What activities should you schedule for your team-building event?
It’s one of the more difficult questions to answer when planning a company retreat or team-building session.
The sheer number of search results for “team-building activities” is enough to make you dizzy.
Of course, you could skip all this by jumping straight to our article on team-building activities, but you’ll be facing the same issue:
Which ones should you choose?
The simplest way to select the appropriate team-building activities (and set your event up for success) is to define clear goals and objectives.
You need to pin down your desired outcomes before you start planning.
Which is why in this article we’re naming the 6 most common team-building goals.
Lock in your team-building goals and give your event a purpose
Deciding on your team-building objectives early on gives you clarity and direction, making it easier to plan accordingly.
So, what are the most common team-building goals examples?
1. Team building for strengthening employee relations
“Human beings are not machines who can start working just at the push of a mere button,” says the Management Study Guide.
Your employees are complex people with their own thoughts, feelings and opinions. And their productivity at work is likely to be impacted by their relationships in the office.
If your employees are lacking emotional bonds with their teammates, they’re more likely to feel disengaged, take time off work and transition to new roles.
To improve interpersonal relationships, you’ll need to be serious about facilitating employee interactions. This means more than starting your next meeting with a few icebreaker questions.
Read more: 200 Icebreaker Questions for Work [Funny, Random, Deep and More]
By making improving employee relations the goal of your event, you can start planning activities that will help your employees to form stronger, long-lasting relationships.
Top 5 team-building activities for stronger employee relationships
- Team lunches
- Murder mystery
- Laser tag
- Community service
- Scheduled coffee breaks
2. Team building for developing skill sets
Ensuring your employees feel comfortable in their roles is beneficial for both parties.
From your perspective as an employer or manager, providing your team with the necessary skills for their jobs ensures that they complete tasks on schedule and to a high standard.
From the employee's perspective, being competent in a role helps to minimise stress and boosts job satisfaction.
So, before you can select any activities, you need to be specific about the skills you want to develop. Perhaps you’ve noticed that your team is having trouble resolving disputes? Or maybe some employees appear nervous when speaking to a large group?
These shortcomings (and many others) are resolvable with team building.
Top 5 team-building activities for improving skill sets
- Office Debates (public speaking)
- Blind Retriever (listening skills)
- Perfect square (leadership)
- Egg Drop (creative thinking)
- Paper Chains (problem-solving)
3. Team building for reducing your bottom line
Many managers get excited about organising a team-building event. That is until they see what it’s going to cost them.
The venue, facilitators, catering, transport… none of it comes for free, and it can sometimes feel difficult to justify the costs.
But the benefits of a motivated team outweigh the costs.
In fact, according to data released by TeamStage, a fully-engaged workforce can deliver twice the revenue.
And there are several reasons for this.
When your team understands each other’s work patterns and preferences, they become more communicative, efficient and productive.
From an HR perspective, stronger interpersonal connections work wonders for talent acquisition and employee retention. By minimising employee turnover, you could be saving yourself as much as $2.6 million a year.
Top 5 team-building activities for improving teamwork
- Blind Drawing
- Field days
- Corporate Castaways
- Water Balloon Dodgeball
- Escape rooms
4. Team building for defining company culture
Company culture gives your business a persona that’s felt by both your employees and your customers.
It’s a set of values, morals and objectives that permeate every fibre of your company from the furniture in your office to your social media captions.
But creating and maintaining unique company culture isn’t easy.
It demands religious consistency.
This means everything must align with the company identity. For many businesses, especially rapid scale-ups, this level of discipline is difficult to maintain.
But team-building offers a perfect opportunity to exemplify your company’s values.
With everybody together in one place, you can send clear messages about the type of company you want to be.
For example, an educational or self-development brand might want to inspire a growth mindset. To achieve this, they could facilitate regular trainings, provide a self-development budget and host exclusive webinars for their customers.
Top 5 team-building activities for building company culture
- Ongoing tournaments
- Community service
- The “healthy together” challenge
- Scheduled coffee breaks
- After-work running clubs
5. Team building for inspiring employee loyalty
When we receive gifts, we feel inclined to give something in return.
This principle is the driving force behind incentive travel programmes and is why they have become so popular in recent years.
Companies have realised that rewarding employees with exuberant travel perks drastically improves motivation, performance and engagement.
But don’t worry if your budget doesn’t stretch to an all-expenses-paid trip to the Maldives—you can achieve similar benefits with a simple team-bonding retreat.
Read more: Team Building vs. Team Bonding: What’s The Difference?
A team-bonding retreat is all about relaxing, bonding and playing fun games. They’re designed to reward employees for their contributions to your company.
Of course, you can mix team bonding with team building, by incorporating a mix of skill-development and just-for-fun games into your schedule.
Top 5 team-building activities for inspiring loyalty
- Employee beach day
- Treetop adventure
- Bubble football tournament
- Water gunfight
- Surf lesson
6. Team building for improving communication skills
Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful businesses.
Without it, there will be a disconnect between your employees, tasks will be completed incorrectly and you’ll experience more workplace conflict.
If you can get your team to communicate effectively, your employees will trust and respect each other, enabling them to raise ideas and opinions and openly discuss problems in a safe space.
As echo chambers and confirmation biases can be disastrous for your business, giving your employees the confidence to disagree is an important skill.
To maintain effective communication channels, you can host regular team-building events with games specifically designed to promote effective communication.
Top 5 team-building games for improving workplace communication
- Office Debates
- Show and Tell
- Blind Drawing
- Birthday Line Up
- 3-Question Mingle
Accomplish more with a team-building retreat
Now that we’ve got you thinking about team-building goals, you can go ahead and start planning your event!
But why not go one step further and accomplish more with a company offsite-retreat?
While a standalone team-building day is useful, what you can achieve is limited. A team-building retreat gives you more time and versatility to get real results.
So once you’ve identified your goals, reach out to us so we can help you plan your next team-building retreat.
