July

National Grilling Month

  1. Ask employees to submit their favorite grilling recipes for publication in an employee recipe book. Print a voting coupon on the back page of the recipe book and encourage employees to vote for their favorite recipe at the end of the month.  The employee whose recipe receives the most votes wins a free grill.
  2. Have a Grill-Off Competition. Put employees on teams of 6 people.  Give each team a grill.  If using a charcoal grill isn’t possible, use electric grills.  Give all teams the same ingredients to prepare a grilled entrée.  But, allow teams to visit a “Side Bar” stocked with different spices, seasonings and condiments.  Give teams a set amount of time to prepare a grilled entree.  Then, place their recipe on a table with a tent card advertising what it is.  Allow everyone to eat what was prepared and ask everyone to vote for his or her favorite dish.  Or, allow a panel of judges to determine their favorite.  Award a barbecue set, or the electric grills, to each participant on the winning team.

Independence Day – July 4th

Have a Fourth of July Party.  During the party:

  1. Serve a picnic buffet complete with hotdogs, hamburgers, salads, watermelon, etc.
  2. Feature Watermelon Contests – Individuals or teams of contestants compete to hold a greased watermelon the longest, eat a watermelon the fastest, spit watermelon seeds the furthest, etc.
  3. Award prizes to the “patriots” and “founding fathers” in your company – red, white and true-blue trophies, pins or award medals for those who have been with the company for “x” number of years or more.
  4. Give everyone:
  • A fire “cracker” to pull.  “Crackers” are traditionally handed out at Christmas in England, but you can purchase them online year round.  Crackers are made out of cardboard and they pop when pulled apart.  Prizes are hidden inside, but you can slit the cardboard open and slide prize slips inside some of the crackers that can be redeemed for giveaway items.
  • A sparkler. At a set time, ask everyone to light his or her sparkler.  All of the sparklers, but one or two, glow the same color.  The employee(s) with the different colored sparkler wins a prize.
  • A scratch off card.  Guests are only allowed to scratch off one star on the scratch off card.  If they scratch the right one, they could win a million dollars.  Enter the search term “scratch off promotion” in a search engine for a number of companies that offer custom scratch off promotions.
  • A red, white or blue gem.  As guests enter the party they choose one gem from either the tray of red gems (for the chance to win a ruby or garnet), white gems (for the chance to win a diamond) or blue gems (for the chance to win a sapphire).  Have several real gems in each tray.  The rest are fakes.  Have guests bring their chosen gem to a jeweler, set up at your party, to determine if their gem is real or not.  All fake gems are given back.  But, the lucky guests who chose the real gems get to keep them.

Tour de France

  1. Run a Tour de France Race Competition.  Give individuals a bike route map.  For every goal they meet, mark off a leg of the race on their bike route map.  At the end of each week award a yellow T-shirt jersey, with your company’s name on it, to the individual who has progressed the furthest.  Award a prize to the individual that finishes the race first.  Or, at the end of the promotion, enter everyone who passed the finish line on the bike route map into a prize drawing for a new bike.
  2. Many people do not realize that the Tour De France is a team effort.  Give each department different team jerseys to show their devotion to moving forward as a winning team, rather than as individuals looking out for Number One.

“The Newlywed Game” TV Premier: Anniversary – July 11th

Have a “Newly-worked Game” team-building event. Form pairs made up of two people from two different departments.  Just as in the TV show “The Newlywed Game,” separate the participants and ask them how they think their “partner” will answer work-related questions.  The other “partner” writes their answers to these questions down behind the scenes. Bring the pairs back together to reveal how many of their answers matched.  This is not only humorous; it also shows how well different departments communicate with one another!  Award a prize to the pair that gets the most answers correct.

National Ice Cream Day

Have an Ice Cream Making team-building event.  Place 6 participants on a team.  Allow each team to visit a sundae bar for the ice cream flavors and ingredients they want to add into it to create the ultimate ice cream flavor.  At a set time, conduct an ice cream tasting.  Have a panel of judges determine the best tasting ice cream.  And, let each team taste other team’s creations.

The British Open

Knowing how to play golf is a worthwhile business skill. Consider paying for golf lessons for those employees who express an interest in learning how to play.  Announce sign-up for the lessons during The British Open.

US Patent Office Opens – July 31st

Have an Invention Team-Building Event today. Place 6-8 participants on a team. Provide each team with the same materials – building blocks, construction paper, pipe cleaners, markers, etc. and challenge them to use them to build a prototype for a new invention that will revolutionize your industry.  The goal is to challenge team’s creativity, not necessarily build something realistic.  Each team must name their product and create a pitch for the new invention.  A panel of judges determines the winning team.

Back to Main List