May

National Nightshift Workers Day

  1. Invite all of your nightshift employees to a catered breakfast buffet, either before or after their shift on this day.
  2. Give all of your nightshift employees a nightlight imprinted with your company logo. Tell them the nightlight is to thank them for brightening up your company’s nights.  Also, invite them to plug in the nightlight.  If the light glowing in the bulb is colored, not natural, they win a prize.

Mothers Day

Ask all of your employees who are moms to select a free flower from a non-clear vase as they enter your office.  All of the flowers, but one which has a long stem, have average-sized stems.  The mom that picks the flower with the long stem wins a prize.  Allow moms to also keep their flower.

National Meeting Planner’s Appreciation Day

  1. Although this day was created to honor you, if you are a meeting planner, use today to send a token of appreciation to all of your customers. It will stand out much more in your customers’ minds than another Christmas card would.  And, after all, you wouldn’t be a meeting planner without your customers!
  2. To honor all of the employees in your company who organize meetings and events, give each of them two event tickets to an event of their choosing. That way, they can enjoy an event they did not have to organize!

New York Stock Exchange Established: Anniversary – May 17th

Tell your employees it’s time to invest in themselves. Give each of them a made up stock certificate each time they reach an agreed upon goal, help a colleague, take a seminar, etc.  The employee with the most stock certificates at the end of the campaign, which starts or ends on May 17th, wins a prize.

National Bike to Work Day

  1. To keep your employees fit, consider offering employees complimentary bike rentals to use during their lunch hour.
  2. Build A Bike Team-building Activity – Place 6-8 employees on a team. Give each team an unassembled bike to put together.  Be sure to hire a bike mechanic to be at your event to insure the bikes are put together properly.  Set up a supply depot with materials such as masking tape, crepe paper streamers, construction paper, etc. that teams can use to decorate their bikes.  Have the teams navigate a bike obstacle course in a stopwatch-timed race.  The team that clocks the best time wins the team-building activity.  At the end of the team-building event, clean off all the bikes and donate them to needy kids.  If you are not sure whom to give the bikes to, give them to a foster home or sheriff’s department to hand out to needy kids.
  3. Amazing Bike Race Team-building Activity – Place 6-8 employees on a team. Ask people to bring their own bikes in for the event and / or rent bikes.  Send teams off to different areas around town to solve clues / compete in challenges.  Teams earn points at each station and / or for how long it takes them to complete the race.  The team that has the most points, or that finishes the race first, wins.

Preakness Stakes

Invite employees to wear a hat (a tradition for those who go to horse races). Have a Hat Contest, awarding prizes for the prettiest, most outrageous, largest, etc. hats.

Memorial Day

  1. Post goals for each employee and / or department.  Give employees from Memorial Day until Labor Day, the unofficial start and end of summer, to reach these goals.  Everyone who reaches these goals gets an extra day off for their summer vacation.
  2. Have a Memorial Day Party featuring:
  • Beach Blanket Bingo – Give every employee a beach ball with a Bingo number written on it.  Draw numbers from a Bingo hopper throughout the day.  Award a prize to the employees holding these numbers.  Or, write out a giant Bingo board on a beach towel.  When Bingo is achieved, give a prize to every employee holding the numbers that made Bingo.
  • Summer Picnic-fare Buffet – Serve the food on Frisbees, imprinted with the company logo.  Allow employees to keep the Frisbees.
  • Beach Ball Drop – Suspend beach balls in nets from your ceiling.  At the end of the party, drop the beach balls.  Have every employee pick up only one ball. Award a prize to the employees who picked up a certain color beach ball.

Back to Main List