Strong teams are essential to business success, but it’s about more than sourcing the right talent. You also need a cohesive working environment in which each employee amplifies each other’s strengths and contributes to the larger business goals.
One of the most effective ways to create a culture of respect and collaboration is to focus on camaraderie through team-building events. When teams can take a break from the day-to-day grind and enjoy activities together, it builds a stronger bond with everyone. Fortunately, there are many fun and creative ways you can make team events part of your business.
Volunteer as a Group
Community volunteer work is often seen as a service instead of a fun activity. However, there can be a lot of joy that comes from bringing the team together and getting involved in achieving good things for other people.
Talk to your local organizations to see how you can help. Your team may volunteer together at a local soup kitchen, clean up a local city park, adopt a highway, or work with animals at a shelter. Volunteering as a team instead of individually gives you several opportunities to create positive conversations among team members.
Volunteer work also helps teams learn to work together. As they build teamwork outside of work, that camaraderie will transfer to the office setting in the process.
Try an Escape Room
Escape rooms are a fun activity for a family or group of friends, but it can also help a workplace team come together. Escape rooms are themed challenges that put participants in a room with the goal of “escaping” in a set period of time – often 30-60 minutes.
To complete an escape room, you need to work closely with your team to find clues, solve puzzles, and complete riddles. In some challenges, you need to use communication to help team members open up boxes, unlock doors, or finish multi-step challenges. It’s a great way to not only improve communication but problem solving and trust.
Escape rooms have a time limit, so they’re an easy activity to add to the workday to promote team building. They’re also good for introducing new employees to the team and getting them immersed in the company culture.
Attend a Cooking Class
Cooking classes are another fun activity for teams to enjoy together. Cooking a meal and sharing it together has always been a social experience, and learning new skills as a work team can have a similar result.
While a culinary class can be stressful for some, they tend to be appropriate for different skill levels, easy to follow, and guided by professional chefs or instructors. Cooking different types of cuisine together also introduces diversity and cultural sensitivity into the group, giving everyone an opportunity to talk about the foods they grew up cooking and eating.
Take a Creative Workshop
Team workshops are a creative way to get employees working together toward a goal. While some workshops put everyone to work on the same project, others may put everyone into small groups with a focus on completing different steps first, like a scavenger hunt.
Workshops can be business- or industry-specific, but they don’t have to be. For example, you can arrange a group pottery workshop or painting event to let your employees engage their creativity. Improv classes are good for pushing people’s comfort zones and helping them improve their public speaking and confidence.
Play Games
Games are fun for just about everyone. Consider hosting a game day at your office to give your employees a break from the daily workload. Close the office down early or schedule a special day near the holiday break to provide some downtime and fun with everyone.
For game day, organize board game tournaments, mock casinos, or video game challenges. If you really want to make an event of it, hire a caterer with a spread for breaks.
Game days can build camaraderie between different departments organically. Depending on the size of your business, these events may be one of the few times everyone is in the same room together, so make it an exciting event that inspires watercooler talk and shared stories for weeks to come.
Host Team Trivia
Arranging a trivia night is another way to get teams together after hours and build morale with one another. Trivia nights can take place in the office, at a local bar or restaurant, or anywhere that allows public events.
When you host the trivia night yourself, you’re responsible for creating the questions. Consider creating trivia based on the people in the workplace, such as likes or dislikes. You could also have trivia themes based on your industry or sector. There are no right or wrong ways, as long as you keep it professional.
Trivia events are more than just a fun activity, however. They also build your team’s critical thinking skills and build better communication and teamwork.
Have an Outdoor Adventure
Working in an office setting and staring at four walls for long periods of time can be draining. Look for opportunities to get your teams outside and give them a literal “breath of fresh air.”
Some examples include planning a hike on a local trail, going for a team bike ride, or booking a kayak tour on the local river. Depending on everyone’s fitness level, this can be a good way to unwind from a busy office setting and connect with one another. You could even keep it smaller with activities like a picnic or games like volleyball at a local park.
Planning regular outdoor activities together is a good way to prioritize health as well. The exercise helps your employees stay in shape and releases endorphins that can reduce stress and anxiety.
Conduct a Skill-Sharing Session
Employees on a team have their unique strengths, but they can still share their skills and experience with others to make everyone stronger. A great way to achieve this is with skill-sharing sessions with your teams.
You can host skill-sharing sessions with outside professionals or allow other employees to host them. Consider anything that can help build hard and soft skills, such as graphic design, coding, web design, and photography. These sessions can create learning opportunities for employees while helping them push their own comfort zones.
Plan a Mystery Dinner
Companies usually have events from time to time, usually at an event hall or restaurant. Instead of planning a basic dinner, make it a fun time with a mystery dinner party. You could even make it themed.
The basics of a mystery dinner is that the whole party is involved, but no one knows what “role” they play in the night. This can bring different team members from different departments together who don’t normally have a chance to associate and encourages them to make new connections.
Host the Office Olympics
Healthy competition is a good way to motivate everyone toward a common goal. Hosting “Office Olympics” can be a fun way to inject some excitement into the workplace and can be structured as an annual or biannual event for everyone to look forward to.
Come up with fun individual and team games for everyone to compete in. Keep it fun with silly games like building paper airplanes or spoon-and-egg races with office chairs. For prizes, purchase custom trophies or give out prizes for gold, silver, and bronze. Don’t forget to include these events in branded videos and on your website!
Make Work Fun
Investing in more team-building activities is always a win. Let these ideas inspire your activities – or come up with some creative options of your own – to improve your company culture and help your employees build stronger work bonds.
Author Name: Cameron Magee
Author Bio: Cameron Magee, the owner of avad3 Event Production, is a passionate and dedicated professional who began his journey in event production as a curious 12-year-old at his childhood church. Today, he leads a team of hard-working production professionals, having built avad3 from his college dorm room into a national production company, committed to both client success and the well-being of his team.
