Trivia can be used beneficially as a workplace development exercise. The benefits may not seem obvious or apparent at first, but with time, you will see how workplace trivia exercises help foster relationships amongst coworkers.
Creating an environment where fun and competitive activity are encouraged helps form bonds between employees through a collaborative exercise of the game. Playing trivia in teams puts coworkers in a casual scenario where they must support and help each other. This behavior will translate into working scenarios that will benefit your workplace.
Types of Trivia For Social and Mental Development
There are two types of trivia you can use to improve the working environment, social and developmental. Social games help coworkers get to know one another. Developmental games are more focused around core topics which helps the players think on a deeper level which is shown to promote creative thinking.
Using Trivia For Social Development
When playing social trivia in the workplace, it should be used as an exercise to enable interaction and create authentic connections amongst coworkers. Using this method will allow you to better understand one another and humanize each other beyond just being a coworker.
Using a Social Questionnaire to Create Trivia Questions
In order to create your questions, you will send out a questionnaire to your coworkers asking them questions about themselves. You will then use these responses to create your trivia questions to ask the team. You should create your own trivia questions so you can cater them to the team, but if you need help, you can use these questions to ask and help create your questions after.
- What is your favorite movie?
- What is your favorite video game?
- Do you have a pet?
- What kind of car do you drive?
- Who is your favorite musical artist?
- Who is your favorite actor?
- What is a place you would like to visit?
- What is your dream job?
- If you could live anywhere where would it be?
- What is your favorite sport?
Create Trivia Questions Using Social Questionnaire Responses
By creating your own questionnaire or using the above, you can collect responses to help you formulate your trivia questions for the exercise. Be sure to include a question about every employee so the game is more inclusive. These are sample questions created from hypothetical responses.
- Who’s favorite movie is the Addams Family?
- Who’s favorite video game is Q*bert?
- Who has a Ball Python as a pet?
- Who owns a DeLorean
- Who loves Justin Bieber?
- Who’s favorite actor is Paul Rudd?
- Who wants to visit the Bermuda Triangle?
- Who’s dream job is to be a Las Vegas night club DJ?
- Who wants to live in Fiji?
- Who’s favorite sport is Jai alai?
Create Trivia Games for Social Development Exercises Using Tools
Use the above as an example of the questions you will create for your trivia game. Use the responses you find most interesting to create questions. You can facilitate the game using a trivia tool like Kahoot! or Quizizz. These will help you create your questions and send out the trivia quizzes for your coworkers to play. You can use the tools to handle responses and make them more interesting using features in each tool.
By playing this style of social trivia, you are providing coworkers with a casual way of getting to know one another using interesting, non-invasive facts to foster human exchange. By connecting people through the exercise, it helps people better know one another and form more authentic relationships. These connections will create a better working environment which will in turn improve work output.
Using Trivia as a Workplace Mental Development Exercise
Trivia can also be used to create exercises that improve the cognitive abilities of employees. By focusing on core topics, the subject matter has demonstrated the ability to stimulate deeper thinking which promotes meaningful innovative ways of thinking. In other words, by stimulating your coworker’s brains, you are enabling improved thought which will help stimulate business productivity.
The core subjects that should be focused on when using trivia as a workplace development exercise are music, science, literature, and math. These topics are shown to help improve brain function through the deeper level of thinking it stimulates. This will correlate to the same brain function we use to problem solve, innovate, and provide solutions.
You can create your own trivia questions using a trivia generator. It is quite simple to do. Go to Random Trivia Generator and choose your trivia topic and scroll endlessly for free random trivia questions you can use. You can also use the below for your own first developmental trivia game.
Science Office Workplace Trivia
1. What is the more common name for the disease known as Varicella?
Chicken Pox
2. In North America, moss typically grows heavier on the side of trees facing which direction?
North
3. What does a herpetologist study?
Reptiles and amphibians
4. What is the largest living fish?
The Whale Shark
5. What plant makes up most of the koala’s diet?
Eucalyptus
Music Office Workplace Trivia
1. What is the highest female voice in a choir?
Soprano
2. Who wrote the lyrics of the Christmas carol “Silent Night”?
Joseph Mohr
3. What two late-1950s Broadway musicals featured songs titled “Maria”?
West Side Story and The Sound of Music
4. Tchaikovsky is considered to have died of which disease?
Cholera
5. What is the oldest symphony orchestra in the US?
New York Philharmonic
Literature Office Workplace Trivia
1. Who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?
Roald Dahl
2. What three animals are in Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham?
Mouse, fox and goat
3. Which university presents the annual Pulitzer Prize journalism awards?
Colombia
4. Which Shakespeare play tells a love story between a Capulet and a Montague?
Romeo and Juliet
5. What literary work inspired Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” song?
Alice in Wonderland
Math Office Workplace Trivia
1. How many sides does a decagon have?
Ten
2. What is a positive integer that is equal to the sum of its proper positive divisors called?
A perfect number
3. What is the sum of the angles of a triangle?
180 degrees
4. How many digits of pi are there?
Infinity
5. What is the only number that has the same number of letters as its meaning?
F.O.U.R.
Create Trivia Games for Mental Development Exercises Using Tools
The above questions are examples of what you can use for your own cognitively stimulating trivia games. By using these kinds of questions, you are helping to stimulate productive thoughts among your coworkers. The best way to do this is by using trivia quiz tools like Kahoot! or Quizizz.
These tools can help you create your own trivia quizzes. Combining this with a trivia question generator like Random Trivia Generator will help you create trivia quizzes that are good for your coworker’s mental development. Focusing on core subjects will help you foster a more innovative solution-oriented environment when the focus of your business is on mental development and positive stimulation.
