If you’re a fan of Baudville’s free downloads and eBooks, get excited! We’ve just released Team Up! It’s an eBook of activity ideas that will energize employees and teams. Longtime Baudville friends will remember that we once sold a book by the same title. Since that book is no longer for sale, we decided to share the 60+ team activity ideas with all of you, for free! 

The original Team Up! book was composed of six chapters covering activities for recognition, teams, customer service, milestones, ice breakers, and energizers. There are great ideas in every chapter! Because there was so much in this book, we decided to make it available for download by chapter. That way, you can download just the activities you’re interested in. Right now, you can download the chapters on recognition, teams, and customer service. The remaining three chapters will be available in early February. 

Valentine’s Day may be over a month away, but in my opinion it’s never too early to start planning! Although the holiday is typically celebrated between couples, I think it’s a great opportunity to have a fun day with your team. After all, we used to have Valentine’s Day parties in school. Why not bring them to the office?! 

Your celebration should be focused on fun, boosting team morale, and employee appreciation, which is a great thing to do in mid-February. By then, the holidays are long behind us and most people (like those of us in Michigan!) are in the middle of a long winter. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot. These low cost Valentine’s Day ideas will give you plenty to do on February 14th without breaking the bank!

First, an absolutely free Valentine’s Day idea: send an ePraise card. Choose a card to send to the entire team and say “Love your work” or “Way to put your heart into it.” Using ePraise, you can make Valentine’s Day a day for employee appreciation!

 

It’s estimated that more than 58 million pounds of chocolate will be purchased during the week of Valentine’s Day. Bring some chocolate goodness to the office on Valentine’s Day with a dessert potluck. Invite the entire team to bring in their favorite dessert to share. Elect judges to taste the different dishes and hand out awards, like the Stole My Heart with One Bite Award, and present certificates to the winners. What other awards would you give out?

Everyone loves food in the office, so give each of your team members a small treat on Valentine’s Day. Whether it’s a small bag of Tootsie Rolls or Sweet Treats full of jelly beans, your employees will love that you remembered them. Add a personal note to each piece of candy to make this an effective employee appreciation gift.

One of my favorite Valentine’s Day ideas is having an old fashioned card exchange. Create mailboxes for your employees out of paper bags or shoe boxes, and ask everyone to bring a Valentine’s Day card for each of their teammates. I think this would be a blast at Baudville. We’d have some really creative cards floating around!

Finally, I love the creative Valentine’s Day ideas on Mud Pie Studio blog. They posted 101 Valentine’s Ideas for under $5, and a lot of them would be perfect to give in the office. The valentine using the Pop Rocks is one of my favorite because it has an employee appreciation message. 

With Christmas only one week away, those of us in the office who like to bake – and like to eat baked goods – have sugar plums, candies, and cookies dancing in our heads. If you’re like me, you may spend days in the kitchen making goodies to share with neighbors, friends, family, and party hosts. It’s a lot of time and a lot of work!

This year, one of my teammates arranged a cookie exchange among our department. Ten of us signed up for the very easy swap: bake enough of your favorite cookie to share with nine other coworkers. The result was fabulous! We didn’t all have to spend the entire weekend in the kitchen, but we got a delicious variety of sweet and chocolatey treats to share with friends and family.

When we got together for the exchange, we had fun learning about the different kinds of cookies and admiring the unique holiday packaging (we declared Hobby Lobby the best resource for cute bags). We each talked about the type of cookie we made and explained the significance, if any, of the recipe. I made my family’s sugar cookie recipe and decorated each cookie, while one of our designers made an authentic Bosnian dessert. Next year, we’ll each bring a recipe card for the exchange, too, so we can recreate a new holiday favorite.

This is a really easy and fun team activity. Everyone gets to take home delicious goodies and share a little bit about their holiday traditions, too. In our cookie exchange, we had brand new recipes and family favorites shared. You can use this opportunity to learn more about your teammates as individuals and celebrate the holiday season in a friendly way.

Here are a few of the recipes we swapped in our office cookie exchange: 

This week, we’re privileged to have Jennifer V. Miller return to the Recognition at Work blog to reflect on the gift of giving!  Please make Jennifer feel welcome with your kind comments! 

The act of giving someone recognition is a gift that’s in season all year long. And, it’s the gift that truly keeps on giving. Consider this: according to researchers from University of California, San Diego and Harvard, positive behaviors like giving someone praise is a sort of social “contagion”—it’s scientifically proven that one person’s act of kindness creates a cascading effect, prompting others to “pay it forward” and also do good.  

Did you know Baudville.com is a wealth of information and ideas for our customers? We have hundreds of articles, eBooks, white papers, and free downloads – and they’re all free! No log-in required! You can find all of it in our Recognition Resource Center. 

The Recognition Resource Center is a library of ideas and knowledge for individuals starting a recognition program, planning an event, or recognizing their team. To visit, click on the gray tab on the left hand side of the Baudville homepage or click here. Starting today, this area of the website has a new look and navigation that should make it easier to find information and new ideas.

We have changed the navigation, and you can now find content by resource topic or type. If you’re looking for information for a certain event or industry, I recommend you sort by topic. Resource topics include education, healthcare appreciation, volunteer appreciation, team recognition, low cost ideas, special events, and more. If you’re browsing for the latest eBook or download, use the resource type navigation. It will help you get to our white papers, videos, and free downloads the fastest!

Features of the new Recognition Resource Center include:
• New design and page layouts
• Revised Recognition Event Calendar with more holidays
• Easy-to-use navigation and expanding menu
• Ability to browse by resource topic or type
• Refine content to find information faster
• Organized Recognition TV webisodes 
• Recognition Tools, like our ePraise and Gift Finder, are more easily accessible