests and competitions often come as part of corporate team building events, they can be hosted separately to inject a dose of fun in both large and small teams.

But knowing which workplace competitions will fully engage a team, enhance productivity, and facilitate teamwork is vital for any manager who is interested in using contests for work.

Check out some of the best workplace team competitions to host for your team in 2022.

This post covers:

• Best workplace competition ideas
• Fun competitions for work
• Work competition ideas
• Team building contests and games

You’ll also find;

• Virtual workplace contests
• Fun office games and activities
• Virtual contest ideas for employees
• Contests for employees working from home

Workplace Competition Ideas

Workplace Steps Challenge

Walking is one of the easiest wellness-oriented challenges a team can take part in. It’s one of the most accessible and cost-effective workplace competition ideas and can be done at the team members' convenience—walking to or from work, meetings, and taking the stairs. When done as a challenge, the steps challenge will not only get the team members excited to win, but the team will collectively work towards a common goal—to be healthier.

This challenge incentivizes walking and keeping fit by awarding points to anyone who reaches a certain number of steps a day (or by the end of the challenge).

Alternatively, you can make this a team challenge and give the prize to the team with the most steps at the end of the challenge.

Find more Wellness and Fitness Challenges

Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts are a great way to bond team members, increase collaboration, and enhance problem-solving skills while exploring new and exciting places. But it gets better with prizes – your team will find enough motivation to complete city-themed challenges. The competition challenges the team to take scavenger to the next level. They’ll be more inclined to push themselves and tackle some of the creative challenges required of them.

Here are some creative Scavenger Hunt ideas:

• Photos or video proof—as pictorial evidence of completed tasks
• Trivia—fun pop culture questions
• Hidden objects such as QR code
• Search for GPS specific locations

Team Trivia Challenge

Few team building challenges match team trivia in being an interactive, fun, and challenging team bonding competition. Team Trivia will challenge the team member’s knowledge and skill through a series of all-time question-based challenges. Questions can be industry-related, game shows, pop culture, current affairs, or worldwide events.

It's interesting to see the team come together, draw their innermost strengths to see their team score as many points as possible. The good thing is, Team Trivia can be used to inject a bit of fun and boost morale in any social event. Be it a virtual conference or physical meeting, Team Trivia will work well.

Check out some fun and interactive Team Trivia challenges for your next virtual event.

The Amazing Race

Ready for a thrilling fast-paced workplace competition? The Amazing Race is an intense outdoor competition that will require your team to work together, overcome challenges and obstacles as they race the city (or a determined location, such as a park). The teams race against each other in a predetermined location. They stop at certain points to tackle obstacles successfully with the ultimate goal of getting to the finish point in the shortest time.

For every obstacle completed successfully, the team gets rewarded with credits, which determine the winner. The activities in the Amazing Race challenge provide an exciting mix of problem-solving, which ensure the team member maximum participation and engagement.

Here are more Amazing Race challenges for inspiration, or get started with an instructor-led Amazing CyberSpace Race game.

The Egg Drop Challenge

While the egg drop team challenge can be messy, it is a fun and problem-solving game to play with a team. It encourages cooperation, creativity, leadership, and negotiation skills in a team. The objective of this game, played by 3-5 people, is to creatively get a raw egg (or a crate of eggs) from a height of 10ft. The team’s challenge is to use the material provided to make a structure that will prevent the egg from breaking when dropped. The materials provided for the egg drop challenge are:

• 1 raw egg or a crate of eggs (provide extras for any incidences before the challenge)
• Cardboard
• Duct tape
• Others; balloons, newspaper, and strings

Of course, the most creative team gets a prize. For this game, you want to review the team’s process of constructing the structure. Starting with the least successful team, you want to discuss the lessons learned and what they would do differently if they repeated the game.

Costume Contest

Laughter is a key ingredient to any fun team building event. If there’s any hilarious team building activity, it has to be the costume contest. It’s an activity that engages the team to the maximum. It also energizes the team, gets people laughing and smiling. The challenge requires small groups to design and showcase their own creative clothing. To make the activity even more fun, have the team members pitch their design idea to the judges who will determine the most creative attire and pitch.

But you don’t have to wait for the next team building event to bring this fun and laughter to your company. If there’s an upcoming holiday, like Halloween, why not invite your team members to come to work in their choice costume (as long as they’re appropriate for the workplace)? Of course, you want to make this optional for the employees who don’t feel comfortable wearing this costume. Spice the activity up by offering prizes and awards for the most creative costumes.

Sports Battle

Sports battle is an outdoor workplace competition that challenges teams to win tournaments in workplace competition games. Sports battle often takes place on team sports day or field days at the park or beach. Here, the team competes at different games, with points being awarded after the finish of every game (or all games). At the close of the event, the winning team is announced and crowned champions. Sports battles inject a healthy competition and team spirit. The fun-filled sports day event brings in peerless team camaraderie.

Get inspiration from these fun Office Olympics

Desk Decorating Challenge

The costume contest is powerful, but if you want a more inclusive competition, try desk decorating. Take this event virtually by challenging your employees to decorate their virtual desks for a holiday such as Halloween. Fun, right?

Decorate Team Office

A creative task of decorating an office can be a fun team building activity that gets the team members to use their creative skills to decorate an inspiring space. It adds some color and pops the team’s designer skills to life. Plus, this doesn’t have to be expensive. Set a budget and let each department work creatively to bring their designs to life. Once done, let everyone tour the decorated offices and vote their favorites. Then award the winning team.

Workplace Bingo

Workplace Bingo is an easy and fun team building game that a team can place as a competition. This game can either be virtual or printed out for in-office employees. It can also be intended as an icebreaker for engaging the team. Workplace Bingo will contain theme-related tasks; for instance, a wellness-themed Bingo will contain wellness actions such as “exercised for 30 minutes.” Award winners, even if it’s just with $5 gift cards, to incentivize employees to take part in the competition.

Find Virtual Bingo challenge.

Photo Contest

A photo contest is a common workplace competition where companies invite employees to submit photos and stand a chance to win prizes for a good reason. Sharing photos is a fun way of engaging the team members. The photo contest themes can be about anything, a holiday (like Halloween), wearing the traditional attire of choice, or throwing it back in time (such as the ’80s). After the photos are shared in a private company group, invite coworkers to vote for the best costume.

You can take this competition to the next level by challenging employees to share their photos on their social media (using a hashtag), and the photo that gains the greatest number of likes or comments wins. You have some fun while the company garnets brand awareness.

Creative Contest

Your colleagues are blessed in ways beyond their professional skills. A creative contest lets those inner artistic skills out. This contest is an opportunity for them to show off that creative side and win prizes while doing it. While this team building activity engages individuals rather than the team, it helps nurture employees’ creative skills. As a result, employees feel appreciated and part of a company that cares about their growth as people.

All you need for this contest is to invite employees to independently create creative pieces—poems, songs, paintings, stories, or anything else. You’ll be amazed at how much such an easy activity bonds team members as the creative pieces collectively capture the group’s personality.

Obstacle Courses

This game gives employees a perfect chance to turn challenges into epic game. Teammates begin their journey of overcoming every obstacle in their way and come first to win the game. This activity is packed with a series of challenges from mud games, high walls, racing to zip-lining, and more.

The activities in this game allow team members to develop vital skills they need for their day-to-day work. Plus, the obstacle course game is highly adrenaline-driven, which nurtures strategic thinking, cooperation, and leadership.

Workplace Tournaments

The rules of workplace tournaments are simple; pick any game, sport, board game, experiment, teaser, and make it a competition. The more unique the game, the more memorable the tournament will be. Such workplace tournaments challenge members and enhance the collaborative spirit in the office.

Here are some other games and shows you can turn into tournaments.

Cocktail Competition

With just a team that loves a drink and an experienced mixologist, you can have a fun team building competition – no experience needed. The mixologist will first teach team members the basics of cocktail making, such as the most vital elements and the chemistry behind a great-tasting drink. Then, the team will split for the team members to work on their own creation.

With all ingredients provided, a set time, the team members will create a unique cocktail that the mixologist will review. The cocktail with the best taste in originality and mix of ingredients wins the contest.

Visit Cocktail Classes to get started on this fun with your colleagues.

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