We Gave Our Employees 30 Tickets to a Dodgers Game and Bought Them Food and Beer

Episode 054

Ben Walters:  [00:00:00] Ben with SuperPumped podcasts and I'm here to tell you why something as simple as pizza and bingo could help you slay the turnover dragon in your business, keep your great employees, and have more fun. One of the things that employees cite, time and time again, is that community is an important part of their overall wellbeing, their overall health, but also their overall happiness in their job. Those employers that are able to build community within their organization are much, much, much, much, much more likely to keep their employees and those who don't build community where you just come in like a little robot, and you do your job and you go home, are pretty likely to go find that somewhere else.

Ben Walters:  All of the psychology is that, as human beings, we crave connection. I wanna talk just about simple ways you can build community in your business. This particular one is pizza and bingo. A hotel I worked in, every month, [00:01:00] they order pizza and they play bingo. And it's across all departments. So you have people from housekeeping and front desk and engineering and food and beverage and all those things, valets, and they all get together and they're one big company and it builds community. And people talk about that man, you were lucky to win the bingo and win the big prize or that kind of thing. Simple way to build it.

Ben Walters:  Another way, my friend Chris works up at Nevers in Minneapolis and in the summer they do these Friday cookouts where they bring in a bunch of food and they just sit out on picnic tables, just enjoy lunch together, catching up with one another. Not necessarily worried about work, but just connecting as human beings.

Ben Walters:  One of the things we did, one of my probably favorite things of our entire company was our holiday Christmas party. When it started out, we were a small company. We had it at our house, people came over and I can remember one year an employee actually wanted a tour. It was an old house, old Victorian, [00:02:00] house in Dayton, Ohio. She wanted a tour and she just gave herself a self tour and I was still getting ready and all of a sudden this employee was in my bedroom. It was funny.

Ben Walters:  We did this party at our house, and then it kept growing as the company grew. And then we rented this really cool mansion and we had carriage rides. And at that party we recognized every employee. We had a pianist. It was really fun. People looked forward to that. Even though these were cleaning jobs, this was the pinnacle event and it was fun catching up with people maybe you'd been through training together with, but went off to different accounts in different parts of the city. Get those events rolling.

Ben Walters:  Second thing to remember, and it goes with the holiday party, is get off campus. It is much easier to build community and to bond with your employees if you get out of your work environment. We had one particular employee, when we owned our coffee shop, who was involved in community theater. One of the things we did was the other employees all wanted to go see them perform in the big performance, right? As a company, we said, okay, that's cool. Why don't we [00:03:00] fund the tickets and we fund everyone going out for pizza and beer after? We foot the bill for that. Everyone went. I wasn't even a part of it but that bonding event brought those employees close together. There was a brotherhood and a sisterhood with that.

Ben Walters:  I also think about service projects. There's a company I know now that goes down to the Freestore Foodbank every month and they help sort the donations and help families out, and that's something that they can do across departments. People form bonds. That's a cool thing.

Ben Walters:  Another thing they do here in Cincinnati, the Flying Pig Marathon, there's two ways they support that. Some wanna be ambitious and actually run the marathon and they raise money for charity and just through that kind of team and training bonding process, that's good. But there's other companies that they sponsor a particular mile where they hand out the water and the Gatorade. All the people who are interested in the company get up really early that day and they go out on the race course, they fill water glasses and Gatorade and pick up the dirty cups, 'cause runners slug them and then just chuck them. That's another way.

Ben Walters:  Final thing [00:04:00] though I want you to think about is this doesn't all have to come from you. Maybe you're like me and you're not the most creative person in the world. You don't have to be because your employees are really smart, I guarantee you. And they have ideas to build community. Ask them.

Ben Walters:  We have some employees, they wanted to do a kickball team. We're like, sure, we'll sponsor the entrance fee and some uniforms, that kind of thing, put our company logo on 'em. People had the best time. They talked about kickball, leading up to the game, and then after the game they would go out. It was a lot of fun.

Ben Walters:  Also talking about tailgating. We had an employee who just loved the Bengals. Wanted to do a tailgate, didn't even have tickets to the game. Wanted to invite coworkers to come down once a year, do a big tailgate, reconnect, have a good time, watch the game. That's another option.

Ben Walters:  We also had baseball tickets, we had a full season package but unused tickets, we could clump those together. We could say, if an employee was like, hey, let's get down to the Dodgers game, we could give 'em a block of 30 tickets. They could all go down, have a great time, give 'em a $10 [00:05:00] food and beverage credit, or 15, whatever you wanna do. That's the kind of thing. Put your money where your mouth is.

Ben Walters:  If you want to build community, just fund it. Say here, we've got a fund to do community building things in this organization. What can you come up with? You'll be amazed what your people will come up with. And in the process, here's the crazy thing, of them having fun of them bonding with one another of them doing things they really enjoy.

Ben Walters:  They're gonna be more connected to your community and your business, you're gonna build a strong community. Those bonds are gonna tie them there. When the next employer comes barking, come here. Come there. You're gonna be able to hold onto 'em.

Ben Walters:  If you wanna slay the turnover dragon, build community in your organization, do the cookout, do the pizza, do the bingo, whatever's fun, build that community up.

Ben Walters:  SuperPumped out.

Ben Walters:  If you enjoyed today's show, I have two quick next steps for you. [00:06:00] First, subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. And second, jump on over to superpumped.com to find out all the incredible ways we can help you launch your SuperPumped Business.

Ben Walters:  Keep well and I'll see you next time.