How to Organise the Best Team Building Events
Team-building activities have seen an unprecedented rise in the past few years. Nowadays, companies see the value in bringing their team together to problem-solve and have fun in an environment outside of the workplace.
These events can be extremely valuable when done right, boosting morale, improving teamwork and increasing productivity. We know that’s easier said than done, with so many different personality types to cater to, but to help you through this somewhat daunting task, we’ve got a few tips and tricks for making sure things go off without a hitch at your next team-building event.
Quick links
- What is team building?
- Why is team building important?
- How to successfully organise team-building events
- How to build trust in a team
What is team building?
Team-building is the act or process of putting a group of people together to work together effectively, usually by means of activities or events. They typically improve cooperation and problem-solving within a team.
Ultimately, the goal is to take the skills learned to improve performance and cooperation within the workplace. As well as skills, team-building can also help to build friendships that translate into the workplace, improving culture.
Why is team building important?
You might be wondering why cooperation can’t be achieved within the workplace, but the reality is that this isn’t possible for the most part. Teams get stuck in their ways and settle into patterns of working that require intervention, in the form of a team-building day, to break out of.
The team-building days can have long-lasting effects within the team, which can improve efficiency and unlock performance that was previously unseen.
How to successfully organise team-building events
Team-building events are meant to be fun, but it’s easy to forget the immense amount of planning that goes into them when you’re getting stuck in. Remember, no one plans to fail; they just fail to plan. With that in mind, here are our top tips for successfully organising team-building events.
Know the team’s needs
When you set out to plan a team building activity, it’s important to know what you want to get out of it. It’s tempting to do some team building just because it’s the done thing to do, but there should always be specific reasoning behind it. Is it to get to know each other better? Is it to address a specific concern or for the team to learn something new?
Understanding what the team needs and wants is important when setting up team-building events that have the desired effect. SEFE Marketing & Trading France’s Communications Manager, Olga Solovieva, is passionate about creating team-building practices that the whole team will appreciate. She says:
“Here at SEFE Marketing & Trading France, we always try to surprise our employees, to find something special and useful for them to enjoy. We usually talk to the teams to understand their needs, monitor what other companies are doing and how the event industry evolves. Well-prepared team-building helps people spend quality time with their colleagues outside of work. As a result, many of our employees have been able to learn something new, create stronger relations and become more engaged.”
Set out the goals
A team-building day is all about achieving goals, so let’s make sure that your team have a successful day by properly outlining the targets that you want them to hit.
- List the skill sets that you want the team to work on, such as communication, teamwork, productivity, etc.
- Ask for ideas on activities your team would like to take part in.
- Focus on improving your problem employees, i.e. those who struggle to communicate or are abrasive at times, putting problem employees with teams that will encourage positive qualities.
Weigh up the return on investment
In an ideal world, money would be no object to fun, but in the world of business, there has to be a tangible return on the investment. Does spending on team-building days reduce staff turnover, therefore saving the company money? Do regular team-building days improve staff productivity in the proceeding months, therefore making the company more money? All of these things need to be considered before a budget is greenlit.
Remember, it doesn’t have to be a direct cause and effect of £1,000 spent on team-building translates to £1,000 in sales in the months afterwards, but there needs to be evidence to back up the spending.
Decide the angle
One team-building day isn’t going to fix everything, but it can go a long way to fix specific issues within the team if you decide the angle properly. Deciding on the angle will allow you to properly address issues within the team that might be plaguing productivity.
Ultimately, only you and your colleagues will know which issues are arising within the team, so ask questions, do some digging, and use your own experiences to determine the angle you want to come at your team-building day from.
Poor communication within the team might be addressed by games that encourage the team to talk to each other to solve a problem. A simple game of whispers can show the importance of proper communication. As silly as it might sound, a game like two truths and a lie can encourage the team to talk openly with each other, and even foster friendships.
Pick the right date and time
Part of pleasing everyone is choosing a date and time for the event that works with your entire team. You’ll have to take busy schedules and calendars into consideration before you finalise these details, or you risk interfering with the time that might be valuable for certain members of staff.
Additionally, you’ll have to take seasonality and weather into account if you’re planning on doing something outside.
Develop an event day agenda
It will help your team if they know what it is they’re doing as part of your proposed team-building event. Devising an agenda can help you schedule out the day and easily communicate to your colleagues what exactly will be taking place, so that they can arrive prepared and focused.
What needs to be included in the agenda:
- The exact activities
- Arrival and departure times
- Meeting points
- Duration of activites
From here, they get a sense of what the day is going to look like and can start to make their own preparations in terms of getting work boxed off, doing any necessary event-related tasks and even mentally preparing themselves for the day itself. It’s recommended that you distribute the agenda a few weeks in advance.
Leave job titles at the door
Making everyone feel comfortable is a large piece of team-building events. One way you can ensure that all employees feel like they’re on equal footing is by forgetting about job titles and egos for the time being. It ensures better communication and team spirit when there are no subordinates or superiors, plus it allows those who usually wouldn’t be in such positions to show their own leadership style.
How to build trust in a team
Trust in the workplace is about doing what you say you’re going to do and being held accountable. This might be in the form of a colleague completing a task on time or a manager endeavouring to solve an issue for you.
Team-building can build trust by taking colleagues out of a strict and structured environment, allowing them to see colleagues in a new light and building trust over inconsequential tasks that can translate into the working world.
However, trust takes time to embed within a team, so further work must be done to achieve this; it isn’t possible with just one day out of the office.
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The views, opinions and positions expressed within this article are those of our third-party content providers alone and do not represent those of SEFE. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. SEFE accepts no liability for any errors, omissions or representations.
