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You’ve noticed that your team had to work extra hours everyday for the past few weeks to finish projects for clients. Because of this, you’ve decided to hire new employees to relieve the team from their workload, but realized the new hires haven’t been integrated in the team. Sounds like it’s time to plan a team building event!
Team-building events are activities, games, or meetings that create cohesion in a group and make bonds between the members stronger. Companies often organize team building events to help their employees get to know each other and motivate them to respect one another. They are also designed to encourage better communication and collaboration among team members. Team-building events can be virtual, in-person, indoor, or outdoor, and can be hosted for a small or a large group.
Employees are the most valuable asset a company has. Workers’ happiness increases productivity and diminishes absenteeism. For that reason, it is important that businesses invest in their workforce and focus on team building events which are designed to make employees happy. Some additional benefits are:
1. Bring People Together in Fun Ways
Following the pandemic, more and more companies switched to permanent remote or hybrid-work. Team building events are a way to gather people together to create fun memories and strengthen bonds between employees. It is an opportunity for workers who don’t get to work together on an everyday basis to learn more about each other while doing something fun!
2. Can Relieve Tension or Conflicts
Poor communication or inadequate training are some of many causes of tension or conflicts at work. Employees’ wellbeing is essential. If workers are not happy at work, they won’t be productive, which is bad for a company. Luckily, there’s a solution to resolve tension and conflicts: organize a fun team-building event! Identify the source of the problem and choose an activity that will help relieve tension.
3. A Great Way to Celebrate Milestones
Acknowledging and rewarding hard work is definitely something that will reduce employees’ absenteeism and turnover. No accomplishment should go unnoticed and sometimes, a thank you or congratulations note is not enough! Planning a team building event to celebrate company and employees’ milestones will for sure keep everyone motivated for future achievements.
4. Improve Communication Skills
Communication in the workplace is a key element to a company’s success. Team-building events are designed to encourage employees to communicate with each other to complete tasks in an environment outside of work. Communication skills that they will gain from the event will be transferable to the office.
5. Boost Morale Amongst Teams
Employee morale is the reflection of how healthy a company culture is. Planning a fun team building event for your team will show them that you care about them and support them, which will boost their morale.
Bring out the adventurous spirit of your employees with this fun and challenging activity. From the comfort of their home, remote teams will work together to try to escape the room by solving puzzles, a murder, and other mysteries before the time runs out.
We love this team-building activity because it requires creative problem-solving, communication, and builds collaboration among the team members.
There’s a murder in the building. Don’t wait! Put on your detective hat and become Sherlock Holmes for a slice of time. Working together as a team to which character is the killer is a great way to bond with your coworkers while developing skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving.
Time to sit back and relax! Virtual happy hour events are a way for employees to connect and have conversations outside of work. When you organize the event, send personalized invitations with a cocktail and mocktail recipe for the team to try out during the event. You can also prepare icebreaker questions to start conversations and have fun activities and games to do. This type of team building event develops communication and critical thinking skills.
A fun and creative way to discover the artist in you and your team! Skribbl is an online version of Pictionary. The free multiplayer drawing and guessing game will develop creative thinking and communication skills among your team members. Each person will take turns drawing a work that the rest of the team will have to guess in writing. Laughters guaranteed!
This philanthropic virtual team building event is designed to turn competition into donations. We love this virtual party game that allows your team to complete challenges while raising awareness around local and global issues. By achieving challenges, employees will earn points that can be turned into dollars to be donated to charity that helps with food insecurity and clean water, health and wellness, environmental awareness, and community support.
The scavenger hunt starts in 3, 2, 1, GO! The first team that gathers all the items on the list wins the hunt. Keep your employees excited and on their toes with this challenging activity that requires team members to cooperate and collaborate.
We love this thrilling and adventurous team-building activity that develops critical thinking and decision making skills.
Awaken your team’s competitive spirit with fun and engaging games that will activate their athletic ability. Don’t worry about the weather as this team building event can take place indoor or outdoor. To keep members excited during the event, you can prepare a playlist that will boost their energy levels, and don’t skip warm-up to avoid anyone getting hurt. When forming the teams, split members fairly to avoid teams from having an advantage over others. Also assign color to each team member for easy identification.
Time to loosen up with this simple and entertaining team building event that is great to develop creative-thinking, planning, and cooperation skills. Participants are divided into groups and write down a bunch of words. Taking turns, teams pick a word randomly. The objective is for the teams to create words with their bodies in a specific amount of time. The fastest team wins!
Looking for a fun team building event idea for a large group? Why not (no pun intended!) play the Human Knot game? This activity will develop skills such as teamwork, collaboration, and problem solving. Work together as a team to try to break free from the knot. Your team will come out of these even closer as they were during the game.
Played virtually or in the office, trivia is the perfect way to bond with your team and to challenge each other’s knowledge in topics unrelated to work. Suited for a large group because you can break the participants in smaller teams. You can make the team building event more fun by asking groups to come up with a unique name. If you don’t have the inspiration to come up with your own questions, it’s not a problem. There are many trivia organizations that your company could hire to host a trivia event at your office.
11. Karaoke Night
What a better way to discover the hidden singing talents (or not) of your coworkers than by hosting a karaoke night? To encourage them to break out of their shells, you can have a contest and reward the best performance. Keep in mind that this team building event idea is best suited for extroverted groups.
Although you should never lie, with this icebreaker team building activity you’ll get to know each other even better. The rules are simple: sitting in a circle, participants each take turns to tell everyone three things about themselves, except that only two of which are true. Will you be able to tell who is the best liar of the team?
Don’t panic! You won’t have to break any telephone to play this team-building game. Instead, you will get to test and improve your team’s communication skills. The rules? Lining up in a circle and keeping a distance from each other, team members will have to pass a message without altering its meaning by whispering the phrase into the next person’s ear. The goal? The last person in line must say the phrase out loud. If the sentence is incorrect, the team will have to identify where the telephone is broken and the member who distorted the message will have to move to the end of the line.
Each participant is given a note card with the name of a famous person written on it. Without taking a peek (otherwise it is not fun!) participants take turns asking a yes or no question to try and guess the name of the character assigned to them. To avoid cheating and make it even more fun, have members display the name on a Post-it note that they have to stick to their forehead. This activity is a great icebreaker and a way to improve communication skills.
This team-building activity will encourage your team problem-solving and communication skills while having fun! Each small group is assigned a written problem. Before reading it, teams will nominate one member to be excluded from the group and be “the clueless”. This member’s goal will be to solve the problem under a definite amount of time. We love this activity that develops problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills.
This company team building event idea will give everyone the opportunity to boost each other’s self-esteem and acknowledge employees’ accomplishments. Workers’ happiness is crucial for success and there is nothing more rewarding than feeling appreciated for the work we do. Shout Outs give the opportunity to every employee to either receive acknowledgement for their achievements or to callout coworkers for their good deeds. This exercise is great for appreciation, boosting morale, and public speaking.
What’s great with this team building event besides that it does not require a lot of time and money to organize it? Icebreaker quizzes are designed to develop critical thinking and communication skills while learning more about your coworkers. They are a great way to build camaraderie and to bring remote teams closer. They can be used any time a new hire joins the team or at the beginning of meetings and calls.
Similar to the American television show, this team building event will get team members to bring out their entrepreneurial spirit. Splitted into teams, participants will present their imaginary product pitch in front of mock investors – “Sharks” – in an attempt to persuade them to invest in it. The team that gets the most investments wins. It is a great way to develop skills such as unconventional thinking, collaboration, entrepreneurship, and teamwork.
Surely your team will have a blast with this entertaining activity that does not require a lot of planning. Organize the players into teams and have them stand behind the start line. Taking turns, one team member will have to place a blindfold on their eyes and retrieve an object that another team member put somewhere in the room or outside. Ready, set, go! Time to give instructions to the blind retriever to help him find the object before the other team does. The first team that gets the object wins. We love this team building exercise that develops communication and listening skills.
Who does not love food? Organizing a potluck will give the chance for your team to bond over shared delicious meals. You can make the event even more fun by picking a theme, for example a “Family Favorites” theme would be a great way to learn more about your teammates' taste. It can also be a way to learn about a new culture by cooking meals from other countries.
Kayaking and canoeing provides the opportunity for your employees to cool-off on a hot day and to create fun memories together. We recommend participants to pair up with people they don’t usually get to spend time with to encourage them to create new relationships. This outdoor experience encourages teamwork and communication skills.
If you are hosting a team building event in a destination nobody’s been to before, doing something touristy is the occasion to learn more about the place while having fun. You can also become a tourist in your own city and do an activity you have never done before such as a food tour, ghost tour, segway tour, and more!
Watch out for banana peels! Make the race even more fun by encouraging your team to wear Mario characters’ costumes. This outdoor team-building activity promotes team collaboration to achieve a common objective. This thrilling activity will transform your coworkers into firm competitors. Who will win the race?
Compared to the other great ideas for team building events that we have covered, a yoga or meditation session does not require participants to outwardly communicate or collaborate. Being in the open air will help you feel more connected to the environment and help you release stress. Yoga and meditation is a great way to develop skills such as trust, collaboration, and empathy.
There’s nothing more rewarding than knowing that you are doing something good for others. You’ll feel great about it and bond with other team members. Place-based volunteering ideas include volunteering at a local animal shelter, delivering food for persons in need, or delivering gifts to children in hospitals during the holidays.
Skill-based volunteering gives the opportunity to employees to volunteer their time and use their professional skills to help a nonprofit organization.
Put your apron on, get ready for a culinary team building experience! From French to Italian or even Japanese, there are many types of cuisines to choose from. After you finish cooking, you will have plenty of time to bond with your team through conversation while enjoying your delicious meal.
This relaxing team building event is perfect to let your team unwind and be creative. At a painting class, you can create art with your coworkers and get to know each other in a casual atmosphere. No need to be the future Picasso, the goal is to have fun, not to create a masterpiece!
Unleash your coworkers’ competitive side from the comfort of the office. Based on the number of participants, you can split members into groups so they can each take turns and play a single game. You can also set up different games and everyone can pick which game they want to play. Encourage participation by offering rewards for the first, second, and third place.
Laser tag is a thrilling and realistic simulated combat experience that will for sure get your team’s adrenaline pumping. This fun team bonding game encourages team members to use their strategy, teamwork, and logic skills. With this type of event, you can be sure that nobody will be bored!
People from all ages and skill levels can participate in this fun and competitive team building activity. The relaxing atmosphere encourages teamwork and interpersonal relationships. Participants will learn to cheer and encourage each other which is something that can easily be transferable in the office when working on team projects.
You must first determine what you wish to accomplish during the team building event. Once you have defined your goals, you will be able to decide which activities or challenges will best help you achieve them. If your objectives are to improve your team’s communication and problem solving skills, a murder mystery team-building event would be a good pick. Or if your goal is to encourage conversations among your team, you might want to consider organizing icebreaker activities.
With your objectives in mind, you now must determine a budget for the team-building event. Keep it realistic and make sure it aligns with your goals. If your company has organized team building events in the past, it is a good idea to look at the previous budget to get a sense of a budget. And don’t worry, there are many team-building event ideas that don’t require a big budget even not at all, such as volunteering.
It can be challenging to organize a team building event. There are many things to think about and to prepare, which makes it difficult for only one person to plan it. For that reason, it is important to delegate responsibilities by setting up a planning team. Working together with a team will facilitate the task.
When organizing a team building event, you want to make sure that it is beneficial to employees that are the most in need. Identify which teams could gain the most from it, who needs to develop or acquire new skills. Also, you might have to decide who to invite to the team building event based on the budget that you have set up.
Once you have identified the goals of the team building event and set a budget, it should be easy for you to choose an activity that will allow you to accomplish them. To encourage participation, choose activities that are interactive, engaging, and that boost collaboration among team members.
This part can be tricky, especially if you are planning a team building event for a large number of people whose schedules are different from each other. Choose a time that best suits everyone to make sure that they can participate in the event. If you are planning an outdoor event, choose the day and time accordingly with the weather.
Make sure to pick a location that can accommodate the amount of people that you are planning to invite to the team building event. It also needs to be suitable for the activities that you are planning to do.
Encourage participation and boost excitement among participants by marketing the event internally. Share with the employees the agenda for the event so that they know what to expect, and explain the benefits of participating in the team building event.
Now that you know what team-building events are and understand their many benefits, it is time to use some of our fun team building event ideas to plan your next one! We assure you that your team will have a great time and be even more happier to work at a company like yours.
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