10 Changes To Level-up Your Work Environment From Ho-Hum to Wow

Let’s admit it – most of the times we wish the clock would go faster so we can punch out and get out of the office rut. Other times, we are merely sitting there on our table, procrastinating while impatiently waiting for the clock to hit that certain time, so we can go home to our family, rest, or socialize with friends, or maybe do a little shopping. However, enduring the entire day working while your environment is way below the boring line, can somehow fed us up.

So how can we turn things up and enjoy working?

It is quite simple to do as well as it is fun to do it. Listed below are my ten suggestions. You can start at your lunch break. Start preparing your colleagues to be more interested, excited, and upbeat after lunch is over. It has been shown that after lunch and before 3 PM people’s productivity, performance, and energy drop by as much as 30% to 50%.

You can counteract this by introducing stimulating and interesting things to do during the lunch hour, besides running out, grabbing fast food, and then sitting at your desk eating it.

Our suggestions change the playing field and make things more interesting and exciting. Similar techniques are being employed by some of the best run companies like Kenexa and TechieNize. Also, the SemCo company has increased productivity markedly just by changing how the employees view their work environment.

1. Organize a Fun Committee

In this way every day at lunchtime, you will have a new activity which is something interesting that gets people out of their fast food induced doldrums.

2. Have a large whiteboard during lunchtime and pin funny cartoons or comics on it

For this you can also use top backyard projectors or home theater wide screens. The point is to be creative and to make sure that the purpose is achieved. They say laughter is the best medicine and by putting up humorous pictures and comics from the newspaper, you can ensure that people will be smiling for the rest of the day.

3. Set up a comedy skit group

During the lunch hour set up a company skit and reenact funny scenes that have occurred during the day orthe week.

4. Ethnic meal for lunch

Most companies today are diverse work organizations and instead of having everyone going out for lunch, they offer food. Find out what your teammates’ ethnic foods are and schedule one day a week to sample them.

5. Change the interior decorations to something more exciting and humorous

The walls around your cubes are probably boring monotone or pastel colors that are supposed to relax and calm the spirit. Instead, you should hang up pictures of exciting places and events that get the blood moving.

6. Change the music that plays in the background, choose MO-Zone music in the afternoon

By playing music that is more exciting in the afternoon, you stimulate not only the brain but help fight off fatigue as well. This works extremely well for those who work as law firm digital marketing, software programmer, or anyone who is constantly sitting and facing the screens all day long. Mo-Zone stands for motivational music and songs like “Eye of the Tiger” and the Pointer Sisters have been shown to get the juices flowing and people more active during and after lunch.

7. During the lunch hour set up Trivial Pursuit type games

This game may have to do with your particular line of work or current events in general. By playing these types of games, you stimulate both your left and right side of the brain and engage your coworkers in something other than dealing with the day-to-day trials and tribulations of the workplace.

8. Set up a coffee bar and during lunch offer gourmet coffees

Let’s face it – coffee is still one of the most exciting things in the early morning and a break time. So why not set up a coffee bar during the lunch hour, get the best home brew kits available, because today, you can get almost any kind of coffee in capsule form with more varieties than you can dream of.

Now, there are espresso machines for every budget and if you all chip in, you could purchase a set of these coffeemakers that would give everyone something they can enjoy during the lunch hour, be it cappuccino, latte, macchiato, or mocha.

9. Set up a snack bar with unusual treats from far-off lands

Everybody gets tired of the same old chips, pretzels, and bagels. Instead, set up a snack bar during the lunch hour and stock it from your local Chinese food market, a German deli, and a Japanese or Korean snack shop. These shops are springing up all over America. Taste treats from other lands are becoming popular, especially the Indian sweets that are provided during the Diwali festival.

10. Invite odd people and acts for a weekly/daily bazaar entertainment

The weirder the better as it forces the brain to move out of its rut and take in something new and unusual. This changes the work climate and you can leverage this into a more upbeat and cheerful work environment.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, it doesn’t take much time or effort to come up with some simple things that can increase morale, wake people up, and get them to finish up the day on a positive note. These are just simple suggestions and if you think about it, you can come up with an additional 10 or 20 of your own just by looking at the people all around you and asking yourself what would excite them, make them laugh, and make them smile.

By doing this you can change your office from a ho-hum environment where people seem to be on their last legs by Quitting Time to an office where people are energetic, interested, and may not even want to go home.

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