30 Fun and Creative Employee Engagement Ideas and Activities

Are you tired of the same old employee engagement activities? Get ready to shake things up with 30 fun and creative employee engagement ideas that’ll take your workforce to the next level.

Every communicator and HR representative knows the importance of employee engagement across teams. After all, engaged employees are more productive, creative, and loyal to an organization! However, understanding why employee engagement is important doesn’t make it easier to find innovative ways to reach your workers.

In this blog post, we’ll cover an array of innovative employee engagement ideas and activities that are sure to spark joy and boost morale in your workplace. Whether you’re looking to inject some energy into your team meetings, foster a sense of camaraderie among remote employees, or simply add a dash of fun to your workday, read on to transform the way you think about your employee engagement. Say goodbye to dull, and hello to delightful!

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement refers to an employee’s feeling of investment in and ownership over their work. Engaged employees are passionate and excited about their jobs, bring plenty of ideas to the table, and feel empowered to do their best work every day.

Three key drivers of employee engagement are:

• Trustworthy managers and senior leadership
• Meaningful work in a role
• Positive relationships with co-workers
  

Employees are people first and need human support in the places they work. That’s why the best activities to improve employee engagement are those that build trust, strengthen relationships within and between teams, and empower employees in their place of work.

Why Is Employee Engagement Essential?

Engaged employees aren’t just happier in their jobs—they do better intheir roles, are more productive, and are likelier to drive meaningful innovation at their companies. That’s because engaged employees are invested in the success of their companies and want to contribute to that success.

When you focus on improving employee engagement, you retain a competitive edge in the market. And yes, employees are also happier—which is an important benefit to employee engagement.

Learn more about how to engage staff and keep them motivated in your organization.

Further reading: The best employee feedback solutions to deploy your creative employee engagement ideas.

30 Activities and Ideas to Improve Employee Engagement

We’ve collected our favorite ideas to help you boost employee engagement. While not every idea may apply to your business, we encourage you to take the most applicable ideas, personalize them to your org, and watch engagement magic unfold.

1. Find out what your employees need with employee surveys (then act)

One of the most effective ways to understand how to engage employees is an employee engagement survey.

With ContactMonkey, you can embed pulse surveys directly into your internal emails to facilitate two-way communication with employees. You can even use our robust tracking options to learn exactly how employees interact with your communications.

Use ContactMonkey’s easy-to-use drag-and-drop email builder to create employee engagement surveys of all types. You can add emoji reactions, star ratings, thumbs up/down buttons, and more to your emails and newsletters. This gives employees a quick, easy, and fun way to let you know what’s on their mind.

Plus, you get access to:

Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) ratings

An eNPS survey typically consists of a single question: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend this company as a place to work?”

Based on their responses, employees are categorized as Promoters, Passives, or Detractors, and the eNPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters.

Luckily, you don’t need to know that last part, because ContactMonkey lets you drop an eNPS survey into any email and then calculates results for you automatically.

Anonymous Comments

Enabling anonymous comments will encourage more transparent responses. Employees will be able to add additional information to their pulse survey responses.

Recurring surveys

Want to track how employee responses to your surveys change over time? With our recurring surveys feature, you can create a reusable survey question that can be added to multiple internal emails. You can measure and compare survey responses across campaigns, and even leverage additional survey types such as free text and custom polls!

Remember, gathering employee feedback is only the first step in this employee engagement strategy. For real, lasting improvements to engagement, listen to the feedback you receive and implement changes based on the needs your employees have identified!

ContactMonkey helps you tap into all the benefits of running employee engagement surveys.

By collecting and analyzing benchmarking data for employee engagement surveys, companies can establish tailored strategies that enhance both employee satisfaction and organizational success.

Gathering employee feedback is super easy with ContactMonkey. Book a free demo to learn how to boost employee engagement and retention using feedback.

2. Use embedded video for more appealing internal communications

You really need to go above and beyond with your employee engagement ideas to provide an engaging employee experience. Don’t be afraid to play with video options to create more dynamic communications that grab attention.

Videos are a great way to drive connection and often yield more views than readable content. In other words, video extends your reach and offers an opportunity to create more human content (think: message from the CEO).

Not sure where to start with internal video? With ContactMonkey’s email template builder, you can easily embed videos with your employee emails. You can also embed animated GIFs featuring Giphy’s massive image library. Use multimedia to break the monotony of employee emails and grab your recipients’ attention.

3. Create, launch, and optimize internal communications campaigns

As an internal communicator, you understand the huge role organized and strategic communications play in an employee engagement campaign. Maybe you’re sending out regular Slack reminders to employees to get them to RSVP for the employee holiday party, or you’re dedicating a section of your weekly newsletter to sharing tips and resources as part of a dedicated employee wellness campaign.

Understanding the best way to share your message with employees requires data on how they interact with your current communications. Once you know what they respond to, it’s easier to get information to your employees in a form that speaks to them!

Want to find your best-performing email campaigns or get an early read on popular employee engagement activities via clicks or RSVPs? With ContactMonkey’s reporting function, you can see the email analytics of your past email campaigns.

Easily see if there are emails that stand out to your employees (or if there are emails your employees ignore). You can also increase email engagement on your campaigns by targeting relevant employees and leaving out employees who don’t need to see them with ContactMonkey’s list management feature. Learn more about employee engagement newsletter strategies that you can implement using ContactMonkey.

4. Make employee recognition a regular part of your communications

Your employees work hard for you, and publicly recognizing their contributions is the easiest way to make them feel excited about that work. It also inspires other employees to work hard when they know employee efforts don’t go unnoticed!

Having a regular communication channel for shoutouts, sending an employee spotlight newsletter, or even implementing employee engagement software for recognition are all classic options that make employees feel seen and appreciated. But when making a list of employee recognition ideas for employee engagement, don’t be afraid to think outside the box!

5. Give back to the community as a team

Employees don’t just want to feel good about their work, they want to feel good about their organization! That’s why we recommend organizing quarterly volunteering events for your team.

Invite employees to clean up a beach, lend a hand at a food bank or homeless shelter, or even spend a day helping out at a community garden! You could also run a donation drive or participate in a charity event. For example, this past year, the team at ContactMonkey took part in the CAMH Sunrise Challenge to raise money for mental health research!

These events help employees to bond with each other and with leaders in the organization. And since these relationships are so crucial to engagement, these events become more than just a worthy cause—they’re also a great employee engagement activity.

6. Get employees excited through gamification

Game-based learning or gamification can ignite productivity levels in an organization. Introducing play and maybe even a little friendly competition into your workday motivates employees and ultimately enhances employee performance.

What does that look like?

Workplace gamification could mean adding a trivia contest for each onboarding cohort to familiarize them with the company’s brand, values, and mission statement. Or you could hold an employee recruitment contest and incentivize employees to help you fill open positions. Another option is to use a productivity tracker that includes a leaderboard.

Of course, you could even go on your #general Slack channel and offer a giftcard to the first employee who can fix a bug that a customer is experiencing. Technically, that counts as gamification and it’s an easy employee engagement activity to bake in to otherwise mundane comms!

Learn more about how to use gamification for employee engagement.

7. Offer remote and hybrid work options

The world of work has changed, and the companies that have kept up with the times are the ones who will be able to attract dedicated, engaged employees!

With so many offices pushing for more in-office days, hybrid and remote options can give you an edge in attracting top talent, and offering your existing employees flexibility will likely make them more productive and, importantly, more loyal to your company.

Flexible working options make employees feel less stressed and decreases the time and money spent on unpaid commuting. The boost to work-life balance is sure to help keep employees engaged.

8. Throw events to encourage team unity

Team events aren’t just a great way to introduce some liveliness into the workplace! Hosting company events builds rapport across teams, encourages collaboration, and makes employees appreciate (and feel appreciated by) their employers.

Team-building events help to build personal connections, and get employees invested in their future at an organization. A great event can bring the team together and inspire productivity.

Fun employee engagement activities you can do with your employees include:

• Ax throwing
• Bowling
• Karaoke
• Escape rooms
• Trivia night

You can even take a page out of ContactMonkey’s book and throw an annual boat party!

Whatever fun employee engagement ideas you bring to life at your next event, make sure you send an awesome invitation to match!

9. Organize team lunches

It doesn’t have to be fancy, but a special treat (in the form of food) can go a long way toward making employees feel valued! In fact, a good snack or meal is almost always a no-fail inexpensive employee engagement idea.

Nicola, ContactMonkey’s People Operations Specialist, notes:

“Creating an engaging environment is about more than just work—it’s about building a space where employees feel connected, valued, and inspired every day.

At ContactMonkey, we’ve added breakout spaces for relaxation and creativity, and supply snacks for the team. These extra touches may be small, but they make the office feel more like a community, and a more enjoyable and productive place to be.”

10. Invite employees to participate in workshops

One of our favorite employee engagement best practices is hosting an interactive team workshop.

Why?

Workshops give employees the opportunity to:

• Gather industry insights from each other
• Learn about what workplace successes and failures look like
• Share innovative ideas and brainstorm new strategies, features, or directions
  

11. Help employees advance with mentorship programs

For many people, mentorship plays a huge role in their career advancement. In fact, Deloitte shows that employee retention and engagement is 25% higher for staff who have participated in workplace mentorship.

To help employees in their professional development, start by conducting a pulse survey to gauge their interest in coaching or mentorship opportunities.

Once you have an idea of what employees want to explore, you can reach out to relevant professionals and pair employees with the right internal or external mentors to drive their career.

12. Introduce office wellness programs to keep your employees happy and healthy

If you want the best from your employees, they need to be feeling their best. It’s hard to be engaged with your day-to-day work when you’re stressed, sick, or just plain burnt out!

Luckily, there are plenty of employee engagement program ideas to support your employees’ mental and physical health!

Try encouraging wellness at work to optimize the employee experience. For example, you could offer lunchtime yoga classes or provide healthy snack options in the office! Just make sure you consider allergies and dietary restrictions if you choose to offer your employees snacks.

13. Find inexpensive ways to reward, excite, and engage employees

Employee engagement doesn’t need to break the bank! In fact, sometimes the most impactful initiatives don’t cost anything at all!

Here are some inexpensive employee engagement ideas that you can implement right away:

• Employee suggestion box: Allow employees to provide anonymous feedback and share concerns without fear of repercussions
• Virtual watercooler: Randomly pair employees for a virtual chat to help people connect with their coworkers
• Weekly office coffee walks: Send groups of employees out on walks to help them recharge, recaffeinate, and get to know one another
  

14. Set employees up for success with a smooth onboarding process

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Start as you mean to go on”?

An employee’s onboarding forms the basis for the rest of their time at a company. When onboarding goes well, employees ask questions and get them answered, become familiar and comfortable with their role, and form great working relationships with their team. Starting off on the right foot helps them get and stay engaged.

On the other hand, onboarding problems mean employees get frustrated, confused, and check out of the company—possibly even literally. In fact, according to a study by BambooHR, 31% of employed Americans report having quit a job within the first six months, and a third of those respondents left within the first month.

If there’s a problem with your onboarding, don’t wait until it’s too late. Internal communicators, HR, and management all need to collaborate for effective employee onboarding ideas to increase employee engagement.

15. Hold exit interviews to learn how to improve your organization

It might not be immediately intuitive, but exit interviews can be a key employee engagement strategy.

When employees leave, they’re often more willing to provide candid feedback that current staff might hesitate to share. These honest insights can reveal underlying issues, as well as help you understand what’s driving turnover. By listening to departing employees, you can identify patterns and make targeted changes to enhance the work environment for those who remain

16. Implement casual dress days… or a casual dress office

Norms around workplace dress are changing. Business casual or casual attire is now the norm for over 70% of workplaces in the U.S.

Obviously, there are exceptions to what is appropriate, and dress codes that have to do with physical safety always need to be followed.

But for most employees, dressing more or less formally won’t have an impact on their ability to do their job, while dressing comfortably can be a big boon to both productivity and morale. Not to mention, feeling like your employer cares more about what you wear than your work can have the exact opposite effect!

17. Give your employees a stake in the company with profit-sharing opportunities

Ever wonder who the most engaged employees are? The ones with a stake in the company!Several studies indicate that employees who have a profit stake in the company’s success are more motivated and experience higher levels of job satisfaction.

In fact, employee stock option plans effectively dampened what employees felt were the poor aspects of a job, even more so than performance-related compensation plans.

18. Make leaders more accessible to employees by holding office hours

One common reason employees become disengaged is because they lose sight of their department or company’s goals. The other prominent reason is that they feel disconnected from leadership.

Luckily, the solution doesn’t have to be extravagant. Simply holding office hours for employees to come in and express their concerns or ask questions can go a long way toward improving employee engagement!

As a bonus, creating an open line of leadership communication is an inexpensive employee engagement idea that has a big impact on how employees feel about their roles and their employers.

19. Foster a shared vision and shared values

Your company’s vision and values are the cornerstone of its culture. When employees share a passion for your brand’s mission and goals, it motivates them in their work and boosts employee engagement.

The best way to help align employees with your company vision is to tie their specific tasks back to that vision. Prepare a list of your employees’ specific responsibilities and map out how each responsibility relates to the company’s overarching goals.

It’s an easy employee engagement idea to implement in practice, but it does require some thoughtful reflection on your end and great internal storytelling.

20. Offer work-from-anywhere weeks

Whether they’re working from a favorite vacation spot, visiting family in another city, or simply changing up their environment, work-from-anywhere days are a fun employee engagement idea that can help your employees recharge while staying productive.

Plus, work-from-anywhere policies demonstrate trust in your team, promote a better work-life balance, and can lead to increased creativity and job satisfaction.

21. Give employees professional development opportunities

Internal coaching is one way to help your employees progress and feel more connected to their work, but it’s certainly not the only way. Providing professional development opportunities lets your employees pick up new skills, gain confidence, and feel like you are genuinely invested in their future and growth at your company.

Consider offering some or all of these options for your employees:

• Take on the cost of employee schooling and continuing education
• Have a professional development budget for employees
• Sign up for corporate e-learning services
• Pay for employees to go to industry conferences
  

22. Encourage employees to upskill and bond with Lunch & Learns

Lunch & Learns have become an increasingly popular form of employee engagement activity, especially in smaller companies.

They’re a great combination of a free meal and a workshop, giving employees the opportunity to learn new things, get to know their team, and gain new insights while sharing a meal.

Some Lunch & Learn topics you could cover include:

• Health, wellness, and work-life balance
• History and case studies from your industry
• Skill and tool tips relevant to your department
  

23. Launch DE&I initiatives to support your diverse workforce

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is both a moral responsibility of your company and a key aspect of keeping employee engagement high. Feeling welcomed and included in the workplace is the minimum requirement for employee engagement.

When employees feel like their opinions or ideas for employee engagement will be rejected because of their race, religion, or sexual orientation, it makes genuine engagement impossible. Not to mention, employees facing these circumstances begin to feel uncomfortable and isolated in the workplace. As a result, it’s unlikely that they’ll stay at your company for long.

If you want to increase employee engagement in the long haul, boost your efforts in promoting diversity and inclusion in internal communications.

24. Support your employee resource groups

Employee resource groups (ERGs) are voluntary, employee-led groups that bring together individuals who share common interests, backgrounds, or experiences, such as women in leadership, LGBTQ+ employees, or cultural affinity groups.

Encouraging employees to form ERGs shows them that their identities and interests are valued, creating a more inclusive workplace. Provide resources, such as meeting spaces, funding for events, or time during work hours, to help these groups thrive. Additionally, consider giving ERG leaders access to mentorship or leadership development opportunities to enhance their impact!

By actively supporting ERGs, companies can promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, while also empowering employees to connect, share ideas, and drive positive organizational change.

25. Offer health and wellness perks beyond basic benefits

Employee health and wellness isn’t often thought of as an idea for employee engagement. However, by offering your employees the opportunity to thrive, you can build company loyalty and help your employees be at their very best when it comes to work. The result? An energized workforce that’s motivated and engaged every single day.

Some health and wellness perks that you can implement at your company include:

• Unlimited paid time off (PTO)
• Reimbursement for gym memberships, fitness classes, smoke cessation aids, nutrition counseling, and other services not covered by employee benefits
• Flexible work options, including flexible work schedules as well as remote and hybrid work
  

26. Incentivize high performance on job tasks

When employees are feeling a little disconnected from their work, it can be helpful to offer additional incentives based on high performance.

With prizes and rewards, you can create some healthy competition and show recognition for top performers. And the best part: there are many creative ways to tailor incentives to your employees’ interests!

If you have a lot of sports fans on your team, you can reward top performers with game tickets. Lots of foodies among your staff? Give out gift cards to an amazing local restaurant. Or, keep things simple and opt for an Uber Eats gift card, letting employees choose what sort of food they like best.

Whatever you do, incentives are a great employee engagement idea to boost employee morale long-term.

27. Hand out team swag to build brand excitement

Let’s face it—we all love free stuff. When you offer team swag, you not only give staff a small token of appreciation, but you also encourage them to be proud of their team, embody company culture, and become brand ambassadors!

And when employees are invested in your company’s brand, they’re also motivated to build that brand (and your company) into the best version of itself.

28. Hold contests to get employees to socialize

Low-stakes contests are a great way to get your employees excited about the workplace and interacting with their coworkers.

Here are some fun employee engagement ideas for contests you can try:

• Best Picture Contest: Encourage employees to capture memorable moments in the office with their camera. As a bonus, you get free content for your social media!
• Trivia Contest: Challenge your team to a trivia game related to your company, products, or industry.
• Desk Decorating Contest: This can work as a holiday employee engagement idea or a way to spice up a random Tuesday!
  

29. Spread seasonal cheer with holiday activities

Holidays are the perfect time to show your employees some appreciation! From throwing an (appropriately) raging holiday party, to hanging out cards and candy, to trying out your best seasonal newsletter content ideas, there are plenty of options for engaging your employees whatever your budget.

Here are some holiday employee engagement ideas to try with your team this year:

• Send everyone valentines with bags of candy and chocolate attached
• Organize a Halloween costume contest
• Learn about holiday traditions from cultures around the world and provide food to go with the presentations
• Ask employees to share their New Year’s resolutions
  

30. Continuously track and measure employee engagement

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, because this employee engagement idea should be at the forefront of any employee engagement strategy.

Without measuring employee engagement, you have no way of focusing your efforts and tactics where they’ll do the most good. You’ll also only have your best guesses as to whether your efforts are working as you hoped!

With ContactMonkey, you can measure and boost employee engagement through a single internal communications platform. You can find the best time to send newsletters and schedule future email campaigns. And of course, add employee engagement surveys, emoji reactions, anonymous comments, eNPS surveys, and other feedback-collecting content to gather and monitor employee engagement with ease.

Creatively Engage Your Employees Using ContactMonkey

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of employee engagement ideas. There are dozens of creative ways you can engage workers. What works for you will depend on what makes your workforce unique, including factors like age, department, education, location, and industry.

Luckily, ContactMonkey makes it easy to send engaging communications that grab employees’ attention. You can even segment your messages to reach specific audiences.

If you’re in doubt about how you can implement these creative employee engagement activities and ideas, don’t worry!

Get in touch with our team of experts for a free demo and consultation on how you can use your employee newsletter to boost employee engagement.