Summary: Team building activities are a way to get new employees to become part of the team. They focus on teamwork, communication, and finding joint solutions. This is especially the case if it’s a brand new team and you want to help them get to know one another better quickly.
Most team-building exercises are focused either on breaking the ice, such as asking questions about hobbies or working together towards a shared goal. The thrust of team building exercises is building a closer relationship between team members and fostering trust so that it’s easier for them to work together and share ideas.
Key Takeaways:
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Team building exercises are a way to build trust and positive relationships beyond just coworkers.
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In most cases, team building exercises focus on working together towards a shared goal. As that mimics what they’ll be doing working as a team, it builds the same skills needed in the workplace, such as communication, problem-solving, and finding a joint solution.
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Team building shouldn’t just be a one-time thing. Teams need to keep working on their bonds in order to remain effective.
What Is Team Building?
Team building fosters trust and positive relationships. Working on these relationships and encouraging team building are generally done through a series of exercises or activities that require either working together or sharing information about each other.
Having a tight-knit team makes your employees more productive, along with limiting potential conflicts. A team that trusts each other and likes one another is much more likely to be a high-performing team and to want to keep working together. Having positive relationships in the office also aids in employee retention and investment.
Team Building Activities for New Employees
There are many different kinds of team-building activities. Which one would work best for your team will vary on the circumstances and the personalities of the team members involved. As these activities will include new employees, it’s a good idea to include icebreakers and avoid activities that assume the knowledge of coworkers.
Here are some team-building activities to try:
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Ropes courses. Going to a ropes course can be a good way to get everyone out of the office. Not only that, but ropes courses have varying levels of difficulty, meaning that people at various levels of fitness will be able to participate. There are high courses – which require the use of safety harnesses, and low courses.
Ropes courses are typically obstacle courses and can be set up in a way that requires teamwork. It’s important to be aware that some people are afraid of heights, so unless you’re familiar with your team, it’s best to start with a low course. Also, if anyone has a physical disability, they may not be able to participate.
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Escape rooms. The whole purpose of an escape room is to work with others to solve puzzles. This is a low-stakes way to get your team to work together to solve problems. It also places them outside of a work environment, which allows for more authentic communication. Escape rooms are usually popular with younger workers.
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Arcades. Many cities and towns have adult arcades. Going to an arcade is a way to encourage your team to relax and have fun together. As they won’t be in the structures of the workplace, they’re more likely to open up with one another and talk about non-work related topics and get to know each other better.
On that note, it doesn’t need to be an arcade specifically. You can take the team bowling, or to the trampoline park, or go to a festival together. So long as it’s done as a group and takes them out of the workplace environment, it’ll serve the purpose.
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Tour your hometown. Only some towns allow for a tour, but for those that do, going on one can be a fun way to build a team. While most people know a bit about the place they live in, there’s a lot of information that the local historical society can share. It’s also a way to foster discussions.
If the local town doesn’t have a tour to take, then it’s also possible to head to the nearest city or larger town that has one, so long as the travel time isn’t arduous.
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Pet projects. This is an icebreaker activity. You can go around the room, asking everyone what their pet project is. If they don’t have a current one, you can ask them what their dream pet project is. An activity like this is an excellent way to learn more about other people on the team and encourage them to open up.
An activity of this sort is much smaller investment and less time-consuming. Of course, the more you let people talk and discuss their interests and hobbies, the better it’ll work.
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Virtual murder mystery. Most people enjoy solving a mystery. Doing a virtual murder mystery allows the team to solve a “murder” together, which has the same benefits as an escape room in terms of getting your team to work together to solve a problem.
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Cooking classes. Most everyone has at least a passing interest in cooking. Taking a cooking class together can help with both taking everyone out of the office and learning new skills. The fact that you fund a class – even if it isn’t directly work-related – also shows that you encourage and prioritize your team to learn new things.
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Team lunch. If a cooking class doesn’t seem right for your team – or if you aren’t into cooking – then you can always get together for food in other ways. This can be the traditional taking the team out for lunch, or a potluck, or even a picnic in the park. A lot of socializing revolves around food, so use that to encourage stronger relationships.
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Watch professional development videos. Getting the team together to watch professional development videos can have the dual benefit of helping them learn and develop professionally and making it a group activity. Encourage discussion and critique of the videos that you watch.
Discussing the videos will allow members of your team to open up about their work strategies, pet peeves, and communication style. Talking about that can help your team gel better and head off misunderstandings. Most of the time, discussions of that sort don’t come up organically, but this is a way to encourage it.
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Instructor for a day. It wouldn’t actually be for a day, but that title sounds better than an instructor for a fifteen-minute block. The idea behind this is to have different members of the team teach others about something they’re skilled at. It doesn’t have to be work-related, though that shouldn’t be off the table.
However, this can be anything from yo-yo tricks to baking bread to learning a few words in a language other than English. Not only does it allow people to talk about their hobbies and interests, but it also facilitates learning and gives everyone a chance to be the resident expert for a while.
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Book club. Having an in-office book club is another way to encourage people to have discussions about non-work-related topics. It’s also a shared experience for everyone to have – they all read the same book. This isn’t going to work for every team, as not everyone is much of a reader. Also, different people have different tastes in books.
Those differences can be a determent, but they can also be a way to encourage people to try something new. Have different people recommend different books – or at least genres – so everyone gets a chance to read a book they like.
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Communication styles. One recommended team-building exercise is to talk about people’s preferences in terms of communication. It starts by assigning walls, tables, or an area to a style of communication, such as in person, text/chat, phone call, or email. Each person goes to the area of their preferred communication style.
The idea behind this is to have a discussion about how everyone prefers to communicate. Knowing this in advance can prevent misunderstandings as to why someone chooses to communicate the way they do and how best to communicate with something else in order to get a quick response.
You can go further with this activity as well by opening up a discussion about what people like and don’t like about different types of communication. If you put people’s pet peeves out in the open, then different members of the team can know how to avoid annoying one another and prevent conflicts.
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Team building games. One of the most popular of these is the human knot. That involves taking a group of people all holding hands in a bunch and having them work their way out into a circle. There are many other team-building games of this sort as well, and you can pick one that you think works for your team.
It’s important to remember with activities of this sort that if people don’t know one another, it may feel awkward, and the awkwardness may not dissipate during the game. This is especially the case if you have introverted workers or people who are touch averse for various reasons.
When playing a game like this, it’s important to get some buy-in from your team. Otherwise, everyone will just grudgingly go through it while thinking it’s a waste of time. Try to pick the right game for your team and encourage them to try to loosen up and get into the spirit of it.
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Play a board game. Playing a board game or video game can also help with team building. It’s a fun activity for your team to focus on that isn’t work-related. It’s best to start with simpler games that everyone is likely to know how to play, and if it’s a success, then you can go into more complex games.
Team Building FAQ
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What are team-building exercises?
Team building exercises are activities that require teams to work together to overcome an obstacle or complete something. The idea is to get the team to work together and build on communication skills and collective problem-solving.
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Are team-building exercises effective?
How effective a team-building exercise will be is dependent on a number of factors. If you don’t select an appropriate exercise and don’t get your team engaged in the activity, then it likely won’t have the desired effect.
However, if you pick an activity that the team enjoys and fosters their working together, then you’ll be able to increase your teams’ bonds and trust, therefore upping productivity.
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What are the benefits of team-building activities?
Team building activities help build trust and closer relationships between team members while also practicing teamwork skills.
Good team-building activities will help bring the team closer together, which will allow them to work together more effectively, be more productive, and all of that has a positive effect on employee retention.
Author
Di Doherty
Di has been a writer for more than half her life. Most of her writing so far has been fiction, and she’s gotten short stories published in online magazines Kzine and Silver Blade, as well as a flash fiction piece in the Bookends review. Di graduated from Mary Baldwin College (now University) with a degree in Psychology and Sociology.
