If you’ve ever attended a company team building event that felt forced and ending up wishing that you were anywhere else, then you’ll probably want to ensure that any similar events you hold for your own employees are genuinely interesting and fun to attend.
A team that works well together will be happier, more productive, and more likely to stick around at your company for longer – after all, the people who you’re working with can make or break your job. However, if your team aren’t getting to know one another naturally in the workplace, team building exercises and events can help to strengthen their bond. We’ve listed some of the best ways to make team building fun.
#1. Ask for Ideas
One of the biggest mistakes that employers make when coming up with team building exercises is to leave the team out of the decision in the first place. Chances are, if you spring a team building idea on your employees that they’ve had no input in, they’re not going to be feeling extra enthusiastic about it. On the other hand, getting your employees themselves to tell you what they’d prefer to do to improve teamwork can gain you better results all-round, and make the whole experience more fun for everybody involved.
#2. Don’t Force It
Whilst team building exercises can work well for helping your team to communicate better, get faster at solving problems, and collaborating with people that they don’t normally work with on a day to day basis, one of the biggest problems is that forcing this to happen at a team building event doesn’t always transfer well into working life.
The last thing that you want is for your team to work well together at the event, only to fall back into old habits upon their return to the office. Instead, give your team scenarios to work with and allow them to naturally form teams that work well for them. Encouragement may be needed, however, it’s always best to work out natural strengths and weaknesses and take it from there.
#3. Get Out of the Office
Your team will spend all day together in the office, so it’s a good idea to hold your team building events somewhere different. A different environment and atmosphere can be great for everybody and could encourage shyer and quieter members of staff to come out of their shell a little bit. For example, getting everybody together for a dinner party or a night out will be a relaxed, informal atmosphere where employees don’t have to worry about work and can simply get to know one another. Or, you could arrange for a day of helping out at a charity or doing some community service in line with company values.
#4. Use Innovative Ideas
When you think of team building, you probably have a few pictures that come to mind of the usual team building exercises that many employees impose on their staff members. For example, employee sports days or building things out of household items are common ideas that tend to be overused. Instead, come up with new and interesting team building event ideas that will appeal to your employees simply because they’ve never seen anything like this done before. For example, why not try a zombie survival event using an event planner london, a bring your pet to work day, or even a workplace cooking or baking competition! If you’re stuck for ideas, then handing a suggestion box to your employees is a great idea as it’ll get them involved right from the start.
Share your best team building event ideas in the comments below!