You know team-building activities help employees forge bonds and play off each other’s best qualities. Employees at any job want team-building efforts that encourage bonding and celebration. You’ve thought about implementing some new ones in your workplace, but maybe you’re stuck on ideas. After all, you don’t want to bore your teammates with presentations on the importance of trust between co-workers.
Luckily, you won’t have to scrounge for options much longer. Here are eight compelling ideas to use for your next team-building event.
1. Scavenger Hunt
Kick off an office scavenger hunt to test everyone’s collaborative and problem-solving abilities. Do a traditional search where employees collect items or have them take picture evidence to send to the scorekeeper. Prepare a set of rules and objectives far in advance to let everyone prepare, especially if you’re conducting a lengthy hunt. The beauty of this game? You can make it short to fit within office hours or stretch it out for an after-work or weekend competition.
Consider moving the scavenger hunt outside the office and into locations near the area. Everyone will get some fresh air and exercise, and they’ll feel freer to interact and have fun outside the workplace.
2. Artistic Events
Artistic activities provide calming relaxation after work, and you don’t have to be da Vinci to participate. Book a pottery session for your team or reserve a painting workshop for them to spread their creative wings. Art workshops offer numerous events for working with different mediums — conduct a poll among workers to see which they’d prefer. Between charcoal, watercolor, clay and woodcutting, the possibilities are nearly endless.
Make it a truly collaborative effort by constructing an office mural. Each person can work on a small canvas representing a portion of a larger image. Put them together at the end to create a shared masterpiece.
3. Inflatable House
You’re never too old to return to your fun-loving roots and jump onto an inflatable. Today’s inflatables come in numerous designs and structures that are bigger, more complex and more exciting than their previous iterations. Display your agility by zooming through an inflatable obstacle course, or relive childhood memories with a bounce house. Personalize the experience by commissioning an inflatable boasting your company’s logo or design.
4. Trivia Game
Create a trivia game by developing a set of questions on world events, celebrities, movies and more. Your team can quiz each other on tricky questions and put their knowledge to good use. That guy in IT who knows every random fact you can imagine? This game will be perfect for him.
Add a surprising twist by asking questions about your organization. How many departments do you have? What food does the cafeteria serve every Friday? How many stairwells exist in your building?
5. Lip-Syncing Contest
Turn on a playlist of your colleagues’ favorite tunes and throw a lip-syncing contest. Spice up the activities by encouraging everyone to dress as the artists they’re mimicking. Your co-workers can give solo performances and duets or team up to create rock star bands.
At the end of the contest, everyone can vote on which team or individual did the best lip-syncing. Create a second judging category for the best costume. Provide the winners with rewards like gift cards, new electronics or goodie bags of sweet treats.
6. Charades
Play an old-fashioned game of charades by assigning each co-worker a character and having them act it out. Alternatively, everyone can split into groups, select their characters and let the opposing teams guess who they are. Let them have three tries — if they guess wrong every time, the other groups gain a point. Whichever team gathers the most points at the end of the game wins a prize.
7. Lego Recreation
Test your colleagues’ critical thinking and communication skills with a simple toy — Legos.
Break everyone into two or more groups. Build a Lego structure that’s complex but still reasonably easy to recreate, and place it in a room separate from the festivities. Let a player from each team go and study the structure for 15 seconds. Then, they’ll instruct their teammates for one minute on how to recreate the Lego building. Prohibit the instructor from helping with the construction to enhance the stakes.
Another player can look after the minute passes, and the process resumes. The game continues until one of the teams finishes the structure first.
8. Potluck
Potlucks are classic and straightforward — and they allow you to try your co-workers’ amazing chef skills. They’re a great go-to for encouraging team bonding and lively conversation. After all, do you know a person until you’ve eaten their cooking?
Allow people to volunteer for their preferred dishes, or assign meals for each person to bring. Don’t forget to have someone bring utensils and plates. This duty is as equally important as the others, or you’d have nothing to eat with!
Produce Diligent Workers and Tenacious Teams
Put an exciting spin on the workday with these team-building efforts. Your colleagues will appreciate your creativity, and they’ll create stronger professional relationships because of it. An excellent team is one that works hard and plays harder.
