Team-building activities can be an essential part of creating a stronger bond amongst co-workers and an effective way of boosting productivity. There’s no reason to think of team building as something that only boosts productivity—there’s much more to it! This means that the idea of team building can potentially be taken up a level, giving employees and employers something more.
There may be some hesitation as to what this will entail, but it’s not something that should worry anybody who is thinking of organizing team-building events. There are some very simple steps that you can take to ensure that your workers get more out of their team-building day than normal. Why not give them a read in order to see if there’s anything that you might not have thought about before?
How to go about taking team building further
Taking team building to the next level isn’t too difficult and can actually be broken down into seven different steps. Some tips may be more valuable than others, but you should aim to reach all of them so that you can be certain that your team-building activities are taken to the next level.
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Ask your workers for ideas
When it comes to planning such events, there’s no doubt going to be some disgruntlement from certain employees. Some will prefer outdoor team-building activities and games, whereas others would prefer to stay away from that and pursue indoor activities. Instead of deciding on something yourself, take it to the next level by getting some input from workers.
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Get your workers to take a more active role in organizing
As an extension of the previous tip, actually get the workers to help you in organizing something. Even though it might sound like just an excuse to get help in what could be a rather laborious task, it is, in fact, a sneaky way of taking team building to the next level. It will almost be like a challenge they are given without even realizing it as they have to work together to actually organise the day out.
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Ask your workers to document the day
It’s all well and good to arrange a day of team-building events, but there is always the possibility that it could ultimately lead to nothing. If the participants think of it as just a “day off” they might risk losing/forgetting all the positive contributions that they make that day and fail to bring lessons back to the workplace. In order to combat this, have each of them write down their experience.
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Make them step out of the comfort zone
One of these days should involve a task that isn’t in the regular itinerary for the workers…really try to enforce this. For example, if they are used to being stuck in a boring office all day, arrange a sports day or a sailing activity. If they are normally outdoors, then bring them in for a task of chocolate making, corporate cookery or even pottery sculpting.
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Test their knowledge
This might sound a little harsh, but there’s nothing wrong with making sure your employees are in top form when it comes to general and specific knowledge. If you are serious about taking the idea of team building to the next level, then it’s only fair that you get some sort of result. Carefully construct a team-building quiz with questions aimed at getting the answers you want to show what they really know.
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Test their strengths and weaknesses
Ordinarily, team-building days are quite generic and your employees will discover their strengths and where they need to improve by themselves. However, you should deliberately organize an activity for which you know they struggle already to see how they handle the situation. The way they react could help you see for yourself where they currently stand.
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Conduct a survey
Similarly to having employees write about the day, it’s a good idea to conduct a survey afterwards, just so that you get an idea about what the employees really thought about the events and whether there is anything you can do to improve and take it even further.
There are numerous ways in which team-building activities for adults can be taken to the next level. Those in charge of organizing such days should give these ideas some food for thought as they could prove worthwhile in getting the most out of employees. It will mean that you will also be tested since you will have to provide more creative input.
Nobody can deny that events such as team-building days can help to boost productivity, but that doesn’t mean that it has to stop there. Companies should always aim to take things to the next level, no matter what. So why not go down this route when it comes to team building? Your employees are worth it and it could prove beneficial all around.
Accomplished Events is a team-building event management company organizing exciting activities for corporate groups, aiming to work with a range of clients of all sizes to create engaging and exciting workshops for day and evening events.
Donna, thanks for putting together some tips for team-building exercises. You make a good point about how it can be a great idea to get all of your employees involved in the planning. I would think that it is important to make everyone feel like they are involved when it comes to team building. I also like that you mention how you should focus on how you can strengthen yourselves from what you learned.
Thank you for the help. We recently had a shift in management and could really use some team building opportunities. I love the idea to have the employees be a part of planning the actual activity. That would really help to break down some walls.
I’ve always thought a team building exercise would be a lot of fun. Thanks for the advice about making people step out of their comfort zone. I think this is a great idea and another great idea is to have a team building event that lasts over a weekend.
Dear, tnx first for your post. Agree totally. As a small team building organizer here in Slovenia, I found your tips very educational. Maybe I would only add that getting systematic feedback from members of an team building event, is also very good approach to organize even better events in the future. Regards, Matija, Slovenia
I appreciate the tip to conduct a survey after having employees write about the day. If I were to own a company, I would try to work with the staff to see what there was to improve and take further. Doing team building events fairly frequently to test strengths and weaknesses would also be a priority for me if I were in that type of position.
Thank Donna for sharing this great tip of Team Building Events. Team Building Events are really helping to boost productivity and strong bonding among co – workers. The last you have mentioned “Conduct a survey” is really a major point to know the improvement among employees and what we will plan fir next events