Employee experience

Engage staff with these 5 work Olympics ideas + MANY games

Jul 2024 ⋅ 6 min read

Engaging employees at work with the Olympics

The Olympics only comes once every four years and is at the forefront of daily conversations and worldwide media for the two weeks it’s live.

It’s a historic event and, with it only lasting two weeks every four years, celebrating the Olympic Games at work with games and exercises is a small price to pay to engage staff and improve their experience. It makes their workplace enjoyable - and you’ll notice a difference during those two weeks!

We’re not short of ideas to engage employees at work with the Paris Olympics. Read on! We’ve listed and broken down 5 work Olympic ideas.

How to celebrate the Olympics at work

1. Learn different cultures

The Olympics isn’t just about sport. It brings people from all over the world together to compete. When we can be caught up in our own world, the Opening Ceremony alone makes us realise how many other countries and cultures there are.

This creates a great chance for everyone at work to learn more about each other. People’s culture is far richer than the nationality listed on their employee documents. From family heritage to places they’ve lived or travelled.

For those wanting to participate, open the conversation to learn more about each other. Even suggest a cook-off for those with recipes they have from their families or found on their adventures.

2. An Olympics work sweepstake

Create a draw of all the nations competing in the Olympics. Team members choosing to take part pop in £1 to be assigned a nation.

If there aren’t enough players for all countries, split them evenly amongst everyone participating. Create a visible leaderboard for all to see!

The person with the winning nation (the most medals) at the end of the two weeks wins - wins either the pot of money or a grand prize, with the participation pot donated to a charity.

3. Encourage exercise outside work

With more people sporting fitness trackers and smartwatches than those not nowadays, this is a particularly good work Olympics idea to encourage people to be even more active.

Whether tracking steps or the amount of activity, you can choose to have people compete for the top spot or simply make it a group exercise (no pun intended) by giving everyone the same goals. Suggest a swim, a bike ride, and a run for the first week, then a long walk or hike, tennis, and football on the second week for everyone to try. Alternatively, allow people to pick their sport or activity of choice to focus on for those two weeks, whether a favourite or a challenge they want to face and overcome.

The results may vary, but a few participants may find themselves continuing beyond the two-week stint!

4. Stream the Olympics at work

Two weeks of continuous sport is a lot for even the avid Olympics enthusiast to keep on top of. Streaming the Olympics at work (whether in the office, in the back, or breakroom) to heighten engagement, even if running in the background.

Especially if you’re running an Olympic work sweepstake, streaming the events will be good to keep enthusiasm up and competition rife.

5. Work Olympics

You can host your very own Olympics at work!

Split people into teams or individually and spread some games across the two weeks. You can create a tournament over this time, introducing different activities during work or after, and see who comes out on top!

Whether indoor or outdoor, incorporating team-building games into work Olympic games is a fantastic way to increase employee engagement and experience - especially with prizes up for grabs! Think about perks like extra holiday days, a small bonus to that month’s pay, or a treat to use outside work like a meal or day out.

So, what will your work Olympics look like? Of course, you and your teams can choose how extreme you want to go...

From using work supplies and creating games onsite to literal days or evenings away, we have some ideas.

Work Olympic ideas:

Office Olympics

Level: Tame, lighthearted fun

Office chair curling: Set a point to reach for curling and simply push and let your wheeled chairs glide. Knock the opposing team’s chairs away to be the closest chair that wins.

Biscuit brew challenge: Contestants - grab a cuppa, choose your biscuit and dunk. Hold your biscuits in your brew until they crumble and sink into the caffeinated depths. The winner is the last biscuit… standing? Or, at least, the last one to disintegrate.

Typing race: Sure, there aren’t any races by mechanical keyboard at the Olympics (yet!), but it’s a fun way to engage staff - especially remote workers. Use sites like TypeRacer or monkeytype and set up a tournament to find the employee with the best word-per-minute score. It’s a great work Olympics game for remote workers, too!

Elastic band archery / Pencil javelin / Bin basketball: All are similar and simple enough to explain, prepare, and play. Prepare your target/distance marker/bin and take turns throwing your elastic bands/pencils/balls. Great as teamwork games or individual, 1v1.Note: Don’t make the target a person, please

Office hockey: Grab a broom, people. One simple work Olympics idea is splitting into two teams, each creating goalposts out of anything you can find, and having a game of hockey. Simple and fun!

Rolling chair obstacle course: It’s exactly how it sounds. Turn your warehouse, shop floor, or office into an obstacle course (risk assessment permitting!), grab a chair with wheels and go for a ride. Need we say more?

Scavenger hunt: “Something yellow…”, “Something beginning with ‘B’...”, “Something you wear…”. Set a timer, give your prompt, and watch people run. Staff race to collect objects that match the suggestions. You can even go harder by introducing riddles, leaving people to race to find the one object matching the answer. It’s a great idea for retail and hospitality after closing. Great for engaging remote and hybrid workers, too!

Domino trains: Who doesn’t love dominoes? Who hasn’t lost countless hours, as a child or adult (no judgment), building a seemingly endless domino line all to watch them tip and satisfyingly fall into each other? Well, you’d set a time limit for this task. Split people into teams or go 1-to-1 in tournament style. But it won’t just be the longest line of dominoes that wins - it’ll have to work, too. Even introduce style points for inventive tracks and see if teams will risk a shorter or incomplete domino fall for those extra creative points…

Work tasks: While this is technically doing work, it can still be fun (trust us!). Make a healthy, one-time competition around usual work tasks. Who can make the best window display or dish? Who can restock or make a cocktail the quickest? Make it more social by gathering the team and taking turns rather than treating it as a way to pressure staff to complete their tasks quickly. This way, employees can find some enjoyment in the same repetitive work, and maybe find a preferred work task that they haven’t had much time on before. Introduce perks like an early finish, an extra holiday, a small bonus, or a voucher for the winners.

Socials & team building

Level: Casual competition

Take to the courts: Head to the local park or leisure centre and take to the courts! Have a casual play of football, badminton, basketball, ice skating, or tennis. It allows people to break from work, breathe that fresh air, and get active.

Evening socials: Most pubs and bars have pool tables and darts, but some even hold bowling, table tennis, or crazy golf. Great for evenings after work. Places like Roxy Ballroom and Junkyard Golf are fantastic venues for casual, fun games to celebrate the Olympics at work (with a dash of liquid encouragement).

Have your very own sports day!: Kids are preparing for it, so why not do the same? It’s been a while for most of us since we took to the school field for three-legged races, water sponge relays, and tugs of war - and that’s why everyone will surely get a kick out of it.