Corporate Team Building Activities To Improve Communication
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Why is Team Building so Important in the Workplace?
There are a number of investigations that have been conducted across the world that explain why corporate team building activities and days should be an essential part of any company’s culture.
- 54% of employees say a powerful sense of community kept them at a company longer than was in their best interest
- Highly engaged teams show a 21% greater profitability
- Effective communication generates 4.5 times higher talent retention
So not only is team building important for team morale and job satisfaction, it’s also essential for creating effective teams through improved team relationships, improving strategic thinking and communication skills to ensure a high-performing team.
Planning The Correct Team Building Activities for Your Corporate Event
If you’re planning your next team building event, it’s important to take into account your different team members, how successful past team building activities have been, the needs of internal and remote teams and in particular, what you’re trying to achieve through each of your corporate team building events.
Outdoor Corporate Team Building Activities
Outdoor team building activities are a fantastic, particularly in the summer to get your team out of a normal office environment and it usually means you can have a lot more fun with bigger, exciting team building exercises that promote friendly competition and can help to provide an activity that gets the conversation flowing, especially for new team members.
1: Scavenger Hunt
An outdoor activity that the whole team can get on board with, regardless of fitness levels. This team activity will get your team hunting around for random objects. Simply set them a list of objects they must find, whether these are easy to find, like a five-pointed leaf, or harder to find like a man in a stripy shirt. If you won’t be able to bring all the items back (for example the gentleman in the shirt) you could allow photographs as evidence instead. This is a fun team activity that will bring out your team’s competitive spirit and creative thinking.
2: Sports Day
Set up a classic school sports day, complete with sack races and a relay to encourage team bonding and celebrate each other’s successes and achievements. If you are a considerably large group, then you’ll have a tremendous amount of fun competing against each other. This will work best to improve communication skills across departments if you mix teams.
3: Minefield
This is a corporate team building activity all about trust.
All team members of a team are blindfolded, apart from one member. The role of the one team member who can still see is to guide the others in the team from one end of the minefield to the other, perhaps collecting items, without stepping on the (fake) mines.
4: Flip it Over
This team building exercise will test your entire team’s ability to work together, their creative thinking and communication skills to tackle challenges. This could be a great activity for your team building day indoors or outdoors.
You’ll need a large sheet or tarpaulin. Get the members of each small team to stand on their sheet and work together to flip the sheet over, without any of them coming off it. The first to do this is the winning team.
Explore outdoor events at Milton Hill House
Indoor Team Building Activities
When planning any team building activity days, it’s important to remember the English weather is very hit-and-miss in the summer so when you’re looking for a venue it’s good to consider somewhere that can offer indoor and outdoor space, just in case! Plus, team building events aren’t exclusively for the summer!
5: Cooking Contest
With this indoor activity, set your team a Ready Steady Cook-style challenge, where they must make something out of the food ingredients in the bags provided. This is excellent fun and can conclude with some laughable results! There’s lots of places set up to offer this type of event, including one based off of the popular baking show across the UK.
Alternatively, a virtual cocktail making class could be perfect for remote teams so that the entire team can join in whether they are local or not.
6: Improv Show
Give a smaller team a selection of different objects and the title of a scene. They then have to act out the scene in the style of ‘Whose line is it anyway?’ and see who can get the best reaction out of the audience.
7: Human Knot
For this corporate team building activity game, stand in a circle and hold hands with other people in the circle (not the people next to you) and you will then need to work together as a team to untangle yourselves and finish in a circle of uncrossed arms.
8: Balloon Questions
Write a question on a small piece of paper. The question could be simple, for example, ‘What is your favourite hobby?’, or it can be more complex like ‘If you could go back in time, what would you change?’.
Put the paper inside a balloon and fill it up. The balloons should then be blown up and batted around (which is quite entertaining in itself). When someone shouts ‘Grab a balloon’ you must all get a balloon, pop it and then take turns to answer the question inside. This is great for getting to know each other and improve team spirit.
9: Follow the Leader
This corporate team event is simple but can be used as an introduction session for your team. A “guesser” is sent out of the room so that one of the remaining individuals can be designated the team leader. Standing in a circle, the participants must copy the leader as quickly as possible, without being too obvious, while the guesser tries to deduce who the leader is.
10: Give Back
If you’re not sure that games are right for you, give back by taking your team to volunteer by either baking some goodies for a charity bake sale or by volunteering at a homeless shelter or entertaining individuals in a retirement home.
Trivia Team Building Games
These trivia corporate fun team building activities are excellent for a virtual team building event and remote teams.
11: Zen Counting
Zen counting is a simple and effective team-building activity that promotes focus, collaboration, and mindfulness. Gather your team members in a quiet and comfortable space, preferably sitting in a circle. The objective of the game is to count as a group, with each participant saying one number at a time in sequential order. The goal is to reach a predetermined target number without any interruptions or mistakes. Encourage participants to remain focused on the activity and pay close attention to each number being called out. The goal is to create a peaceful and harmonious rhythm as the numbers progress. Celebrate the achievement as a group once you reach the goal.
12: The “Suddenly” Story
One for smaller groups, the participants tell a story by each individual in the circle saying three sentences and ending their turn with ‘Suddenly’, at which point the next person starts their dramatic portion of the story. This should make for an entertaining few minutes and is good for a virtual event.
13: Escape the Desert Island
There probably won’t be a real desert island on hand for this game so you’ll have to make do with your imaginations. Your team will be tasked with coming up with a way to escape a desert island with only the items they have on their person or with some items they have named.
For a little extra fun, you could pile some useless items (or those items written on pieces of paper) for the teams to run and claim before telling them about the game and what they will have to try to use those items for.
14: Who Am I?
Put sticky notes on people’s foreheads or backs of famous people or characters and let them work out who they are using only yes and no questions.
For an additional twist, make the people part of a pair so that once the participants know their own identities, they must find their partner.
15: Corporate Team Building Trivia Quiz
Quizzes can be a bit of enjoyment and it’s a fantastic idea to include around that is specific to your place of work, to make the experience more relative to you.
16: Hear Me Out
Discover how well your team can divide the wheat from the chaff in this game. One individual must read from a piece of text in a monotone voice to make the rubbish sentences and important ones blend into each other. Get the team to say what they thought the text was about at the end of the team building activity.
Virtual Team Building Activities
17: Online Escape Room
There are a number of online escape rooms that are perfect for small teams to work through together, that can get people talking and spark creative problem solving skills!
18: Paint’n’Sip
Paint ‘n’ Sip evenings have become increasingly popular and can be easily done online, whether it’s an organised event or following an online tutorial. This is a fun team building activity without any pressure to enhance your skills. Simply, the goal is to have fun and provide an opportunity that will encourage people to talk and interact with each other, offering a physical activity as an icebreaker.
Corporate Team Building Activities – the last word!
We hope you’ve found our wide range of corporate team building events and ideas beneficial for improving communication for your next event. Whether you choose an outdoor team building activity, classic quiz games, virtual team building activities or indoor games, there’s several options here to get you started.
More Team Building Planning Questions
What are the 4 main types of Team Building Activities?
There are four main types of team building activities:
- Communication
- Problem-solving
- Trust-building
- Decision-making
What are Successful Team Building Activities?
Successful team building activities are engaging and fun while promoting positive interactions, improving communication and problem-solving skills, and enhancing decision-making abilities.
They can include games, problem-solving exercises, trust-building activities, and collaborative projects that align with the team’s goals and strengths. The key is to tailor activities to the team’s unique needs.
What are the Most Popular Team Building Activities for Businesses?
Businesses use a variety of team-building events and activities to promote collaboration, communication, and productivity. Examples include icebreakers, trust-building exercises, problem-solving challenges, and team-building retreats such as scavenger hunts or volunteering projects.
These activities foster a positive workplace culture and boost employee morale by engaging employees in fun and appropriate exercises that align with their interests and skill levels.
How Often Should Your Company Organise a Team Building Day?
Your company should organise team building days at least once a year as a minimum, however, to develop and maintain team morale it is beneficial to hold corporate team building events more frequently. Once a quarter is a good base point to work from, making sure to bring team members together with a focus for each corporate event.
6 benefits of Corporate Team Building Games
If this article hasn’t sparked some inspiration, here are some other examples of how corporate team building activities can benefit your employees:
- Boosts morale and employee engagement
- Increases effective communication in a more open and honest environment
- Enhances employee motivation
- Employees are made to feel listened to and valued
- Expands on team bonding between different departments
- Improves team dynamics and company culture
Corporate Team Building and Bespoke Events in Oxford
If you need help organising corporate team building near Oxford, get in touch with our event planning team for more information.
Milton Hill House is a corporate events venue based in Oxfordshire, providing training rooms, meeting rooms and conference rooms for hire. Our team bonding venue boasts 22 acres of outdoor space available that is perfect for corporate team building activities!
Discover what to look for in a corporate retreat venue here.
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