Memorial Day is a day of remembrance and to honor the brave men and women who have fought for our freedom overseas. We at UNEX would like to take today to give thanks to our current and past military veterans for all they have done for this country.
Memorial Day is also the unofficial start of summer. After the seemingly endless winter we endured here in New Jersey, we welcome summer with open arms. However, that sense of relief at summer’s long-awaited arrival often comes at the expense of our work ethic and productivity. According to a Captivate Network study, workplace productivity drops 20% during the summer months, projects take 13% longer to complete and workers are 45% more distracted. A question we’ve found ourselves asking is how do we combat the summertime blues and keep our employees engaged and motivated during the summer months?
We have found that focusing on team-building and morale are great ways to fight the summer doldrums. Here are a few events we have instituted that have had a measurable difference on team building.
- Early Fridays. By the end of the day on Friday, especially during the summer, many employees have mentally checked out. It’s human nature when the weather is nice and the office is hot. We understand that. To make Fridays go a little bit faster, we give the employees something to look forward to. Not only do we dismiss at 3:30 on Fridays, but we also bring an ice-cream truck in every Friday for the employees to get an end-of-the-day treat before going home for the weekend. It’s a great team-building exercise and also gives the employee something to look forward to during the day.
- Spirit Week. Every year we do a spirit week at the office accompanied by an end-of-the-week company Barbecue. It’s a fun and easy team-building exercise that gets the whole company involved. Check back for more information about Spirit Week as we get closer to it.
- Baseball. Here in town we have the Single-A affiliate for the Philadelphia Phillies. As a company, we have season tickets for the team that we divide up amongst our employees. They can take their friends or family to games during the summer. However, during the summer the team often has day games during the week. When we have employees who are going above and beyond for the company, we often take them to these games for lunch during the week. We don’t stay for the whole game but it gives them a nice break with a hot dog during the workday.
These are just some ideas for keeping morale high during the hot summer months. We would love to hear how you do things at your company. Send us a tweet @UNEX to share.
