If you want to succeed as a business, having a good workplace environment is essential. A positive culture and environment will help motivate employees, reduce turnover, better teamwork/communication, and much more. Team building is one of the best ways to create a positive culture and better your workplace. In this blog, we will highlight some of the most important team-building tips from the pros themselves.
In our most recent episode of the Team Building Saves the World podcast, we had a conversation with some of the experts from our very own TeamBonding. Director of program development, Shannon DuPont, lead facilitator, Christian Galpin, and longtime friend of the show—the Godfather of Game shows himself—Paul Giroux, all sat down for a discussion on the importance of team building tips to ensure your next event is as successful as possible.
During our conversation, DuPont noted the importance of a positive work environment, saying that it’s necessary to “make a conscious attempt to communicate with each other better, to have some fun with each other, to get to know each other a little bit better.” She added that “team building is one of the best tools that you can use to help give you that sense of community within your company.”
In this article, we’re going to focus on expert tips for team-building events so you can host memorable experiences that have a meaningful impact on your employees and business. If you’re looking to have an event that your team will talk about for years to come, keep reading!
5 Team Building Tips to Execute the Perfect Event
First, let’s start off with 5 team-building tips to execute the perfect event. These tips will help you make sure your event is a success, so read carefully and be sure to implement them for your next event.
1. Understanding Your Teams Needs and Defining Objectives
One of the best tips for a great team-building event is understanding your team’s needs and defining an objective. Understanding their needs will help you figure out where your time and resources are best spent, helping you get the most out of your event.
You can accomplish that in various ways. Surveys and team discussions are the most straightforward. Let your team voice their needs. They know their strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else, so consider their input. You can also look at data, figures, and other things you’ve noticed to consider what areas need improvement.
Once you know what your team’s needs are, you can then set specific goals. Specific goals can help you focus on the areas that need the most attention and allow you to make noticeable improvements.
Galpin noted the benefit of focusing on specific areas in our discussion, saying, “When we go in and there’s a specific goal in mind, it’s easy. These events are designed for that to begin with. And it’s really easy to debrief on an element that’s important to them by just taking aspects of what we’ve done and bringing their awareness to it.”
2. Choosing the Right Team Building Activity
Another key tip to having a successful team-building event is to choose the right event. There are countless programs and activities to choose from, so you need to narrow down which one(s) would work best for your team(s).
For example, want to do your team building outdoors and have some fun? Our polaroid scavenger hunt is a great choice. If you want something that’s more of a physical, mental, and emotional challenge, corporate survivor is a perfect choice.
Just make sure you carefully consider the event(s) you choose. Keep in mind your team’s preferences, needs, and your desired outcomes. Are you looking to just have fun? Is your group multi national? Are you looking more for professional development? These are the questions that you should be looking at.
3. Location, Planning, and Logistics
Location, planning, and logistics may not be the most fun things, but they are essential tips for team building in the workplace. If you want your event to be successful, you need to pick the right location, plan it properly, and make sure all the logistics are handled.
First, consider the location. Are you going to have it in your office? Are you gathering virtually? Do you need to rent a space? Are people going to travel? These are very important questions you need to answer in the early stages of planning your event.
Then consider the logistics. Are you going to plan it yourself? Or do you want a company such as TeamBonding to deal with the logistics and facilitation?
Choosing a company like ours can provide lots of advantages. We have years of experience planning and running team bonding events, and we utilize that experience to make your events a success. Whether it’s helping find corporate event ideas or facilitating your event, we can help ensure your event is one to remember.
Once those questions are answered, you can move on to planning the full event. You’ll need to figure out the event timeline, establish milestones, have the materials prepared, and more. Again, choosing a company like TeamBonding can help make this process easier, giving you the time to focus more on your team and having fun.
4. Execution & Facilitation
Execution and facilitation are arguably the most important tips here. All the planning in the world means nothing if your event itself is not run well. You need to make your employee investment worthwhile. Executing and facilitating your event are factors you don’t want to overlook.
Even if you decide to plan your event yourself, you should strongly consider bringing in a professional facilitator like the ones at TeamBonding. They are trained to make your events fun, exciting, memorable, and—most importantly—smooth. You want your event to have a good flow and be without interruptions, tech issues, mishaps, and more. A professional facilitator can eliminate and minimize those concerns.
Either way, make sure you spend plenty of time going over the execution and facilitation of your event. All of your planning may go to waste if your event doesn’t go well, so pay attention to execution and facilitation.
5. Sustaining the Momentum
Sustaining momentum is something that many people overlook, but it’s a team-building tip for managers and employees that will help you make the most of your event.
Team building doesn’t end when your event does; it’s only just beginning. Sustaining the momentum of your event is essential, as much of the most impactful team building happens after the event.
This is something that Giroux emphasized during our conversation when he said, “It could have been a 30-second thing. It could have been a seven-minute game that they played. But now they have a connection. Now they have something they can talk about, and they’ve seen their coworkers in different situations. And that’s going to bring a connection that’s going to be long lasting, a lot more than an hour.”
Your event is just the beginning. It is a starting point to spur conversations, relationships, growth, and much more. You need to make sure that your team building and the lessons you learn continue to impact your team.
Virtual Team Building Tips
Though team building traditionally is done in-person, COVID-19 made virtual team building more popular than ever. You can still bring your team together, have fun, and improve their skills, even if they’re spread across the globe. Here are some virtual team-building tips.
Choosing the Right Technology
Technology is incredibly important when it comes to virtual team building. We all know how quickly a tech issue can derail a virtual meeting or event, so mitigating those issues is key. One of the best ways to do that is by choosing the right technology and making sure everything is functioning.
There are a lot of options these days for a virtual event. Zoom, Slack, MicrosoftTeams, and more are all potential choices. They all have their own pros and cons, and it largely comes down to preference.
That said, we recommend choosing technology that you have experience with. If you have used Zoom for years without issues, it’s likely best to just use Zoom. You have experience, know it works, and can troubleshoot more quickly should you need to. Ultimately though, just make sure you choose technology that you know how to use and can rely on.
Choosing the Right Event
Our other tip for virtual team-building events is to choose the right event(s). With virtual events in particular, choosing the right event or activity is critical to making your event impactful. You need activities that get everyone involved, promote participation, creativity, and more.
Thankfully, there are a lot of options available. Many of our most popular events can be done in a virtual or hybrid environment. We also have events that are custom tailored for the digital space, such as Virtual Mixology or Virtual Casino Night.
Just remember to keep our earlier tips in mind about choosing the right event. You should be considering what your virtual or hybrid teams need most, prefer, etc. Doing that will help you pick the best event that will have the most possible impact on your team.
Listen to the full episode packed with team-building tips and advice here.
Start Planning Your Next Team Building Event
A positive culture and environment is key to success in business, and team building is one of the best ways to create a positive culture in the workplace. Team building can help you and your team bond, develop friendships, reduce stress, better your skills, and more.
To start planning your next team-building event, get in touch with TeamBonding. We have a huge selection of events for you to choose from, so you’ll have no problem finding the right fit for you. And we can help you every step of the way; from planning to execution, We are ready to make your event truly impactful. So reach out today and start planning with us!
