Employee engagement activities that people still do in week four
Most employee engagement activities are events: a lunch, a trivia night, a volunteer afternoon. They are pleasant, and by Monday they are over. The activities that actually move engagement are the ones that repeat, involve everyone, and give teams a reason to talk to each other every day. A company step challenge is one of the few that does all three.
Get StartedWhat makes an engagement activity work
Gallup's global workplace research has found for years that fewer than a quarter of employees describe themselves as engaged at work. Nobody fixes that with one offsite. When you look at the engagement ideas that last, they share four traits:
- Everyone can join. No skill, no equipment, no specific personality type. If only the extroverts or the athletes show up, you have built an activity for the already-engaged.
- It repeats. Engagement is a habit, not a moment. Daily or weekly touchpoints beat a single big event.
- It crosses team lines. The best activities put people from finance, operations and sales on the same side of something.
- It runs without HR carrying it. If the program depends on one person sending reminders and tallying spreadsheets, it dies the week that person goes on vacation.
12 employee engagement activities, ranked by effort
Low effort, run this week
- A two-week team step challenge. Split the company into teams, set a shared distance goal, and let a live leaderboard do the talking. See how to launch one in an afternoon.
- Walking one-on-ones. Managers take recurring one-on-ones outside. People talk more openly side by side than across a desk.
- Peer shout-outs. A standing channel or board where anyone can thank anyone, with a monthly highlight at the all-hands.
- Themed months. Pick one theme a month (movement, sleep, learning, giving back) so engagement has a rhythm people can predict.
Medium effort, plan this quarter
- A virtual destination challenge. The whole company walks the distance of a real route together, like walking across Canada or circling the globe. Shared progress beats individual ranking.
- Department vs department. A friendly rivalry between departments gives quiet teams something to rally around.
- Skill swaps. Short sessions where employees teach each other something they know well.
- Volunteer days with a team goal. Tie the day to a number the team hits together.
Higher effort, once or twice a year
- Charity step challenge. Convert collective distance into a donation the company pledges in advance.
- Offsites and retreats. Valuable, but expensive and hard for shift and remote staff to attend.
- Hackathons or innovation days. Great for product teams, less inclusive for everyone else.
- Annual wellness fair. Useful for benefit education, weak as an engagement driver on its own.
Why a step challenge outperforms one-off events
Walking is the rare activity that almost everyone already does, so participation is not limited to the people who like games. A challenge runs for weeks, so it creates a daily reason to check in, compare notes and cheer a teammate on. And because teams are mixed across departments, it builds the cross-functional relationships that engagement surveys keep asking about. The catch is design: a pure top-10 leaderboard discourages most people by day three. We explain the fix in why leaderboards kill wellness challenges, and the everyone-can-win model that keeps the middle of the pack playing.
A simple 4-week engagement plan
- Week 0: announce the challenge, form mixed teams of 5 to 8, and name a team captain in each.
- Week 1: team distance goal, daily nudges, a mid-week shout-out for the most improved team.
- Week 2: add a department-vs-department layer and a walking meeting day.
- Week 3: push toward a shared company milestone so the slowest team still contributes.
- Week 4: close with rewards for participation as well as results, then ask three survey questions.
What to measure
Skip vanity totals. Track the share of invited employees who join, the share still active in the final week, how many teams mix departments, and one or two engagement-survey items before and after. Those numbers tell you whether the activity reached the people who needed it, not just the ones who were already keen.
Run your first challenge this month
Movemint runs company step challenges with team and department leaderboards, motivational push notifications and gift-card rewards, on iOS, Android and the web, in English and French. $1.50 USD per employee per month, billed monthly.
Get StartedRelated guides: Team building activities for work · A unique employee benefit
Movemint is a new product, so this page describes capabilities and practical advice, not customer results. We do not show logos or testimonials we have not earned.
Frequently asked questions
What are good employee engagement activities for a small company?
Pick activities with no minimum headcount: walking one-on-ones, peer shout-outs and a team step challenge with two or three teams. For very small groups, a shared company goal works better than a leaderboard. Our guide on step challenges for teams under 30 covers the honest floor.
How do you engage employees who do not like team games?
Choose activities built on something they already do. Walking counts every step whether it happens on a commute, a dog walk or a shift, so people take part without performing in front of colleagues.
How long should an engagement activity run?
Long enough to form a habit and short enough to keep urgency. Two to four weeks is the sweet spot for a step challenge, repeated each quarter with a new theme.
Does Movemint work for remote and hybrid employees?
Yes. Employees join from the iOS or Android app or the web, steps count wherever people are, and team leaderboards give remote staff a daily connection to colleagues they rarely see.
How much does Movemint cost?
A flat $1.50 USD per employee per month, billed monthly. Local currency equivalents are shown on the pricing section of the homepage.