Office Contest Ideas for Every Month (So You're Not Scrambling in Week 3)
Tammy Kilroy's month-by-month office contest calendar for multi-shift teams — what's low-effort, what needs lead time, and what to skip.
GAMES & ACTIVITIES
Tammy Kilroy
9/3/20263 min read
Here's the situation: it's the third week of the month, someone in leadership asks "didn't we say we'd do something fun this month," and you're now designing a contest with four days' notice for a workforce that spans three shifts and a building you're not always in. I've been there enough times that I finally just built the calendar in advance. I'm sharing it so you don't have to learn this the way I did — at 4:45pm on a Thursday.
A few ground rules before the list. If a contest involves a prize with real monetary value, check with your legal or compliance team about tax implications and eligibility rules — this varies by state and by whether you've got a unionized workforce, so I'm not going to pretend one calendar covers every situation. And build in a way for night-shift and remote staff to actually participate, not just see the results posted the next morning. If they can't win it, don't run it company-wide.
The Calendar
January — Low effort. A "guess the goal" board where teams predict a department metric for the quarter. Costs nothing, gives people something to check back on for weeks.
February — Low effort, some lead time. An office pool tied to a big February event — no need to reinvent this one, a shared bracket or pick'em does the work for you and requires almost no setup once it's live.
March — Medium effort. A March bracket-style contest using something internal — most improved team, best process suggestion, whatever fits your culture. Needs a week to set up brackets properly.
April — Low effort. A step-count or activity challenge for teams that opt in. Keep it opt-in and don't tie it to a body-related metric that could exclude people with different physical abilities — participation-based scoring works better than performance-based here.
May — Medium effort, needs lead time. Employee Appreciation Day falls in early May — start planning contests and recognition tied to it by mid-April, not the week before. This is the one people notice if you're late.
June — Low effort. A trivia contest by department, run over email or a shared doc so shift workers can participate whenever they're on the clock.
July — Low effort. A photo contest — favorite summer memory, pet at their desk, whatever's light. This is the easiest month to under-plan because everyone assumes summer handles itself. It doesn't.
August — Medium effort. A "back to school" supply drive with a friendly team competition for who collects the most. Doubles as a real community contribution, which matters more to people than another internal-only contest.
September — High effort, needs real lead time. If your open enrollment starts in the fall, this is not a contest month — this is a communications-and-clarity month. Save your contest energy; you'll need it for October and November instead.
October — Medium effort. A costume or décor contest by department if your culture supports it, judged by a rotating panel so it's not the same three people picking winners every year.
November — Low effort, high goodwill. A gratitude board — public shout-outs, anonymous or attributed, your call. Costs nothing and reliably outperforms fancier ideas in terms of what people actually remember.
December — Medium effort, plan by October. A year-end recognition contest tied to actual moments from the year, not generic categories. If you wait until December to plan this, you'll default to something forgettable. Start pulling nominations in October while people still remember March.
What I'd Actually Tell You
The contests that get remembered a year later are almost never the expensive ones. They're the ones where someone felt genuinely seen, or where a shift worker who never gets included in "office" anything actually got to participate. Build the calendar in January, adjust as you go, and give yourself the lead time the higher-effort months actually need. I still keep a sticky note on my monitor that just says "September is not a contest month." Learn from my sticky note.
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