Team Building can be boring, exposing, laborious, stressful and seemingly completely useless to the everyday running of your business. There is not only the financial cost but the emotional cost of having to rally the people in your office and convince them that this will be worth their time. All cynicism aside there is often the fear that accompanies team members that they aren’t going to succeed in this new environment or exposed to new challenges.
For some, it can be like re-living high school sport all over again. However, it can be argued that Team Building Activities are the greatest investment your company can make and instead of exposing staff’s weakness, can help them recognise the strengths in others they didn’t otherwise appreciate.
Modern workplaces are changing as today’s employees are calling for greater freedom, investment and inspiration in their roles. Workplaces who can breed happy environment with a cohesive team are more productive and engender a priceless loyalty. One of the keys to appreciating your staff (and allowing them to appreciate each other) are team building activities. They break down barriers between staff and management, staff and each other, builds trust, encourages cohesion and increases collaboration.
The best team building events are ones that don’t overly focus on corporate bottom lines. You want your workers to have the freedom of exploration that doesn’t come with didactic lessons or achieving KPI’s. For example, we run a mini Film Festival for corporate team building days in which teams have an allocated time to make a short film. We then follow it up with a spoof Academy Awards Ceremony where we screen the films, attendees dress to the nines and we hand out awards.
We run these events with companies with no artistic prerequisite and participants who could never imagine themselves being a performer. These are some of our most exciting events as teams come together and create for the pure joy of creating and often find out how funny Karen from Reception actually is or how inventive Bill in Finance can be with a box of props.
If you would like your staff to really mingle, then put some of your catering budget for the company picnic into team building events. Events with an outcome force people to engage outside of their friendship circle whilst working towards a common goal.
It engenders an appreciation for each other’s abilities and gives them something to talk about next time they meet. At Great Race we run hundreds of these events every year and are the experts in bringing the most out of all people from the very physical and competitive, to the more reserved and strategic. We invite you to contact us to talk through your companies goals and how we can get your staff achieving more, together.
