86% of employees believe that poor workplace collaboration can lead to workplace failures. But cooperation doesn’t start with work projects. It starts with basic team building.
If you’re not already trying to bond your employees together, you’re making a huge mistake. They don’t have to be best friends, but they should know how to collaborate and interact with each other if you want a harmonious and successful workplace.
We’re here to talk about a few of our favorite fun corporate team building activities that can help your employees bond. Read on to learn more.
1. Fun Office Debates
Many people try to avoid debates in the office because they can get a bit heated. The last thing that you want is to have your employees angry with each other! Fun office debates, however, should be a safe option for bonding and fun.
You can do them any time that your team needs a pick-me-up or pre-schedule them. You can also set people up for one-on-one debates or put them into teams (even one-on-one debates are great for team building because they’re fun and engaging).
Pick a series of topics. You can use work-related topics, but we find that you’ll get better results from silly topics with few real-world consequences. You want to choose things that people clearly have opinions on, but not ones that would incite anger.
Avoid anything political or having to do with serious current events. Here’s a list of some potentially good options. They seem juvenile, but remember, this isn’t a serious debate.
If you’re putting people in teams, one person will still be the spokesperson for the team during each debate. The team is there to support the spokesperson and give them ideas.
You can let people choose their own stances, but it can also be fun to ask them to defend the stance that opposes their own (for example, in a “vanilla vs strawberry ice cream” debate, the person who likes strawberry ice cream would have to argue for vanilla).
You can also pre-assign stances so there are no chances of hurt feelings because no one has any skin in the game.
2. Find Your Match
This is a fun game if you have an even number of people to play with (we’ll include an option for an odd number of players as well).
Come up with several popular matches or pairs. They can be things like salt and pepper or even characters or celebrities (like Romeo and Juliet). Make sure that they’re all well-known enough that the average person would be able to identify them.
Write them down on slips of paper and stick a piece of paper on each person’s back or forehead. Make sure that the person can not see what’s on their slip of paper.
During the game, employees in your corporate team will ask each other questions to determine who they are (or what’s on their slip of paper). Then, once they’re reasonably sure of who they are, they’ll find the person who they think is their match.
At the end of the game, everyone will look at their slips of paper to see if they’ve found the right partner.
If you don’t have an even number of people, no problem. You can either make it harder by using famous trios or make it easier and more flexible by just having people figure out who they are without trying to find a partner.
A note: usually, people are only allowed to ask yes or no questions. This makes it a bigger challenge!
3. Team Lunches or Dinners
If games aren’t quite your team’s speed, no problem. A simple team dinner or lunch can be a great corporate team-building activity.
This doesn’t just mean that you should all sit together during lunch breaks. Schedule an official team dinner or lunch so everyone can relax and enjoy their meals. This will let them open up and start chatting with each other instead of sticking to water cooler talk.
If there’s room in your budget, consider taking everyone out to a restaurant (or order food in). This is also a great way to show your employees that you value them (which is fantastic for your work culture).
If not, you can also arrange a potluck. Everyone brings in one of their favorite foods to share with everyone else. Make sure that you note down any potential dietary limitations (such as allergies, religious dietary restrictions, or ethical dietary restrictions) and ask everyone to list potential conflicting ingredients on a card in front of their dishes.
You can incorporate games into your team meal or you can just let everyone bond over great food. Either way, your team will feel closer after the meal is over.
4. Escape Rooms
Believe it or not, escape rooms are fantastic team-building activities as long as your team isn’t too large. Escape rooms force people to work together, and they’re also a lot of fun. Collaboration is a blast in an escape room.
There are both virtual and “real-life” escape rooms, so you can play with them regardless of whether your team is in-person or remote.
Escape rooms, such as Great Escape Room St Pete, have plenty of themes and mysteries. Find one that will be challenging enough for a group of adults to still struggle with it.
If you have a large team, you could even split into two groups to see which team can make it through the escape room in the shortest amount of time. Depending on how the escape room operates, however, this could make scheduling it challenging.
5. Murder Mystery Parties
This is a great option to pair with a potluck work dinner, but you can also use it as a standalone event. Murder mystery parties are a lot of fun!
Pick a fun theme for your murder mystery. It can be as silly as you want it to be. If you have a lot of “true crime” lovers on your team, you could make it more realistic as well.
Either write your own murder mystery story or find one online. Most people will never look for pre-made online murder mystery stories, so don’t worry about ruining the mystery for your team.
Give everyone a pre-made character and role. To really make the game more immersive, provide them with props and costumes (even if the costumes are just accessories).
The goal is for your employees to work together to solve the mystery, like a giant game of Clue. Who was the murderer?
6. Corporate Field Days
Field days aren’t only for children in school. If you have a team that loves to stay active, a corporate field day is a great option.
Make sure that you include some activities that everyone can participate in. Some games can be more logic-based while others can be more physical. This way, athletic ability isn’t the only thing that’s going to determine who can win the games.
Split your employees up into several teams. Brainstorm games ahead of time so you can get employee feedback. Make sure that employees know that they can opt-out if they want to.
You can have some larger team games (such as baseball) alongside smaller team games, like giant Jenga.
Get creative with the games. They don’t have to be traditional field day games, especially if you have an entire day and a large amount of space to work with.
Capture the flag, soccer, and water balloon fights are all fantastic games for field day, even if they don’t follow the standard field day format.
Make sure to provide plenty of water and snacks for your employees so everyone can enjoy the day without getting too worn out or overheated.
7. Work Exercise Sessions
Do you prioritize employee wellness? If so, you can add workday exercise sessions to your schedule to combine employee wellness with team building.
Pick an exercise that everyone who wants to participate will enjoy. It shouldn’t be anything too strenuous, but it should be enough to get your blood pumping.
Employee exercise sessions should be optional. It’s okay if some employees don’t want to participate.
Fun workplace exercises include yoga, jazzercise, aerobics, and step class. You can also find online videos for pilates, gentle cardio, and even Zumba. There are so many options.
This is also great for remote teams. You can all Zoom together while watching an exercise video and bond while you feel the burn in your respective homes.
8. Scavenger Hunts
Scavenger hunts are a ton of fun. You can make short ones or long ones, and they’re great for having employees work independently or in groups.
We recommend short scavenger hunts for breaking up busy or boring workdays. A brief scavenger hunt is also a great way to kickstart a meeting that may otherwise be mundane.
Longer scavenger hunts require more planning.
For brief scavenger hunts, we recommend choosing items to find that have always been in the office. A quick tip: have some quirky items around the office at all times so you can have an impromptu scavenger hunt whenever you like.
For example, you can have interesting art pieces, fun desk decorations, and even small hidden trinkets (like little green army men).
For larger scavenger hunts, hide objects around the office (or wherever you’re playing the game) that wouldn’t otherwise be there. Bring some unique items from home.
Employees will look for all of the items. Whoever finds the most items in a set amount of time will win a small prize.
9. Office Trivia
Looking for a fun way to get your employees thinking while they’re bonding? Trivia is a great activity!
You could go out for trivia if you don’t feel like making your own game. Look for local bars or breweries (provided your employees are all of age) that host trivia nights. If you have a small group of employees, you can all work together and be a single team. If not, you can split up into multiple teams.
If you would rather DIY your trivia game, no problem.
There are two main ways that you can go about this. The first is kind of fun if you already have a bonded team that knows each other pretty well.
Have employees fill out “self-trivia” forms. Make sure that they know that the answers to the questions will go into the trivia game (and make the forms voluntary).
When you have all of the fun facts about your employees, start making trivia questions from them. This is a great way to get your employees to learn more things about each other and you don’t have to make up your own unique questions.
If that doesn’t work for you, try to find several topics that you know your employees might know about. Try to have an even mix between fun and academic subjects so everyone can play to their own strengths.
Employees should work in small teams to answer as many questions as possible.
10. Keep the Balloon Afloat
Looking for a quick and easy corporate team building game that you can do anywhere? If you have some balloons or beach balls, you’re already prepared.
In the middle of a boring day, inflate a balloon or ball and toss it into the air. Your employees are now tasked with making sure that the balloon or ball never hits the ground. They have to keep bopping it up (with their hands, feet, or heads) until the game is over.
If it looks too easy, add another balloon or ball. Keep going until the balloon or ball hits the ground. It’s harder than it looks, but it’s a lot of fun.
Try These Corporate Team Building Activities
These corporate team building activities are sure to delight your employees. Help them bond and learn more about each other through games and events instead of boring ice-breakers.
Whether you want something active, like field day, or thought-provoking, like trivia, there’s sure to be a perfect activity for your team.
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