Workplace leaders should maintain environments that are both productive and fun. Research shows fun goals increase employee motivation1https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091122 by creating more intrinsic motivation. The result is a team that enjoys their daily activities more.
It’s easy to get lost in the busy world of deadlines, but planning events can remind everyone why your workplace is worth celebrating. Check out these spirit week ideas to find the inspiration to schedule five days’ worth of fun.
What Is Spirit Week?
Spirit Week is a unique way to motivate people in the workplace or during a school event where everyone participates in daily themes to wear costumes, play games, or join in entertaining challenges. Choosing up to five ideas will unite your team members by inspiring their creativity and making memories.
Benefits of Having a Spirit Week
Are you wondering why spirit weeks are so great? Here are the top benefits your team can receive.
Improve your teamwork skills
The best spirit week ideas for work encourage people to come together with shared activities and goals.
Workplaces stand to benefit from events like spirit week as well. When everyone communicates more eagerly and enjoys a fun company culture, they become more productive2https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201111005284/en/New-Study-Reveals-Boost-in-Employee-Productivity-and-Well-Being-Among-Companies-That-Foster-a-%E2%80%98Connected-Culture%E2%80%99-in-Work-from-Anywhere-Environment and use their time more effectively. The best spirit week ideas for work encourage people to come together with shared activities and goals.
Fun Tip: A spirit week can be a valuable tool in addition to other team-building activities. Combine it with events like board game days or icebreaker meetings to keep your team development opportunities going.
Boost employee morale
Spirit week ideas remind people they’re more than cogs in a company machine—they’ve celebrated individuals and valued members of their teams. Laid-back, amusing activities boost employee morale, which makes people want to stay with their employers longer. Since replacing a worker can cost double their salary3https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx, throwing entertaining events like spirit week is also a wise financial investment for business owners.
Demonstrate your company’s values
Every organization has a set of core values, and a spirit week is a creative way to put them into action. You could pick a volunteering theme if your business prioritizes giving back. You could celebrate other cultures to embody the value of respect. Consider your company’s mission statement and values to make everyone feel more connected with what the brand represents.
Spirit weeks have multiple benefits for workers and business owners. Even if your workplace is more serious in nature, offering time for the staff to loosen up a little can improve their outlook on staying with the organization.
How to Plan a Spirit Week
Hopefully, those advantages have inspired you to develop your own spirit week themes. Here’s how you can get started with your planning.
1. Pick themed days
People get more enjoyment out of spirit week participation if the event creator chooses unique spirit week ideas. You could choose and stretch one idea throughout the week or assign a new theme for each workday.
Themes show people how to participate. They could dress up in a costume, decorate their desk, or jump into activities that align with the chosen theme. Doing new things will boost team morale by showing people there are many ways to have fun in the workplace.
Research shows that even introducing new colors can lift everyone’s mood. If people wear blue or decorate their desks with blue décor, the color will stimulate happier moods so everyone has a better day at work.
The most minor efforts can make the most significant difference in the office atmosphere. Consider how many themes your team members would get excited about, like:
• Wearing a crazy hairdo
• Dressing up as their favorite cartoon character
• Wearing a sweatshirt from their alma mater
• Decorating their desk for a competition
• Dressing up as a meme
• Wearing clothes from a different decade
• Hanging pictures of their pet around their cubicle
• Joining a lip-syncing competition
• Building a custom gingerbread house
• Doing yoga together
Once you have a few themes in mind to last the week, make matching activities and challenges to keep everyone entertained.
2. Get a planning team ready
You might need some help planning your company’s spirit week, especially if you want to leave an impression. A few helpers would make getting the supplies for themed activities and orchestrating potential prizes easier.
Getting more people involved is also an easy way to guarantee that more people join the fun. If your workplace knows five or more people will wear themed costumes or bring baked goods, others will likely participate because they won’t want to feel left out.
A few helpers would make getting the supplies for themed activities and orchestrating potential prizes easier. One person could be in charge of ordering supplies for a specific event. Another could schedule a time to pick up office decorations after work. Others might help set up the office for each theme, take decorations down after the day ends, or draft a flyer to announce each day’s theme.
Special Tip: Be sure to create a shared document or to-do list you can all edit at the same time to keep up on tasks.
3. Promote the event
Once you’ve chosen at least one spirit week idea and have the right crew to pull it together, remember to promote your event. Send weekly email reminders to the entire office leading up to your big week. You could design posters and stick them around the office. Continual promotion will get everyone excited, ultimately encouraging participation.
Workplaces with smaller teams may not need as much promotion. However, it would still be helpful for attendees to have a reminder of each day’s theme and activities. Printing a flyer or sending a reminder the week before your spirit week could help them remember to get things like costumes and decorations.
Spirit Week Ideas for Work
The workplace becomes much more enjoyable when everyone can have some fun together. Here are a few excellent spirit week themes your coworkers or employees might have a ball with.
Transform into a cartoon character
Your team members could also dress as their favorite cartoon characters for one day during spirit week. They might pick one they loved as a kid or someone from a recent animated movie, such as:
• Spongebob
• Charlie Brown
• Minnie Mouse
• Fred Flinstone
• Bob Belcher
If it’s a slower week at work, you could collect short clips of everyone’s chosen characters and play them during a laid-back meeting. It’s a fun way to relax and a great way to help everyone get to know each other.
Wear your favorite pajamas
Some spirit week ideas are popular in high schools, colleges, and workplaces. Pajama day is one people of all ages enjoy. It’s nice to skip formal clothes and tight jeans in favor of cozy onesies or baggy pants. If you stress a workplace-appropriate pajama dress code, your team members can handle their daily responsibilities in slippers and bathrobes.
You could even pair pajama day with comfort foods like pizza. Everyone could make delicious pies4https://www.johnsoulesfoods.com/blog/3-quick-and-easy-recipes-for-national-pizza-day/ at home and bring them for lunch to show off their cooking skills while eating pizza in their pajamas.
Become tourists together
Everyone will know what spirit week is when you announce an exciting theme like tourist day. You can choose a specific destination and ask everyone to dress up like they’re there.
Tell everyone to imagine that they’re hiking Mount Everest by wearing hiking books to work. Post mountaintop pictures around the office and rename the conference rooms after various stops along the trail to Mount Everest’s peak.
If you can’t come up with ideas, send a survey where everyone can submit their ideal destinations. Teams often use these free resources to survey their workplaces without spending a dime:
• Jotform
You could stretch your tourist day theme across the week or use a different location daily. It depends on the ideas that inspire everyone to get excited about spirit week.
Become a high school caricature
Send a list of high school stereotypes with your spirit week announcements so everyone knows how to dress up. When the big day arrives, your workplace will be full of cheerleaders, jocks, and band kids. You could also have people dress like their high school selves.
Show off your favorite candy
There are nearly endless candy varieties your team members might enjoy. Ask them to pick their favorites for your spirit week. They could wear t-shirts with candy logos or find costumes inspired by the sugary treats. You could even create a prize for the best costume that includes one of every person’s favorite candy.
Fun Tip: If you have some bakers in the group, you could turn this into a challenge. Get volunteers to create their favorite candy bar from scratch; everyone can judge who got the closest.
Visit outer space
Unique spirit week ideas always make people think outside the box. Do the same for your workplace by sending everyone to outer space for the day. They could dress up as aliens or astronauts while decorating their desks with stars and planets. Give away free space-themed snacks and hand out a spaceship award to whoever gets most involved with the theme.
Celebrate your favorite horror movies
If you’re looking for Halloween spirit week ideas for work, consider horror movies. Your team members can dress up as a character from their favorite film during October. It even works for hybrid teams since remote workers can create costumes and replace their backgrounds with screenshots from their preferred movies.
Dive into mythology
Your team members have likely heard of at least one god or goddess from mythology, so encourage everyone to pick their favorite myth during spirit week. They could create costumes and themed foods or give two-minute presentations on why they chose that specific deity.
Smaller teams could also submit their ideas ahead of time. Collect the deity or character names to make a trivia game. You could also transform the trivia into a Jeopardy challenge using free sites like these:
Pick a duo partner
Think of famous duos from history or media—you might picture partners like:
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Shrek and Donkey
• Jim and Pam
• Harry Potter and Ron Weasley
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Your team members might love partnering to create costumes for a pair they love. It’s one of the most popular workplace and homecoming spirit week ideas because everyone gets to enjoy the theme with their favorite person.
Become your younger self
Everyone changes throughout their lives. You might not have recognized who your team members were when they were younger. Make one of your spirit week themes a throwback day to learn about each other’s pasts. It’ll be entertaining to see people dress up as their teenage or college selves—especially if you work with people from wide-ranging generations.
Fun Tip: A lot of your coworkers likely don’t have many of the things they owned in school. Organize a trip to the thrift store together for further bonding and good times.
Wear your school colors
Schools might schedule a school colors day so everyone dresses up right before a big football game, but professional teams can do the same thing to celebrate where they studied. Whether your team members want to dress up in the colors of their high schools or colleges, they’ll love the opportunity to talk about where they came from as everyone mingles during spirit week.
At the end of the day, send a quiz everyone can take that challenges your team members to match who went to which school. You could also create a pretend yearbook page for everyone to sign before they head home for the night.
Demonstrate your baking skills
Baking is always great if you’re trying to find Christmas spirit week ideas for work. Challenge everyone to make a holiday recipe they grew up with or make annually. You can have a contest to see who made the most delicious or creative desserts. Bonus points go to anyone who dresses up as a baker or holiday character to embrace the festive season.
Wear some crazy hair
Anyone can participate in a crazy hair day. They could wear ribbons in their ponytails, use temporary hair dye chalk, or attach floating balloons to a top bun. If any of your team members don’t have hair, they can wear a wig to participate.
Challenge your team to take selfies to win a local hair salon or spa gift card. They could also post the selfies online and tag your company. Whoever gets the most likes wins the prize.
Visit a different decade
Sometimes it’s hilarious to see people bring decades-old trends back to the workplace. Pick a decade and ask everyone to wear fashion trends from those years. It’s one of the best spirit day ideas because you can pair the theme with creative challenges.
Everyone can bring a vintage item from that period, like an original Walkman or go-go boots. You could also have a dance-off to famous songs from your chosen decade. Either way, the winner could get a gift basket of themed candies, tumblers, and self-care items.
Dress like a villain
Heroes make movies great, but villains can be much more memorable. Pick a theme like Disney villain day or James Bond villain day to celebrate everyone’s favorite antagonists. They could dress up as their favorite villains and search for tiny, hidden pictures of the heroes throughout the office like an Easter egg hunt. You might also collect famous scenes of each villain and watch them during a company-provided lunch.
Wear your team’s jersey
If your office is full of sports fans, add a team colors day to your spirit week. People can dress in their favorite team’s jerseys or paint their faces like they’re about to attend a championship game.
It’s extra fun if your company sponsors an outdoor tailgate party while live-streaming a game from the office’s most popular team. Consider making or catering foods like these so everyone can mingle while enjoying tasty treats:
• Sugar cookies decorated with multiple teams’ colors
Fun Tip: Is there a big game coming up? Organize a company outing to watch the game together at a sports bar. Everyone can come in their team’s jersey and root together or banter about the opposing players.
Pick a hilarious meme
Get inspired by one of the most popular spirit week ideas from high schools by hosting a meme day. People can dress up as their favorite memes or share links to the TikTok or Vine videos they love most. Whoever has the funniest video or outfit can win a class clown trophy. You could also award whoever reenacts their favorite meme best.
Find an ugly hat
Your team doesn’t have to wait until Christmas to compete in an ugly fashion contest. Make ugly hat day part of your spirit week to challenge everyone to wear their most unsightly hat. They can buy one at a thrift store if they don’t have one at home.
You could also make it a picture challenge by asking people to submit a picture of the ugliest hat from the internet or their trove of family photos. Get a secret prize for whoever wears or sends in the most outlandish accessory. It could be a new wild cap they get to add to their collection.
Dress up like your favorite TV show
There are a few ways to have fun in the workplace with a spirit week TV show day. Everyone could create costumes from their current favorite TV shows or one from their childhood. You might watch scenes from each person’s show during a meeting or challenge everyone to act out a famous moment that their character experienced.
Management teams could also set up a challenge inspired by a reality TV show. Schedule a trip to a local obstacle course as a team-building activity. Create one in the office or make a culinary dare challenge that reminds everyone of Bear Grylls surviving in the wild. The winner gets to go home early with a gift card to a local restaurant.
Tye dye together
Tye dye is essential for one of the most entertaining spirit week ideas. People can wear something from home that features a tie-dye design. If you provide kits and blank shirts, your team could also make tye dye shirts in the office kitchen. See how creative everyone can get to reduce stress and have fun during the workday.
Discuss your favorite novel
Your office may have many readers on staff, so ask them to bring their favorite books to work. Novel day could include people discussing their most beloved read during a company-sponsored lunch. People might like dressing up as the protagonists or competing in a trivia challenge using facts from each book they submit to a spirit day survey. It could inspire everyone to start a workplace book club that helps people bond off the clock.
Take a vacation together
Ask everyone to pick a place where they’d love to vacation. Even if someone wants a staycation, they can dress up like they’re there. Vacation day is an opportunity to learn how everyone likes to relax during trips and what destinations interest them the most. People can cast votes for whoever has the best vacation costume, and the winner will receive an extra PTO day.
Wear company swag
Some of the best spirit day ideas celebrate the workplace making spirit week happen. Schedule a Company Day so everyone wears branded swag. Business-themed games would also be entertaining, like starting a timed, no-bake cooking challenge if you run a catering business. Finish the day with a quiz about the enterprise’s history or current successes and give away a prize of free company merch.
Compete with desk decor
If the people in your workplace feel uncomfortable dressing up, ask them to decorate their desks instead. Whoever gets the most votes for having creative decor receives a gift card.
The company could even provide random decorations and leave them at each desk so no one has to bring supplies. Set an end-of-day deadline for casting votes to inspire everyone’s creative instincts.
Fun Tip: If you want more of a plan for the décor, schedule this Spirit Week day on a random holiday. For example, travel back in time for Dinosaur Day on June 1st (https://nationaltoday.com/what-is-today/) with mini-figures, palm trees, and rocks.
Host the office Olympics
Hosting an Olympics Day spirit week challenge can be a blast whether the Olympics is happening this year or not. Assign everyone to at least two teams and create challenges representing Olympic sports. These are some popular ideas that could net prizes like gift cards, goodie bags, or small trophies:
• Create a racing path that winds through cubicles and down halls to see who reaches the finish line the fastest.
• Test how far people can throw wads of paper taped into javelin shapes.
• Set up a video game console so everyone can participate in esports activities.
Taste-test homemade cakes
Give your team members a chance to show off their baking skills with a cake-tasting contest day. The only rules are that people can’t buy their cakes from a bakery, and they can’t make the traditional flavors—chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
Everyone will have to get creative with their flavors and decorations. After each person has at least one bite of the cake, they can vote for the winner. The prize could be a gift card to a local bakery class or cake-decorating tools.
Tour a museum
Define your business’s spirit week with a trip to a museum. Everyone can stay on the clock while you visit nearby science or history exhibits. If you don’t have a museum nearby, you can also ask everyone to dress up as an exhibit from their favorite museum.
Don’t want to deal with costumes? Browse online exhibits as a group during lunch or a department-wide meeting. These are a few that could entertain your team members:
• The Smithsonian’s American history and culture exhibits
• The Walter’s Art Museum’s artifacts by country
• The Louvre’s free online tours
Wear your ugliest sweater
Your team might love wearing tacky seasonal sweaters if you need Christmas spirit week ideas for work. Pick a date during December and send a flyer to encourage people to wear ugly sweaters on their preferred December holiday. Whoever gets the most votes can win a trophy ornament or tray of cookies.
Become a trivia answer
Ask your team to come up with one trivia question per person. They should write their secret question on a slip of paper and hand it to whoever’s organizing your spirit week. On trivia day, people come to work dressed as their answer and guess the questions everyone else’s costumes answer. Whoever creates the most correct or nearly correct list of trivia questions wins a trivia board game or book.
Dress like a team member
Celebrate each other by asking everyone to pick one team member and dress up as them for team member day. It’s funny to see your style replicated on someone else. If you want, you can also ask people to bring a small gift for the person they’re dressing up as. A dollar limit can make gift-giving fun and fair.
Decorate tiny Christmas trees
Your workplace might love the Christmas spirit, so get everyone mini trees. Everyone can enter a tree decorating contest as one of your spirit week ideas for work. Mini-string lights and ornaments will only be the start of how everyone expresses themselves through their tiny trees.
Afterward, keep the fun going by assigning Secret Santa roles to everyone in the office. They can drop their small gifts under their person’s desk tree when they aren’t looking. With so many trees hiding gifts around the office, everyone will enjoy the Christmas spirit throughout December.
Match your chosen twin
Ask everyone to pick someone they consider their best friend or partner at work. Their challenge will be dressing identically for twin days. The most creative and identical pair can win gift cards to a local mall or online fashion store.
Jump forward in time
Encourage your team members to consider what the future might hold. They should imagine getting into a time machine and coming back in clothes that reflect future fashion trends. Your workers could also create vision boards of things they imagine will be in your future workplace or city. Everyone will get to be creative and brainstorm, leading to better communication for future work projects.
Become your favorite celebrity
School spirit week ideas often find inspiration in the world of celebrities. Copy the theme by asking your team members to dress up as their favorite celebrities. If they don’t want to create costumes, they can post pictures and facts about their chosen celebrity around their desk. You’ll learn more about each other and have a star-studded day in the office.
Show off your patriotism
When spirit week happens around July 4th, make one of the days Patriot Day. People can bring red, white, and blue foods for a potluck lunch while a projector plays a video of previous years’ fireworks shows. Costumes of American historical figures are optional. You might even have a vote and watch the most requested movie about an event from American history.
Transform into artwork
Halloween spirit week ideas for work often center around handing out candy and wearing the year’s most popular costumes. Give your October spirit week a different vibe by hosting artwork day. People could dress up as their favorite work of art, like the Mona Lisa. They could also tape pictures of their favorite paintings or sculptures around their desk.
Want to make your spirit week more interactive? Challenge everyone to a timed painting or drawing contest. Whoever can replicate their favorite artwork most accurately wins a certificate to a local art class or tickets to the closest art museum.
Participate in a dance-off
Ask everyone to dress like they’re ready to disco on dance-off day. They’ll enjoy kicking back in their dancing gear during the workday and participating in a dance-off during lunch or before clocking out. The winner gets a gift card for a free month of Spotify, Apple Music, or Pandora. You could also pay for a free dance class—depending on how much your team likes the idea.
Fun Tip: Is your team worried about choreographing something? Use Just Dance on someone’s game console and see who can get a higher score.
Wear a cheerleading outfit
Try another perspective for a sports-themed spirit day by hosting cheerleader day instead. Everyone can dress up as their favorite team’s cheerleaders with jerseys, face paint, skirts, and more. You could even make this one of the more engaging spirit week ideas by sorting people into teams and asking them to perform a cheer routine at the end of the week. They could cheer for a selected team or the company.
Demonstrate your talents
Everyone has at least one talent they might not get to discuss during work. Crafting and unique skills might not come up during meetings and conference calls. Invite everyone to show off something they can do by hosting a talent show day. Include a list of ideas like these to get people thinking about what they can add to your workday talent show:
• Doing a handstand
• Bringing in a hand-knitted sweater
• Trying a celebrity impression
• Juggling bean bags
• Playing an instrument
Lip sync to a song
You might not have a karaoke machine at work, but that shouldn’t stop you from adding Lip Sync Day to your workplace spirit week. Divide everyone into teams and ask them to pick a song or scene. They can lip-sync to recreate an iconic moment from a famous movie or perform a song with some minor choreography. The best performance wins tickets to an upcoming musical at your nearest performing arts center.
Customize a gingerbread house
Although you might only think about gingerbread houses during Christmas, you can decorate them anytime. Buy one kit per team member and ask them to decorate the houses at their desks or in the office kitchen. You can also follow a recipe to bake gingerbread house pieces if you can’t find any kits in stores or online.
Votes can be collected in a jar by the coffee machine throughout the day or week. Whoever gets the most votes wins a basket of desserts or soft-baked ginger cookies.
Celebrate your pets
Unless your office has an outdoor space for pets to relieve themselves, you might be unable to host a traditional bring-your-pet-to-work day. The good news is you can still make everyone’s family pets part of your spirit week.
Ask your team members to bring stuffed animals that look like their pets or tape pictures of their pets around their desks. It’s one of the most popular spirit week themes because everyone loves to show off the dog, cat, bird, or other pet that’s part of their family.
If you collect pet pictures, the cutest picture could win a gift card to a local pet store. The day could also be an opportunity to collect donations for a local animal shelter.
Fun Tip: If you work in a remote setting, ask everyone to set their background as their pet in a meeting or see if their furry friends can make guest appearances. Everyone will be fawning over each other’s pets.
Enjoy a wellness activity
Ask everyone to take a group walk at lunch or attend a meditation breathing class in the conference room. They’re easy ways to celebrate a spirit week wellness day without an expensive group trip to the spa.
Resetting your mental health with wellness techniques may give your team more energy to enhance their work skills. You could schedule a meeting after spirit week to listen to our free audio guide about shifting into growth mode and experiencing more professional success because everyone feels ready to learn.
Make clay sculptures
When everyone shows up on clay figurine day, they’ll find a box of craft clay at their desk. Their challenge is to create a figurine or statue before they clock out. Whoever has the most creative results can win a gift certificate to a local pottery class.
Go out to dinner
It’s always a good idea to take your team out to dinner. Give everyone a few weeks’ notice so they can attend during spirit week. This is one of the most frequent homecoming spirit week ideas because everyone can catch up while they eat. There won’t be any work deadlines to distract them, leading to better interpersonal connections that strengthen your team.
Host a picnic
Order lunch for everyone and have a team picnic outside. If your office doesn’t have an outdoor space, you could also organize one for the weekend at a public park. Picnics are great opportunities to break the ice and get to know your newest team members. They can also be a unique way to celebrate recent new hires or call out the accomplishments each of your team members recently made.
Enjoy yoga together
People might not try yoga because they don’t want to pay for a class and spend time driving there. Bring yoga to them by making it part of your spirit week. You can hire an instructor to visit the office or follow one of these free videos in a conference room with enough space for your team to stretch:
• Quick yoga for beginners
Get active outside
Get inspired by summer spirit week ideas and schedule a field day. If the weather is warm and dry, you can create outdoor activities for your team. They can spend half the workday enjoying activities like taking selfies by nearby landmarks or competing as teams in the following games. Winners get exercise-themed gift baskets if they place first in events like:
• A 100-yard dash
• A sack race
• An egg-and-spoon race
Do a random act of kindness
Make one day or the entire spirit week an opportunity to do nice things for your team members. Invite them to do one nice thing for a new person each day to inspire a renewed atmosphere of joy in your office. Your spirit week flyers could include suggestions like these to get everyone’s creative minds working:
• Compliment someone’s skills to your boss while that person is beside you.
• Offer to finish a task for them, like refilling the printer paper or making a new pot of coffee.
• Drop a gift bag on a person’s desk with some of their favorite snacks, nail polish colors, or other tiny things they’ll enjoy.
Make holiday cards for strangers
The holidays are a great time to do something good for people in your community. Dedicate a day in your spirit week to creating holiday cards for donations. Nursing homes often accept cards for their residents, but you can also make them for hospitals and charities.
This is a popular school spirit week idea because anyone can create a card. Supply the paper and coloring supplies before assigning someone in management to mail or deliver the cards during the weekends.
Carve pumpkins together
Get a pumpkin for each worker and cover break room tables with newspaper or disposable tablecloths. Everyone can use carving kits to create designs and fill the office with a pumpkin aroma. Stick battery-powered candles in them and keep them through Halloween to remind everyone how much fun they had during spirit week.
Fun Tip: Minimize the mess by using newspapers under the pumpkins. They’ll ensure you don’t have to scrub pumpkin guts off the desks or conference tables.
Learn about each other with fun facts
During Fun Fact Day, everyone should write a fun fact about themselves on their desk. Whether people walk by each other or stop to talk, your team will learn more about who they work with daily. The deeper connections will build better relationships, fostering improved communication during future projects.
Hunt for Easter eggs
Spring is a great time to hide eggs around the office. Fill most of them with candy and place a special item or note in one of the eggs. Whoever finds the special egg wins a secret prize. It could be an Easter basket with candy, a gift card, company swag, or whatever other small items you think your team will like.
Escape a room together
Sign your team up to visit a local escape room during spirit week. They’ll have to rely on and sharpen their communication and problem-solving skills to win the challenge.
Don’t have one nearby? Create one in your office by investing in an escape room kit or hiding clues around a conference room. When your team solves each puzzle, you can point out where the next challenge is until they get the final answer and win their escape. Don’t forget to give a prize like snacks for the group or mini trophies for everyone.
Become your favorite superhero
Superheroes are still popular cultural icons, so ask your team members if they have any favorite characters. If most of your team does, you could make superheroes one of your spirit week themes. Whoever comes dressed in the most creative costume gets to hang a winner’s cape next to their desk for the rest of the year. Anyone who doesn’t like superheroes can still participate by dressing up as their real-life heroes, like firefighters or influential figures.
Dress for a different career
Sometimes people don’t always get to start their preferred career. They may need a different job to pay the bills and stick around long-term.
Ask everyone if they had a different career or a backup job in mind. Your team members could dress up in their dream roles or what they wanted to be as a kid. You’ll learn more about each other while enjoying a day when dreams come true.
Wear mismatched clothes
Matching clothes can be one of your spirit week ideas, but mismatching clothes can be one, too. Your team members can wear paisley pants with polka dot shirts or bright yellow blazers over neon green skirts. As long as nothing matches, they’ll be in the running for the prize of the ugliest outfit.
You could also bring a box of mismatched clothes and start a timed challenge. Whoever can put on the most random clothes from the box over their actual clothes wins the game. Your team members could even bring clothes for the box to create a bigger collection.
Try your comedy skills together
Challenge everyone to write their best joke for Stand-Up Comedy Day. People can tell their tales one at a time around the conference room table or step onto a makeshift stage and perform their jokes.
Consider getting your team together to browse great one-liners or write a bit based on something that happened to them recently. As long as the wording is workplace-appropriate, everyone can enjoy laughing together as a bonding experience.
Find Dollar Store decor
Announce your spirit week with an email that explains what each day means. When your team members read about Dollar Store Day, they should know what it means to decorate their desks with things from dollar stores.
It’s one of the most popular spirit week ideas for work because it’s a budget-friendly craft that results in wildly fun designs. Vote for the winner at the end of the week so someone wins a gift card to a nearby restaurant or a faux plant for long-term desk decor.
Host a chilled tea party
Tea parties are events for people of all ages. Make yours different by serving chilled tea during spring or summer. You can offer cold beverages like green matcha or fruit-infused tea with mini cupcakes and sandwiches. It’s one of the best summer spirit week ideas because it’s a refreshing way to relax and chat with your team.
Fun Tip: Ask around to see if anyone in the office is a tea connoisseur. They can help you pick out the best blends for the crowd and recommend which teas will do best cold.
Eat breakfast together
Host a breakfast potluck by scheduling a breakfast day during spirit week. Everyone can bring a dish or a side. You could also order catering if that’s what your team would prefer. Either way, you’ll start the morning positively and make the workplace more welcoming.
Celebrate your favorite charities
Ask everyone to dress up or decorate your desk as your favorite charity. When everyone votes at the end of the week, you can all give a dollar to the winner’s charity of choice. Spirit Day ideas bring people together but can also be team-bonding opportunities to improve the world.
Takeaway: Plan a Week of Spirit Day Ideas
It’s easy to plan a week’s worth of events if you get inspired by a helpful guide like this one. Consider a few spirit week ideas for work and start the planning process. With a few helpful team members, you could take steps like:
• Pick a week at least a month ahead of time.
• Create announcement materials like email reminders and flyers.
• Ask one person to lead each themed day.
• Collect the prizes for each competition.
Everyone will enjoy the team-bonding opportunities in your spirit week because you spent time and effort planning every last detail. Remember to consider other bonding opportunities to strengthen your workplace, like solving a virtual murder mystery or playing conversation games over company-sponsored lunches.
Article sources
- https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-091122
- https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201111005284/en/New-Study-Reveals-Boost-in-Employee-Productivity-and-Well-Being-Among-Companies-That-Foster-a-%E2%80%98Connected-Culture%E2%80%99-in-Work-from-Anywhere-Environment
- https://www.gallup.com/workplace/247391/fixable-problem-costs-businesses-trillion.aspx
- https://www.johnsoulesfoods.com/blog/3-quick-and-easy-recipes-for-national-pizza-day/
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