7 Pointers
Team-building events are important tools to help create a stronger business. In order to prepare the perfect team-building event, there are several things you can do.
Here are seven pointers for planning a successful team-building event.
1. Determine What Your Team Needs
There are many reasons you might want to have a team-building event, and it’s important to identify the reasons why you want to get everyone together.
It could be that you want to have better communication between team members, want to get to know everyone better, want to build some morale or just want to have fun with co-workers or employees who are also friends.
The goals you want to accomplish during the event will determine the type of event you want to have.
Popular team-building events include:
- Visiting an Escape Room – Split workers into teams to compete for the fastest time. It’s a great way to get employees that may not interact much to bond.
- Hold an Egg/Pumpkin Drop – Teams get to know each other as they design protection for the food of choice.
- Have a Family-Style Dinner – This isn’t your typical office lunch. It’s a dinner where employees bring their dishes and spread them out along a whole table. It’s a great way to spur conversations and learn about each other.
- Have a Field Day – Great for a team that likes to be active, and you can stir up some friendly competition. Have different games and activities, and they can even compete for a prize.
- Have a Happy Hour Meet-Up – While it’s inappropriate to drink on the job, you can take advantage of a local winery and brewery to get to know employees outside the office. Go to a tasting or grab a drink while relaxing and sharing stories.
There are so many enjoyable ways to bring your team closer together. Once you choose which one suits your team’s needs, you can start the planning process.
2. Create a Planning Committee
Once you decide you want to do a team-building activity, it’d time to get your planning committee together.
You want everyone to enjoy the event you plan, which means you need different voices involved in making it happen. Choose a person or two from each participating department to discuss which event to hold and how to get the teams excited about it.
Members can bounce around different ideas that complement the events, such as unique games or team T-shirts.
Committee members may have connections to make experiences more cost-efficient or hidden talents that make the experience more unique.
Meet with the committee once a week or start a group chat where you can talk about details and delegate responsibilities.
Having a planning committee also gives you the opportunity to learn about your members and get a good idea of what departments will appreciate in the future.
3. Plan Out The Timeline
To get people to come to your event, you need to sort out a timeline that allows for as many team members to come as possible.
You first need to decide whether you want to have this activity during work hours or outside of them. This decision depends on the type of company you have and how people’s schedules work out.
It also depends on what activity you want to do since some options are more flexible than others.
Once you decide on the best day and time for the activity, make sure you give employees enough notice so that they can add it to their calendars. There’s no point in holding a team-building activity when several team members have to miss it.
After you’re sure, you picked the right time, get with the planning committee and work out how long it will take to prepare for the event. That way, no one is rushing to get set up before team members arrive.
Be sure to allow for clean-up time in the schedule as well.
4. Pick Your Reward
In any workplace, employees tend to enjoy group activities more when you offer them a prize or reward.
You can provide free food for the event or give away gift cards or cash prizes. You can choose to do raffles or reward the prizes to the winning team.
When they have a goal to work towards, employees are more likely to feel enthusiastic about the team-building exercise, which is good for morale.
A reward can also be someone personal for the office, such as the winning team getting to leave early one day or getting new desk equipment.
Regardless of the reward, it’s nice to give your employees an excuse to interact with one another when they may not be as motivated to get out of their comfort zone otherwise.
5. Determine the Rules
If you choose to host a team-building event, it’s good to have some guidelines in place. They give employees an idea of what to expect and how to compete.
When everyone knows the rules of a game or activity, it will be much easier to execute it successfully. An activity like an escape room will have more rules than a dinner, but it’s still nice to have everyone on the same page.
Be sure to notify your employees about these rules ahead of time and ensure everyone’s comfortable with them.
For any team building event, one of the top ones should be to enjoy themselves.
6. Keep Everyone Safe
One of the most important parts of any team-building event is making sure everyone is safe throughout their time there.
If you’re doing a field day or other physical activity, encourage team members to stay hydrated, wear some form of compression clothing and not push past their physical limits. It’s about team bonding and having fun, which is hard to do when someone gets hurt.
Make sure that the proper safety equipment is present and used as well as a first aid kit. Have a plan in case someone does get hurt and explain procedures appropriately ahead of time, so employees know how to be safe.
Safety should always be at the top of your priorities, and you should encourage any employees to stop and inform someone if they begin to feel unsafe.
7. Accept Feedback
The last step in any team-building event is to ask for feedback about it. Survey your employees about what they enjoyed and what could’ve been improved.
By encouraging honest, constructive feedback, you can better plan your next event. While gathering information, you can even collect suggestions on what activity the team should do next.
Whether they enjoyed it or not, the feedback will teach you what your employees want in order to thrive as a team.
Preparing the Perfect Team-Building Event
A team-building event works well when you want to unite employees throughout your business. The right event helps bring the office closer together and can help your team work on skills they can improve on.
With the right preparation, you can ensure your event is a success.
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