Shift work games

You get to learn something about your partner and begin your workday with an optimistic and problem-solving mindset. Example: Yesterday I got a flat tire and none of my close friends or family picked up the phone to come to rescue me.

I had to rely on an old friend who lives nearby to help me change my tire. A positive twist here is that you got to connect with an old friend, and you learned how to change a tire. A unique game that encourages everyone to share interesting stories with each other.

Ask each person to share an accomplishment they had before turning 18 years old. Example: When I was 16, I made a half-court shot during halftime and won free Whataburger for a year. One person will go and try their best not to smile or laugh while each member of the team tells them jokes and does whatever they can to make them smile or laugh. Have each person answer questions about their favorite things. Each individual will share one of their favorite songs, movies, TV shows, podcasts, books, or dishes.

Everyone in the room gets to ask them one question about whatever they want. Examples: What you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Get everyone to create a tic tac toe board and fill it out with their passions. Each person then walks around asking people questions. Take a normal Jenga tower and write interesting questions on the blocks. When someone pulls a block, they read the question aloud and answer it to the group. Line all the participants up in a circle. You continue around the circle, gradually adding more names.

The group is asked four questions and they each have to draw their answer to the question in one of the quadrants. Ask your team to line up in a certain order e.

Split your team into two groups. Each group has a different jigsaw puzzle to complete same difficulty. Players are seated in a circle. Each player draws a card — either labelled citizen or banisher 1 person will be the banisher. The banisher must banish a citizen by winking at them without getting caught by the other citizens.

After someone has been banished, the remaining citizens must discuss who they think is the banisher. A vote takes place and the citizens vote out who they think is the banisher.

Break the group into smaller teams. Each team must decide on a movie they would like to recreate. The teams then make a pitch to show why their movie idea deserves funding. After all the pitches have been made, there is a vote to see which pitch deserves to be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster. At the end, everyone reads out the card they are left with. The more trades that take place, the more people mingle and get to know each other. Everybody leaves their shoes at the door.

Each person then grabs a pair of shoes and has to return them to their owner. Players can ask as many questions as they like but not about shoes. At the end, everyone takes it in turn to find their shoes. Set up your conference room with a big space in the middle and place objects across the floor keep in mind the safety of the participants. Ask the group to break up into teams of two. One person is blindfolded and the other has to guide them across the floor using only their voice.

When everyone arrives, announce to the group that nobody can smile for the first minutes of the meeting. This goes against common convention for a meeting and gets people to do something a little different. Each team has to come up with their own icebreaker game and then pitch the idea to the group.

As a team, you will then vote on the best game to play before playing it. Everyone shows an embarrassing photo of their choice and tells a story about it. Each team member can bring one book, one piece of music, and one luxury item — what do they choose? Take it in turns for each team member to say what they would bring with them and why. Each person writes five interesting facts about themselves and puts them into a pile with the rest of their group.

The next person must then name a geographical feature beginning with the last letter of the word the person in front used. So if the first person said Peru, the second person might say Uganda, and the third person could say the Atlantic Ocean. Team members build a story one word at a time. Each pair has to come up with a quote — from a book, movie, or song. The pairs read out their quotes, while the other pairs have to write down where the quote came from. Each correctly identified quote is worth one point, plus teams that come up with a unique quote that nobody else used get a bonus point.

Tie a long piece of rope together at both ends and get everyone to hold on to the rope. The aim is to turn the circle into a square without letting go of the rope. On a large sheet of paper, the group must draw a map that reflects where they all come from this can be a world map, national, local — it depends on what they choose. Together, they need to learn about each other and come up with a map that best showcases where the group comes from.

The nice part is, they can be as creative as they like with this — it might not even be a geographical map. The teams stand in a line like a train and their goal is to fill their train with passengers moving as a team. Participants will then walk around with their billboards, asking each other questions and discussing their designs. Everybody writes a name on a Post-It someone everyone will know.

At the end, each person announces who they think their secret identity is. We believe you should encourage your teams to be physically active where possible. Not only this, but sports can encourage healthy competition, which can be good for motivating your employees to perform better at their jobs.

Here are some ideas for making sports and physical activities an important part of your working environment. Organising a sports tournament between teams is a great way to encourage a little bit of healthy competition, and get the blood pumping. Outdoor or field sports lend themselves well to tournaments — think about sports like soccer, volleyball or even extreme frisbee!

Instead of organising a competition between teams, one great idea is to organise a challenge between other businesses or organisations. The reason we believe organising a challenge between other businesses works so well, is because it can really encourage that team spirit and make your teams even closer to each other than before.

Ping pong, or table tennis, is the classic indoor sport for office spaces. It only needs a small amount of space, and it provides a great workout at the same time. These can break, so make sure you have plenty spare. If you have a ping pong table, then a great game to try at work, if you want to include multiple people at once, is a big game of run-around.

The game works best with around 8 people, but can be fine to play with How a game of run-around works, is everybody stands in a circle around the table, holding a bat. The two players at opposite ends of the table will start — one will serve the ball to the other. However, upon hitting the ball, each player will begin making their way to the next side of the table, leaving the player behind them to return the next shot.

Each time a player misses a shot, they sit out, until eventually only 2 people remain. You can declare these joint winners, or have a play-off to determine the champion. If you want something a little more gentle, which takes up even less space, then a foosball table is a good alternative for sport. While it is not particularly physically active, it is suitable for players at a time, and can lend itself well to tournaments and leagues.

In fact, a one-hour session of yoga probably produces enough sweat to fill a bucket. But seriously, yoga can be a great way to help your team focus their minds and bodies. Not only does it boost concentration and energy levels, but it helps you keep your employees physically healthy. These games are exceptionally fun, and encourage your employees to really think outside the box, and get their creative juices flowing. In the story game, players sit in a big circle.

Each player takes a blank piece of paper, and writes the first sentence of a story. Once done, everybody passes their paper to the person on their left.

The next person reads the previous sentences, then writes the next sentence. However, before passing this on, they fold the previous sentence over so that it cannot be seen. This way, each player is only ever following on from the very last sentence in the story. This can make the stories disjointed, surprising, and most of all, hilarious. Once the bottom of the page is reached, the story ends. And everybody reads out the end result to the rest of the group.

Similar to the story game, players sit in a circle and each take a piece of blank paper. Everybody draws a head, of any sort — it could be a gentleman with a moustache and a hat, or it could be a 7-eyed octopus. Once done, players fold the paper over so that only the very bottom part of the head is showing. These heads get passed to the left, and then each player draws a torso and arms if indeed arms are required! Again, this gets folded and passed. A paper plane competition is a great way to encourage creative thinking, while promoting careful planning and craftsmanship, and tying in a bit of healthy competitive spirit.

You can give out numerous prizes for the planes your colleagues build — including the plane to fly the farthest, and the plane that stays in the air for longest. Take a regular Jenga set, and divide all blocks between players. Ask employees to take a pen, and write down a different scenario on each block. For example, if you wanted to keep this game work-related, you could ask players to write down a situation that might happen in the workplace.

You can ask for serious scenarios e. Then, set up the game as normal. When a player removes a block, they must read the scenario, and then describe to the rest of the room how they would deal with it.

We like the idea of hosting a quiz once a week, or once a month. You can run this for individuals or for teams. Pick an appropriate subject matter, and create a quiz with around questions — that tends to be the ideal number. You might want to provide snacks and drinks. Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. Reza Ameri Volunteer Moderator. What keyboard are you using? Since when this problem started? Are you having this issue with both Shift keys?

Are you having this issue with other keys too? How satisfied are you with this reply? Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site. In reply to Reza Ameri's post on June 18, JocelynYbanez Independent Advisor. Hi Becky, My name is Jocelyn, an independent advisor happy to help you. Have you checked if the other keys on your keyboard work fine?