Employee Appreciation Week Jeopardy

A cheerful mix of office life, famous founders, and workplace history for Employee Appreciation Day. The board is free to copy and colleagues buzz in by phone.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Famous Founders

$200
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started this company in 1976.
What is Apple?
$400
This entrepreneur founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore.
Who is Jeff Bezos?
$600
This duo opened their first ice cream shop in a renovated Vermont gas station in 1978.
Who are Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield?
$800
In 1886, Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton created this soft drink.
What is Coca-Cola?
$1,000
This entrepreneur started the shapewear company Spanx with $5,000 in savings.
Who is Sara Blakely?

Office Supplies

$200
These sticky notes came out of a 3M scientist's glue that was not strong enough.
What are Post-it Notes?
$400
This bent loop of wire holds sheets of paper together without punching holes.
What is a paper clip?
$600
Named for its first six letters, this keyboard layout dates to 1870s typewriters.
What is QWERTY?
$800
This machine, a Xerox specialty, made the company's name into a verb.
What is a photocopier?
$1,000
Named from rolling index, this rotating card file held business contacts on countless desks.
What is a Rolodex?

History of the Workweek

$200
This U.S. holiday honoring workers falls on the first Monday in September.
What is Labor Day?
$400
In 1926, Henry Ford's factories cut the workweek to this many days.
What is five?
$600
The Adamson Act of 1916 gave interstate railroad workers this, an early federal limit on the length of a working day.
What is the eight-hour day?
$800
This 1938 federal law established the minimum wage and overtime pay.
What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?
$1,000
Celebrated on May 1 in many countries, this day partly commemorates the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.
What is International Workers' Day?

Perks Through the Years

$200
This weekly dress-down custom became a staple of 1990s offices.
What is casual Friday?
$400
This arrangement, which boomed after 2020, lets employees do their jobs from home.
What is remote work?
$600
Named for a section of the Internal Revenue Code, this is the classic American workplace retirement plan.
What is a 401(k)?
$800
This extended paid break, from a word for the seventh year's rest, is given to long-serving staff at some firms.
What is a sabbatical?
$1,000
Money a company adds to a worker's retirement savings, pegged to how much the worker puts in, is known as this.
What is an employer match?

Ways to Say Thanks

$200
This handwritten message is a classic way to show gratitude after a kindness.
What is a thank-you note?
$400
Naming a standout worker this, with a photo on the wall, is a long-standing tradition.
What is Employee of the Month?
$600
Recognition that comes from coworkers rather than from managers is called this.
What is peer recognition?
$800
Praise lands best when it is this, naming exactly what the person did and why it mattered.
What is specific?
$1,000
Gary Chapman and Paul White's languages of appreciation are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, tangible gifts and this.
What is physical touch?

Workplace Pop Culture

$200
This NBC sitcom followed the staff of Dunder Mifflin's Scranton branch.
What is The Office?
$400
In the 1999 film Office Space, Milton is devoted to his red one of these.
What is a stapler?
$600
Dolly Parton sang the title song of this 1980 comedy about three women who get even with their boss.
What is 9 to 5?
$800
In this 1936 film, Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp is swallowed by the giant gears of a factory machine.
What is Modern Times?
$1,000
Michael Douglas won an Oscar as corporate raider Gordon Gekko in this 1987 film.
What is Wall Street?

Final Jeopardy — Celebrations

In the United States, Employee Appreciation Day falls on the first Friday of this month.

What is March?

How to run this board

This board is for the day you say thank you, so it keeps the stakes low and the laughs high. Categories range across famous companies and founders, office life and supplies, the history of the workweek, perks through the years, and ways people say thanks at work.

It is easy enough that everyone from the newest hire to the CEO can answer, which is the point. Mix teams across departments and seniority so the game introduces people who rarely work together.

The best addition is a custom column about your own company, with its founding year, its first product, and its office legends. Leaders who hand out the prizes rather than compete tend to get the most goodwill.

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