Idea's for office morale boosting?

pizza once a week, maybe casual fridays/summer fridays (where you leave a little early) if you don't have it already. happy hour is usually a good idea but once people aren't happy at work, they don't really want to hang out with co-workers after work. at least that's how i feel.

Pin the tail on the CEO?

(use a picture, of course...)

Do something collaborative and creative, that obviously doesn't take up a lot of time, seeing as you're already short.
Creativity usually helps people relax.

For example make a collaborative drawing, where everyone draws a little bit and then the next draws a small part and so on.
I started this in a call center where I worked. Just draw a line on a piece of paper and pass it on to the next one. We were in cubicles, so we would wrap the paper into a ball and just throw it at each other.

Or write a story by hanging up post-its on a wall. Each post-it has a little bit of the story on it and people take turns to hang up a new part of the story on the wall. This doesn't take a lot of time either and people can just add to it when they have a couple of secs and need something to distract them from their job. When the story is done, you can type it out and send it to everyone (or just take a picture if the handwriting isn't too small.

Don't do happy hour.

That's when people just drink and ***** about work....It doesn't boost any morale

Every Friday we do a survivor challenge like a scavenger hunt, building a bridge from office supplies, lame stuff like that, but it's fun.

we bond by *****ing about how nobody in corporate cares about us even though our branch is basically a money printing machine.

I vote for more cleavage.

FREE PUPPIES!

But seriously. Maybe mojitos? (just one) or candy usually works, too.

I read an article in Business Magazine once that I'll never forget. The story goes that a CEO was at a cocktail party with lots of other CEO's and industry big-wigs. He was chatting with a group of men when one commented that his employees always seemed so happy. The man asked the CEO what the secret was to having such happy employees. The CEO answered, "It's simple. I fire the unhappy ones."

I used to go online and find a Pub Quiz. Print out the questions and give everyone an hour to complete. But no cheating allowed so no googling the answers and then give out a little prize to the winner. I used to hand out a little basket filled with goodies, like a half bottle of wine a small box of choccies and some nice bath oils some bags of sweets stuff like that.

It is really difficult to raise moral if the company is going through difficult times, people find it hard to get enthusiastic so you have to just try and be a bit of a cheer leader. Just be careful the company doesn't get annoyed because you are "wasting time" maybe talk to someone higher up and get permission before you start something that might be seen as interrupt the working day.

ETA We also had a look a like wall where you could pin pictures of celebs that you thought your colleagues looked like that was fun and people were kind (no pictures of mutant zombies etc)

It is impossible in my office (tried many different approaches over the years) So I stick my headphones in and listen to Pandora. Keeps me happy! :drinker: and I don't have to listen to the whining.