Incorporating new hires with existing employees in your firm is not always easy. There are times when it appears there are two teams of people, but you need to make sure that eventually, the two halves of the team can come together as one. As the HR leader of the firm, it’s your job to figure out just what orientation games for new employees will work when it comes to bringing everyone together.
There are all kinds of games out there you can try, but we’ve gone ahead and rounded up a list of the absolute cream of the crop. Check out the five best orientation games for new employees.
1: Scavenger Hunt
The first step in this game is divide employees into two groups. Make sure you are sprinkling new hires into existing team members’ teams to really build some company unity. Then give the employees a company handbook that will allow them to answer a bunch of questions.
You can send them on “quests” to find the answers spread out through the office and make them return to “start” in order to win the scavenger hunt.
By doing this, you are building team unity and getting the new employees to understand their company a bit better. This might come off as hokey every now and then, but it’s quite a bit better than sitting through orientation classes.
2: The Picture Match Game
For the picture match game, you will want a picture of each employee in the company, as well as pieces of paper or cards that have the names of those employees as well. Take a short amount of time to introduce the new hires to the veteran employees. Then you can have the new employees match the photos of their coworkers with their names.
The goal of this game is pretty simple. There is nothing quite like the embarrassment of a new hire calling people by their wrong names or simply not having any idea what those names are. Using this game, you can help the new workers get around this embarrassing situation and feel more comfortable in their new position.
3: Signature Hunt
This game is easy enough and doesn’t even require that much setup. You give the new hires either a pad or a bunch of pieces of paper. Then, you must send them out into the work environment. The goal of the game is to bring back signatures from all the existing employees to get them to meet and get to know the new hires.
One can add another step in this game by asking the existing workers to have a bit of a conversation. Maybe they have a script the read off of that tells the new hires a bit about who they are in order to further help the team members get to know each other and start to bond.
4: Story Match
Story match is another one of those orientation games for new employees that helps them get to know their coworkers quickly while having a bit of fun. The game is played by having all the new hires and current employees come into a room. Then, they must write down three facts about themselves on a piece of paper. One of these facts turns out not to be true.
The fun of the game is that people have to try and guess which of the facts are lies. This isn’t one of those orientation games for new employees that is going to be teaching a great deal about the company. Still, it will be a nice icebreaker that will make everyone feel a bit more like a real team.
5: Kickball
This is a bit different than the other orientation games for new employees. This is due to the fact that it usually isn’t going to be based in the office unless you happen to have a rather large wide-open space.
Some companies tend to take their new hires out for lunch, usually with at least a few of the current company members as a kind of icebreaker. Instead of heading to a bar and grill, think about heading to a local park and playing a game of kickball.
Playing something like this when it comes to orientation games for new employees is about as far away from learning a job or learning about the company as you can get. What it does do is make the new employees feel right at home and part of a team.
You can do things like encourage some conversation when the workers are kicking the ball around. You’ll be surprised as quickly this kind of thing can help people form a bond. Consider doing this every week for a while to continue to foster that bond.
Bottom Line
When you are looking to come up with the perfect orientation games for new employees, you need to keep in mind that you are going to be dealing with a very diverse crowd of people. There are going to be some activities that call to different people. There are going to be others that continue to shy away. They will not want to be a part of these activities for one reason or another.
Companies can only make sure that when it comes to new hires, they understand what the new employer expects of them on a day to day basis. Forcing people to interact in ways they don’t feel comfortable can backfire. These games, however, should allow people who are even a bit hesitant to open up to new people, find themselves opening up because they realize in the long run, it’s going to be quite a bit more fun.
Once the fun fades, the employees feel as though they have truly been welcomed into the firm. Those types of employees are going to be more productive. This happens because they want the company to do well. Also, they want their co-workers to have a positive view of the job they are doing. This is why these kinds of icebreakers and games are becoming more popular.