Team building activities are valuable opportunities for the growth of your employees. It allows you and your team to take a break from the usual office routine while fostering collaboration and sharpening their interpersonal skills.
The usual benefits of team building activities are increased trust, positive interactions at work, and increase in employee morale among others. Each company plans out its programs differently, and not all yield desired results. So, if you’re planning on your company’s next team building activities, you’d want to check out this list of things you need to keep in mind for it to be a success.
Why do you have a team building? Are you trying to develop a new company culture, welcoming newer members to the organization, or searching for a new process to improve work ethic? Give your employees food for thought; something they can keep in mind for the duration of the event. This will help you have a streamlined topic when you share your experiences with your co-workers later on. Plus, knowing the why is also a motivating factor for them to join the activity.
Create games where your employees will have to work together, not against each other. If you have too many activities that encourage competition, they may fall blind to the core message of the team building activity and instead focus on winning. While it’s inevitable to split your members into different groups, let them focus on unique techniques in solving problems rather than winning against other teams.
Highlight what you want your team to learn by crafting activities that have specific objectives. For instance, you may want to hone your team’s ability to follow directions, flesh out their problem-solving skills, or develop their leadership skills. In any case, this will streamline your activities, and you’ll be able to convey the message you want to teach your team better.
Other people’s idea of a team building includes some race or sport for it to be enjoyable. While those formats are standard, you may have to deliberate before you decide with taking on extremely physical activities. Some of your team members may have health issues that can prevent them to participate, and this isn’t what you want to accomplish for a team building activity. The same goes with food—make sure your members have food to eat and drink to be able to recharge but take note of their diet restrictions and allergies as well.
Perhaps it would be a better idea if you hold your team building activity outside the four walls of your office space. The new venue can also have recreational areas for your team to relax in between breaks from the games, creating a place for natural conversations to occur. You can choose a location where nature is more prominent so that you can all enjoy uninterrupted time with others, or you can also plan activities in malls for added fun. Your team building activities can double as vacation time of your employees, too—don’t limit yourselves when picking a venue!
Just for the duration of your activities, let go of hierarchy within the company. Make everyone in your team feel like they are equals and that each one is important in the success of your business, including the newer members of the company.
Allow them to be heard. Encourage them to suggest new ideas, approach managers with ease, and be themselves. This is an essential step of building trust and openness within the group. If you have extremely shy or distrustful members, it might affect the outcome of your event. Develop an atmosphere where everyone is comfortable.
Set a time to talk about your experiences after the activities by talking about what you learned and ways on how you think it could’ve gotten better. Ask your team members how they felt after each activity and what they learned from it.
You may also choose to hand out an anonymous survey after a couple of days so that you can get unfiltered feedback from everyone else in the team. Use their feedback to improve your next team building activity.
Don’t forget to have fun while you’re in the team building event! After all, the key here is still to get closer to your team members and create a broader sense of camaraderie that will hopefully transcend to the office.
If you’re interested in taking it a step further, you can attend workshops and seminars that teach how to conduct productive yet fun team building activities, like Guthrie Jensen Consultants’ Team Building 101: Gearing Up the Team for Higher Performance and Strengthening Trust in Teams programs to build positive work relations in your company.
Keeping all of this mind, you’re geared to make your next team building a huge success!
Filed Under Leadership & Management
