Team building may not have the best reputation in the minds of your employees. In fact, it’s often shown to be the butt of the joke in many workplace comedy or sitcom. However don’t let that throw you off or demotivate you, because team building is one of the most essential things you can do to get your employees working well together. It is proven to improve motivation, productivity and communication within your office, as well as collaboration. All of this leads to more engaged and happier staff. Which will help your business in the long run, as more engaged employees leads to better results in their work and for your company.
Team building doesn’t have to blow the bank either. While fun outings or fancy office dinners are always enjoyable, budgets don’t always allow for such extravagant occasions. But fear not as there are plenty of fun, cost effective activities you can take part in within your office. Here are some of our favourite team building office games and activities we would recommend.
1. Office Trivia Night
Who doesn’t love a good pub quiz? Quiz games are the perfect way to challenge your staff in areas that don’t apply to their regular job. Separate your staff into teams of four or more and provide small prizes for the winning team. When writing your own questions, separate each round into different categories (general knowledge, sport, film and music etc.), with four to five questions per round and the possibility of adding a bonus question. This is a fun way to get members of your staff communicating and working with each other to figure out the answers.
2. Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are one of the oldest ways to get people to interact and collaborate. You can get your team to complete a simple scavenger hunt inside, or liven things up a bit and take it outside. Make a list of items each group has to collect or tasks they have to complete. Examples of these could be “take a photo of a team member with a happy dog” or “Get a takeaway menu from a local restaurant”. Set a time limit to complete all the tasks and pick a spot to meet once the hunt is over and award prizes to the winning team. Here’s a list of suggestions for tasks.
3. Cook-off
A fun culinary challenge that requires everyone to put their team and leadership skills into action. Divide up your office into smaller teams and decide on a food category, good ideas for this would be something like pizza, and challenge them to create something delicious. A fun twist to add would be to pick an ingredient that everyone has to include. It’s a fun activity that is hands on and requires people to work together for it to go well, and even if it goes horribly wrong it’s still fun to take part in.
4. Team Building Games
A quick and easy way to take part in some quality team building is through some classic team building games. Here are some of our favourites.
Blind Drawing
This game is similar to charades but with a twist and is played in groups of two. Two people sit back to back, one with drawing materials the other with a picture. The one with the picture has 60 seconds to describe what it is for the other to draw using only adjectives to describe the picture. This game is perfect for improving communication skills and highlighting the importance of giving clear, precise instructions.
Magic Cane
This game tests your teams problem solving skills and ability to work together. In this game, a group of six or eight people have to work together in order to lower a stick to the ground. The group makes two lines facing each other and the stick is placed in the middle at the height of the tallest persons chest. Their index finger must touch the stick at all times and can’t curl around it. It’s a deceptively hard challenge designed so that everyone must work together in order to succeed. Enforcing the idea that everyone is equal and important within your office.
Perfect square
This game can be played with groups of four to eight people, and the aim of the game is for the group to form a perfect square using rope while blindfolded. Have the group stand in a circle while holding a piece of rope tied at the ends and have it place it on the ground. Once the rope is on the ground have them put on their blindfolds and then take five steps away from the rope. Once everyone is blindfolded tell them to arrange the rope into a square as best as they can. This game promotes teamwork, leadership and communication, as it relies entirely on the team talking to one another in order to attempt to achieve their goal. If you want to try to make the game a bit more difficult you can place a time limit onto the group, or ask them to turn the rope into different, more difficult shapes.
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