In many circles, team building has a reputation for being boring or a waste of time. The problem is: most exercises aren’t designed to meet the interests of all personality types in your group. This piece will briefly cover the benefits of team building exercises and how to choose exercises that everyone will love taking part in.
To have a truly successful event, you must be inclusive and take all personality types into consideration. What exercises or activities are there that will make introverts feel safe but not bore the extroverts? What activities will interest analytical minds without frustrating the intuitive types on your team? Keep reading to find out.
Why are Team Building Games Important for Workplace Dynamics?
Team building helps build trust, improve communication, boosts motivation, and encourages collaboration. When your team can work together on something outside of work, they can build connections in a different way. Team building exercises can help reduce conflict and create camaraderie. Plus, these games can boost your team’s morale.
How to Plan a Successful Team Building Event
Before planning the event, consider how these elements can help make your team building event attractive for those involved. Here are five things you should include no matter what team building activity or game you plan.
Great Food: One huge incentive for employees is to feed them a good meal. People know the value of good food and appreciate saving money on even just one meal. Make sure you know any dietary restrictions for your team before ordering.
Good Conversation: Help your employees get to know one another better. Create conversation starters with memorable activities or just offer conversation prompts throughout the event. Introverts will thank you for giving them something deeper to discuss than basic small talk.
Problem Solving: It’s important to note that happiness and learning are closely tied together. The traditional company picnic just isn’t going to cut it. You need to include interesting games, fun music, and great conversations if you want your team-building event to be effective.
Skill Building: Centering your event around a skill-based activity may be a fun way to get your team involved. Skill-building events help employees feel like they are spending their time in a valuable way and not just playing a random game to waste some time.
Encouragement: Make sure your team sees this event as a reward and not an attempt to make them a better team. Your team is more likely to get excited about your event if they feel like it’s a nod to all the hard work they are putting in. Advertise the team-building exercise as a break from the grind and take time to acknowledge their successes during the event.
Best Team Building Activities for All Personality Types
You probably have a lot of different personalities making up your work family. So, let’s consider what events will engage and interest your entire team.
Team Trivia
Host a fun game of trivia for your team. Along with questions about pop culture, music, history, or other topics, mix in questions about your company policies or industry standards. Trivia can be a fun way to help your team remember key concepts and it’s an easy virtual team building game if you have remote employees.
New Hire Questions
Do more than just a new hire introduction. Ask new hires to give quick answers to a series of random, rapid-fire prompts like, “best season?” and “favorite food for breakfast?” Or give them a handful of in-depth questions, like:
- What are you listening to lately?
- What was your first screen name?
- If you could be a ______ (food/animal/superhero/etc.), which one would you be?
- What place is next on your travel wish list?
After the new hire answers the chosen questions, have every member of the team answer one of the questions as well. Getting everyone involved helps the new hire learn more about the team.
Escape Room
Try the puzzle and problem-solving challenge of an escape room with your workplace crew. If you have a large team, you could break into groups by personality type, departments, or a random way of splitting up into groups.
Raffle Drawing
You can host an entire event around a few key prizes. Get your team hyped by announcing the prize ahead of time and whatever qualifier will put them in the drawing. For the big reveal, offer food, music, and icebreaker questions for everyone. The great thing about this event is that it’s easy to do during the work day during lunch and doesn’t require taking the team to a different location.
This or That
While active personality types will enjoy moving, introverts like to know more about their coworkers. Make the group move to one side of the room if they like “this” and the other side if they prefer “that.” Choose questions about life outside of work, office tasks, personal goals, and more. This can also work as a virtual team-building game with participants taking a poll to express their positions.
Ridiculous Competition
Competition can be fun for many on your crew, but it is more inclusive when it’s over something utterly ridiculous. Consider hosting “office Olympics” or a gingerbread decorating contest. Put people on teams and add ridiculous rules (like gingerbread house creators can only get one piece of candy from the main table at a time). Offer unconventional prizes, like most team spirit or most creative attempts.
Celebrate Victories
A great way to get your entire team involved is to celebrate. Workplace victories could include a number of milestones, like client retention, sales records, projects completed, team productivity, and more. You can even surprise your team by setting a secret goal and hosting a celebration when they hit it.
Want to really get your employees really excited about team-building events? Let the time count towards the workday! Allow your members to track team building time so the exercise feels like a true break and not just one more thing to add to their schedules.