Organising a team building day can be tough. It’s often a challenge to find an activity that everyone is interested in and drum up enthusiasm to attend. Yet, with more people working from home than ever before or facing COVID-19 restrictions, coming together and reconnecting as a team has never been so important.
Team building activities are a great way to improve communication, morale and productivity, and help team members get to know each other better. Even high-performing teams can benefit from taking part in team building exercises.
We share eight easy and fun team building activities to consider below.
1. Amazing Race
A scavenger hunt or Amazing Race style event is a popular team building activity that encourages teams to work together to overcome roadblocks in a race around their local area.
Split your team into smaller groups who’ll compete against each other to be crowned the winners. This style of event encourages your team to develop their time management, delegation and communication skills without even realising – because they’re focused on having fun. You can incorporate unusual aspects like hire-by-hour bikes or boats, taking a selfie with a stranger or local landmark, or eating an unusual meal.
Scavenger hunts work for small and large teams; if you’ve got a big group, it might be worth outsourcing to a corporate events company that can tailor an Amazing Race experience to suit your team.
2. Egg drop
You may remember this classic problem-solving challenge from being a kid. Groups compete to build a structure that prevents a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a height of 10 feet or more.
This activity works best with smaller teams of 3-5 people. Each group receives building materials including cardboard, newspaper, plastic straws, sticky tape and other office supplies to build their egg-protection package in 15 or 30 minutes. Once the time is up, each team must present a short promotion for their package, explaining how the structure works to protect the egg. Then, each group drops their egg from a designated spot to see if their design works!
Egg drop is a simple (if messy) team building exercise that uses teamwork, communication and problem solving, bringing teams together to create the ultimate design. To extend this activity, you could reduce the construction time or drop the eggs from increasingly greater heights.
3. Escape room
Escape rooms are a popular team building activity where small teams work together to achieve a common goal – to escape the room! Groups are placed into a locked room and must find their way out by discovering clues, solving puzzles and deciphering riddles within a set time.
Escape rooms encourage your team to flex their lateral thinking muscles and communication skills and will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of individuals and the team as a whole. They’re a simple, outsourced team building activity where all you have to do is turn up.
Escape room venues can tailor a package to suit your team in terms of difficulty and duration – and some escape room facilitators even run them online if you have employees working remotely.
4. Human knot
Human knot is a well-known team building activity that can be used at any time for a reset focused on communication and teamwork.
Ask up to 20 team members to stand in a circle facing each other, then put their right hand out and grab a random hand from somebody across the circle. Ask them to do the same with their left hand and a different person. Give the group a time limit of 15 or 30 minutes to untangle the knot of arms without letting go of anyone’s hands.
Human knot is a popular activity at workshops to get participants back into the teamwork mindset after a break. If your team is larger than 20, split them into smaller groups and have them compete to untangle themselves the fastest.
5. Axe throwing
An unexpected team building activity, axe throwing is something few people will have tried before. For this reason, it’s a great ice breaker, confidence builder and conversation starter.
Axe throwing will bring your team members out of their comfort zones and encourage them to get to know each other better in a fun, relaxed and totally unique environment. Sessions generally run for 1-2 hours and can be combined with catering packages if you’d like to extend the activity.
6. Cooking or cocktail making class
Cooking or cocktail making classes are much-loved team building activities that bring your team together to create and enjoy something delicious they’ve made.
From dumplings to Japanese, pizza, pasta, BBQ or more, you can ask your team to vote for the cuisine they’d most like to cook, then put your feet up while a commercial kitchen or bar takes care of the rest. If your workplace has a no-alcohol policy, you can still enjoy delicious mocktails and bar snacks.
If you’ve been tasked with organising a team building activity within your business, think about the outcomes you’d like to achieve when deciding on the best activity for your group. If your event will split a large team into smaller groups, consider engineering the group outcomes to ensure team members are working with people they may usually have limited interaction with.
Team building activities are a proven way to encourage a healthy, high-performing team culture in your workplace. Consider holding an event quarterly or every six months to get the best from your team.
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