While chats around the water cooler and grabbing drinks after work with colleagues is a good way to learn about the latest office gossip, they probably won’t help your team work together. Office gossip is rarely edifying after all, and that clique forming over post-work cocktails is probably giving you flashbacks to high school.
Fortunately, however, high school is over and you have a way to pull your team together despite office gossip, cliques, personality differences, communication issues, lack of confidence, and more: Corporate team building activities. And we don’t mean pizza parties and awkward ice breakers in the break room. We mean purposeful, professional, and fun events that can teach your whole team valuable skills.
The key to a successful event is to avoid the mistakes (like pizza in the break room) that turn a productive event into a boring waste of your team’s time. Here are a few of the most common mistakes and some advice on how to avoid them.
Avoid staying at the workplace for your corporate team building activity.
It always seems like such a good idea at the time: Have the corporate team building activity at the workplace. Have it over lunch. Block off half the morning for events in the conference room. You could even close the office down and hold a scavenger hunt or mystery dinner. The possibilities seem endless, and cheap.
But what you will likely find is that these on-site corporate team building activities come across as, well, a little cheap. And boring. After all, it is hard to be enthused about playing games in the same room where you have your monthly budget meetings or client assessments. And the types of things you can do in the workplace can be limited. A conference room will, at some level, always be a conference room after all
Instead, take your team to a different location entirely for your corporate team building activity. At PINSTACK, you have access to a fun activities venue, an energetic environment, professional hosts, and delicious food. It doesn’t look like an office, feel like an office, or act like an office. And that means that your office mates are sure to enjoy a decidedly non-office experience that still prepares them to work together more efficiently once they return to the workplace.
Do not assume everyone is in the same physical shape.
Corporate team building activities only work if the whole team can participate. That fact might seem obvious, until the colleague with the fear of heights is sitting out of the indoor rock climbing wall. Disabilities, injuries, phobias, or other problems can easily derail an activity that would otherwise have helped to bring your team together. Besides, awkward ice breakers in the office will definitely be less awkward than leaving one of your team members out while you complete an activity.
As a result, make sure that you choose activities that are within the reach of everyone on your team. For example, PINSTACK’s chili cookoff, cocktail competition, or charity bike build are activities that can engage the whole team regardless of their abilities. After all, getting your team to use their differences to work together is one of the goals of corporate team building activities. Make it easier by choosing events that make teamwork possible.
Do not begin a corporate team building activity without a goal in mind.
What do you call a corporate team building activity without a purpose? A day off. That’s right. If you don’t know why you are getting the team together, you won’t really be building up your team. At most, you will be giving your team a chance to get away from work for awhile. And while that might be a good idea some days, it probably won’t help everyone come back from their time away ready to be more productive.
Instead, try to establish a specific goal for your corporate team building activity. And then make sure to choose an activity that will help you meet that goal. For example, do you want your team to learn how to communicate better? You might want to consider the high ropes activity at PINSTACK. However, if you want to help your team accomplish something meaningful together, you might want to choose a team building with purpose event at PINSTACK (like our charity bike build). And for those days off, you can always bring the team around to our fun activities venue. All work and no play really does make for a dull office.
Don’t forget to cater to your team’s preferences when choosing a corporate team building activity.
You might have a goal for your corporate team building activity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun. The right activities will be enjoyable for the whole team while simultaneously achieving your goals for the time away.
In order to ensure that your activities are as fun as you need them to be, you want to cater to your team’s preferences. For example, will your team thrive on a cooking contest, or will they prefer a philanthropic endeavor. Will they enjoy a physical challenge or a mental one.
Here at PINSTACK, you have all the options you need to create a corporate team building event for any team. Our fun activities venue and multiple choices make it easy to find an event that will keep your team occupied, entertained, and learning for the entire block of time you set aside.
Corporate team building activities are important ways to ensure that your team works efficiently together. By avoiding common mistakes like staying at the workplace, assuming everyone is capable of doing the same activities, beginning without a goal in mind, and not catering to your team’s needs, you can create a team building event that achieves your goals and leaves your team looking forward to the next time.
