Team Building Activities for Employees

Teams don’t come together like a machine. There’s always a team-building exercise that helps them come together.

It could be anything from playing bingo to having a lip sync competition, from sharing each other’s hobbies to going out for lunch, activities that strengthen team members’ bonds and help them find value and commonality in one another.

Additionally, team-building activities boost employees’ morale and engagement, reduce their stress and increase their productivity. Hence, team-building is one of the most important investments an organisation can make.

This article will discuss common team-building activities that will help your employees collaborate and support each other.

Team-building Activities for Employees

Team-building activities are a great way to improve skills, motivate employees, increase productivity, and cultivate collaboration and unity across departments. Below is a list of team-building activities for the workplace.

1. Treasure hunt

As children, we’ve all played treasure hunts at some point. This can be a great team-building game during annual office retreats or get-togethers.

In this game, employees are divided into teams and items are hidden in different places. Teams then spread out to find the hidden objects. The team that returns first with the maximum number of items is declared the winner. Usually, there is a set time limit for teams to go on the treasure hunt and find the items.

2. Guess the Name

Another game we’ve all played as children is “Guess Who.” For this game, employees are divided into groups, and the name of a famous personality is written on a sticky note and pasted on an employee’s forehead so they cannot see it. They need to figure out the personality’s name on their forehead. They can use the help of their team members to guess their names.

To win the game, the team member must guess the name earlier than their competitors.

3. Two Truths and a Lie

In this game, every employee is asked to write three statements on a piece of paper about themselves – two truths and one lie. As the game starts, every employee reads the statements in front of the group. The others have to guess the truth and the lie. This game is a great way to get to know your colleagues better.

4. Brain Teasers

Brain teasers are like puzzles that can be posted on the organisation’s internal communication wall daily and prove to be a great team-building activity. These can be simple or hard, depending on one’s IQ and presence of mind.

The team member who solves the puzzle can be given some reward. This reward may not necessarily be monetary, but anything that can add value to the team-building exercise. This will also elicit good competition, communication, and teamwork among employees.

5. Lunch ‘n’ Learns

Organise ‘lunch and learn’ sessions for employees whereby they can get their lunch, and someone external is brought in to speak to them. Topics can be creative, exciting and interactive, like travel, an anecdote based on funny experiences or even a career or skill. For instance, such sessions can introduce employees to various digital and IT courses.

Besides being fun, team-building activities can help work on problem-solving, communication, planning, and decision-making skills too. It can also let participants understand the workings of the other departments.

6. Ice breakers

Ice breakers are simple team-building activities to lighten the mood of employees, welcome new members into the team, or warm up the conversations during a meeting or a training session.

7. Mystery dinner

Mystery dinner is the best way to enable team bonding activities in an organisation. As the name suggests, people from different departments are taken to a private dinner, where they are introduced to each other through interesting activities. This proves to be a good icebreaker and allows people from different departments to know each other better and share ideas.

8. Hand-to-Hand

Hand-to-hand is a simple team bonding activity. It starts with participants getting paired with a stranger, and then a leader calls out commands like “hand to hand”, “back to back”, “elbow to elbow”, etc., and when the leader yells “person to person,” both the partners turn to each other and share three personal facts.

This exercise allows employees from different departments and walks of life to connect quickly and connect. The initial awkwardness of touching shoulders or knees gets eliminated after a few rounds, and it leads to meaningful conversations.

9. Blind drawing

This is a popular game designed for business leaders or department heads. It helps them develop team management, leadership, and cooperation skills that come in handy when tackling complex situations.

In this team-building activity, two teammates sit opposite each other. One will use paper and other writing material, while the other will hold onto a printed picture or phone. To begin, the player with the picture will try to tell their partner what the picture is about without directly giving them a clue. The other player must try to guess and draw it on paper. The most realistic drawing will win the competition.

This game is perfect for departmental heads, people pursuing leadership positions, or people trying to improve their leadership skills.

Conclusion

Team-building activities offer many benefits and help employees improve their professional lives. It can also make them aware of other departments and their work culture, thereby paving the way for new and improved relationships at work.

Moreover, it will help employees attain well-rounded skills and up-to-date knowledge about different departments.

You can check out Emeritus India’s certificate courses to embark your upskilling journey.  We have partnered with reputed institutes like IIM, IIT, ISB, etc., to offer advanced training programmes for fresh graduates and experienced professionals.

FAQs

1. What are team-building exercises?

Team-building exercises are activities designed to boost productivity and bring a team closer. For example, bingo, murder mystery, and escape games are some team-building activities undertaken to strengthen relationships among team members.

2. Why are team-building exercises important?

• Communication: Most team-building exercises require excellent communication skills to win the game. Employees will transfer the communication skills they develop during the team-building activity to their professional relationships.
• Motivation: Participating in different team-building activities allows employees to try something new, refreshing their motivation for work.
• Creativity: Some team-building activities help develop employee’s creativity. The more frequently employees engage in these exercises, the more creatively they can tackle difficult situations.
• Trust: Usually, team-building activities involve everyone in the company. Everyone from top-level management to entry-level management. Everyone has an opportunity to work on their relationship with their peers, fostering trust in one another.
• Stress management: Treasure Hunt, group meditation and yoga sessions, and others are some of the activities in which employees can manage work-related stress. These activities can develop strong problem-solving skills and provide a forum to openly talk about your feelings with your peers.