Thursday, September 9, 2010

Creative Challenge: Day Nine

Today I am sharing something creative from work! Since I work at a desk, with grants, there isn't a whole lot of creativity on a daily basis. You can guarantee when given the opportunity, I run with it...full speed ahead. 

Every year, like many companies, our human resources does a big survey called People Pulse. The survey gathers opinions from employees about their job and work environment to help leadership decide what improvements are needed. Last year our scores were low and my department director took it very seriously. The department split into workgroups and chose the lowest of the scoring items to start working on. We had several long meeings, which in a woman dominated department was very group theraphy session-esc. I am a fan of that kind of stuff, so I liked it! From all our work we started to realize in order for change to happen, we all needed to be more comforatable with each other (no duh, right?). 

Within my workgroup our highest priorities were team building and effective communication skills. I volunteered to lead the team building charge and today we having our first event - an ice cream sundae party! The party is actually just a bribe to get all of the staff to attend and brainstorm social and professional activities; food for your thoughts, if you will. Our goal is to come up with ideas but also to model the change we'd like to see in our department. I realize not all meetings can be fun, but whenever possible, why not?

I had to write a rather formal email invitation, so to increase the fun factor, I included this image: 
My 5+ years working at DQ helped me shape the sundae menu: 
- Choice of: vanilla, chocolate, cookies and cream, mint chocolate chip ice creams
- Hot fudge
- Hot carmel
- Mix nuts
- Sprinkles
- Whipped Cream
- Maraschino cherries

We started the session with sundaes, followed by an ice (cream) breaker.  All in all, it was a good, productive session. Most of all, I'm just happy I got to incorporate some creativity at work!

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