Team Building Events To Boost Your Bottom Line

Team building is no longer a luxury activity, the preserve of burgeoning profit centres. Instead, it is fast becoming an essential development strand for any company, large or small, wanting to survive and thrive in today’s competitive business environment. Read on to find out how to ensure your team building events gain the greatest return on investment. We also share our top tips on ‘How To Host a Team Building Event’…

Often, team building has a bad reputation. The mere mention causes some employees to break out into a cold sweat with thoughts of cringing scenes from The Office, near-fatal trust games involving falling backwards off tables, and the dreaded ‘ROLE PLAY’ session.

The clue is in the name – team building builds teams. And well-built teams consist of engaged employees, which ultimately is good for the company culture and boosts your bottom line.

In essence, team building is an event or activity that encourages a group of employees to work together cohesively towards a common shared goal. Strong teams are forged by forming bonds and connections that mutually benefit the employee and the organisation.

As an event planner, your challenge is to design an event that breaks down all stereotypes and definitely doesn’t cause cold sweats! Creating fun, motivational, and significantly appropriate activities for your team will help colleagues nurture skills such as communication, planning, problem-solving, and conflict resolution. These activities will facilitate long-term team building by fostering genuine connections, deeper discussions, and processing.

In my experience, whatever the company, the most effective and memorable team building events don’t feel like a day at work. Entertaining activities help people see each other in a different light and allow them to connect on a deeper level in diverse settings.

Alas, there is no off-the-shelf, one size fits all formula or event plan. Instead, each working group is different and has its own vibe and personality. While one of the points of corporate retreats and team building exercises is to push individuals to get outside their comfort zone, you don’t want them traumatised or dreading the next event. Identify the personalities of your team members and develop a planned activity that will appeal to all of them. You may also find holding a team building activity can be short and sweet, or it can be a more complex event with detailed planning.

The benefits of a team building event for work are vast and can include

• Networking, socialising, and getting to know each other better
• Teamwork and boosting team performance
• Competition and bragging rights
• Celebration, team spirit, fun, and motivation
• Enhance company culture
• Create something to look forward to
• Show employees appreciation
• Build bridges across departments
• Unlock leadership potential
• Improve employee engagement and morale

Many people choose to group the benefits into the three Cs:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Camaraderie

? Activity Ideas

Silent building challenge

Ask your team to build paper chains only using one hand and without speaking—materials required-a stack of paper, one pair of scissors and one roll of tape per team. You’ll see them tap into deep-rooted problem-solving abilities, maybe even they didn’t realise they had. They might even develop better communication skills when they can’t fall back on speech.

Cocktail Creation

Each group works together to design a bespoke cocktail or mocktail. Items for consideration and discussion could be the drink’s theme, ingredients, mixing techniques, and the all-important name. With expert help and supervision from legendary mixologists at Cocktail Chemistry.

Read our case study about a two-day international event in the Netherlands for a global consultancy firm. Team building was a substantial element of the agenda, and what could be more iconically Dutch than Windmill Building? Hosted on the magnificent sand dunes, using an A-frame with one person standing inside, the remaining team members had to transport the frame (and the person!) from one point to another. As you can imagine, it was as challenging as it was hilarious! We also developed two beach-based team-building exercises, including a blindfolded assault course.

It’s no surprise communication and working together better go hand in hand. Everybody wants a harmonious work environment where people are comfortable and happy to talk to and work with anyone.

One of the best team-building outcomes is that the activities improve communication.

• Active listening
• Clear and concise articulation of ideas
• Professional and polite delivery of the message
• Follow-up and responsibility
• Non-verbal and verbal vibes

? Activity Ideas

Host a Dragons Den Challenge

Teams work together to develop their business concept or new product and pitch it to a panel of judges. The theme could relate to your business area or be something totally abstract. Communication skills are required throughout the activity to articulate all team members’ opinions, ideas, and contributions clearly. Want to take it to the next level? Shoot TikTok advertising videos for your new brand or product.

Adrenalin Pumping Experiences

How about hosting an event at Mercedes-Benz World, an incredible setting for corporate and team building events. What better way to get co-workers actively communicating than participating in adrenaline-pumping driving experiences like 4×4 G-Class driving or Virtual Simulator Zone Races?

Don’t have time to spend the whole day out of the office, why not arrange an evening at an activity bar? The combination of a fun atmosphere, quirky and unique experiences with a healthy dose of competition is perfect for team bonding. Read our Activity Bars Blog with everything from axe throwing, darts, and electric shuffle to pétanque and clay pigeon shooting!

Employees with solid connections to co-workers generally have better work experiences. Fostering those employee relationships is just one purpose of team building. Even if employees gain no new skills during a team building event, they’re still spending time together, getting the opportunity to build better relationships with their colleagues to increase productivity in the virtual, hybrid, or in-person workplace.

? Activity Idea

Create a Boomwhacker Orchestra

Transform your team into a colourful Boomwhacker orchestra for a unique team building or icebreaker activity. The plastic tubes create vibrant music, with each colour playing its own distinct note under the creative lead of an expert facilitator. The session is fun, energising, engaging and perfect for 5 to 500 guests. We loved working with Creative Team Events using these for a recent corporate event in Amsterdam.

• Reflect on your team’s strengths and weaknesses to determine what you wish to accomplish during your event.
• Set your objectives. Goals will be different for each event and team.
• Choose or design team building activities that cater to these objectives.
• Enlist people on your team to help with planning, set-up, etc. Not only will this lessen your load, but it will also encourage buy-in and participation.
• Find a venue – Eventify can help with this and have bags of experience, ideas and connections. Our venue-finding service is free, and often brokers exclusive deals and rates.
• Send invitations or save-the-date details.
• Stir up interest and pre-event excitement.
• Run the event. Don’t forget you’re an employee too and will benefit from team building! Get some helping hands onsite from Eventify to run the event and give you a chance to participate in your brilliantly planned activities
• Evaluate your success by sending out a poll or survey after your event. You can use the objectives you set earlier if you’re wondering what questions to ask and what metrics to measure.

I hope I’ve convinced you that team building events needn’t be avoided and are actually the best investment any company can make. When organised well, they are proven to improve employee engagement and boost your business’s bottom line. And thankfully, there’s no sign of David Brent!!

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Diary of a Party Girl x

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