Remote work, aka working from home, has become a staple aspect of the workday for millions of Americans nowadays. Some people like the convenience of not having to make a long car drive through traffic into the office while others miss the social aspect of being in the office setting with all of their colleagues. There have been many articles about how to adjust to working from home from a productivity standpoint, but not too many about how to make working from home more fun. In this article we hope to give some tips on making working from home more fun so we can all get through this together.
One way to make working from home more fun is to have a bingo card for a designated team, department, or even company-wide. There is obviously wide variation on what the squares of the card will say or the rewards for achieving bingo but all roads lead to fun in the end! Some examples of what you could put in the squares are ‘join a meeting while not wearing socks,’ ‘share your favorite meme’, and ‘make a new Zoom background for meetings.’ Rewards can include a gift card, a sweet digital certificate, or temporary relief from some duty that everyone on the team tries to avoid. If your team includes employees who have been temporarily placed by a staffing agency, feel free to send them a card too so they can feel more like they’re part of the team.
This next way to make working from home fun is to actually flip the script altogether. Pick a day in advance where it will be accommodative of your schedule to work from a coffee shop, library, or a vacation destination. Even if the content of your workday is about the same as any other day, working in a new location will be refreshing. Just make sure to do some brainstorming ahead of time regarding such things as “are there any work tasks I can do at home but can’t do at this other location?”, “what if the wifi at the other location is not working?”, and “is there a chance I would run into anyone from the company at this other location?”
In place of changing the scenery of your home office completely by working in a different location, you can also just redecorate your home office to freshen it up. As a disclaimer, it is highly advised that you do this redecorating over the weekend or during a time when you are not actually working so it does not interfere with your work duties. Move the furniture around, add some new posters, or even paint the walls. The possibilities are endless!
One way to make working from home more fun is to have a bingo card for a designated team, department, or even company-wide. There is obviously wide variation on what the squares of the card will say or the rewards for achieving bingo but all roads lead to fun in the end! Some examples of what you could put in the squares are ‘join a meeting while not wearing socks,’ ‘share your favorite meme’, and ‘make a new Zoom background for meetings.’ Rewards can include a gift card, a sweet digital certificate, or temporary relief from some duty that everyone on the team tries to avoid. If your team includes employees who have been temporarily placed by a staffing agency, feel free to send them a card too so they can feel more like they’re part of the team.
This next way to make working from home fun is to actually flip the script altogether. Pick a day in advance where it will be accommodative of your schedule to work from a coffee shop, library, or a vacation destination. Even if the content of your workday is about the same as any other day, working in a new location will be refreshing. Just make sure to do some brainstorming ahead of time regarding such things as “are there any work tasks I can do at home but can’t do at this other location?”, “what if the wifi at the other location is not working?”, and “is there a chance I would run into anyone from the company at this other location?”
In place of changing the scenery of your home office completely by working in a different location, you can also just redecorate your home office to freshen it up. As a disclaimer, it is highly advised that you do this redecorating over the weekend or during a time when you are not actually working so it does not interfere with your work duties. Move the furniture around, add some new posters, or even paint the walls. The possibilities are endless!
