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Team building is one of the most dreaded activities by employees. Many staff and even managers wonder, how can you expect one day of games bond colleagues together and improve relationships by a tremendous amount? Furthermore, boring team building games take all the fun out of the experience. However, meet any renowned leader and they will tell you the same thing – team building Singapore is an integral part of any successful company.
Below are the reasons why they are so important and why you should invest in team building.
Investing in Team Building
1. Goals are achieved
In a team building environment, the objectives and rules of the games are made clear at the start of the session. This is so that the team has a goal to work towards during their team building activity. Tasks will be delegated to each member to achieve their common goal. Such a practice will be translated to better work performance where team members are comfortable with working with one another to reach a certain target set by their superior!
2. Encourage competition
Nothing drives an underperforming team to do better than some healthy competition. During team building activities, your team will be pit against an opponent team. Whether they win or lose, chances are they will be fuelled to perform to their best ability! This boosts team morale and will encourage team members to do the same during work too! Competition has also been shown to increase production, which will improve work efficiency as well.
3. A shared sense of achievement
Unconventional and unique team building activities such as cooking classes are all-inclusive, unlike certain games that only allow for one or two players to be in charge. Therefore, when a certain task is successfully completed, a feel-good factor runs through the group and everyone shares the joy! This is beneficial to businesses as it fosters a mentality to win repeatedly, encouraging similar workplace performance. When your team members complete a project together in the office in the future, they will gain that same shared sense of achievement too.
4. Build face-to-face interaction
Most of the times when we are tasked to work together with our team members, we communicate through email or online chats to delegate tasks. However, communicating face-to-face can minimise confusion, and even make working together more pleasant as you get to discuss and keep ideas flowing! Our decentralised workspaces these days rob these interactions away from us, but this must not necessarily be the case. During team building activities, face-to-face interaction is fostered as you often have to discuss strategies and whatnot. This will hopefully translate to similar interactions in the office, where you communicate more effectively in real life to discuss work-related issues.
5. Encourage problem-solving
When we are participating in team building activities, we often have a strategy in mind. However, not everything will go our way! More often than not, there will be unpredictable situations where someone or something messes up. Team building games are thus a good practice to train your team to tackle unexpected problems together! Your team will then be used to coming up with solutions on-the-go, and this skill will definitely come in handy in the workplace.
How to plan a successful Team Building event?
Everyone who organizes team building events definitely wants the event to be successful, both event execution wise and its effects on their team. With ineffective planning and poor execution, team building events might actually go to waste! But how do you make sure that your team-building event is effective? Don’t know where to start? No worries! Our article to planning an awesome team building event would get you started off the right track!
1. What do you want to accomplish?
Is there a specific aim for your team building event? Were you tasked to improve something in your team? You need to set clear objectives. Always have a goal in mind what you intend to accomplish through the team building event to make it an awesome one. This would definitely help to improve your event’s effectiveness and for it to work for your team!
2. Plan Early
The most important point in organizing every team building event is to plan early. No one wants to procrastinate till the last minute, which not only will stress you out, but also the event might not go as smoothly as you have hoped. Starting early helps you to plan out whatever you need for the event and what activity would be suitable for the event! Some team building activity examples would be Combat Archery Tag, Laser Tag, and even Bubble Bump!
3. Budget + Location
Budget is very important especially if the event will be limited by budget. Having a budget would actually limit your location choices for the event. Always try to have the event out of office to take away the pressure of the office and for everyone to truly enjoy and have fun! Having locations that fit in your budget helps you to plan much better and to be able to spend more on the event or activity itself!
4. When?
Choosing the time for the event is equally important too! If the date is flexible, make sure that everyone in your team can make it for the event. It is very important that no one feels left out from the activity as that might actually cause the event to adversely affect the team instead. Try to fit everyone’s schedules in and choose your date wisely.
5. Involve everyone
Never leave anyone out. If your team has anyone who is handicapped, always make sure that the event organized is handicap friendly. Engage your team during the event to build rapport and camaraderie, which would, in turn, make the event a successful one!
6. Choose a unique and special activity!
Having a new and unique activity would bring novelty to the team building event, making everyone much more excited about it! Activities like Combat Archery Tag and Laser Tag are a few special activities that are suitable for team building and bonding with everyone!
7. Get out of your comfort zone
People tend to want to stay comfortable, which defeats the purpose of learning more about their colleagues and team bonding. Always step out of your comfort zone and talk to people you have never talked to before! You’ll never know, you might change your perception of your colleague for the better!
8. No job titles or rankings
Leave these job titles and rankings in the office! When you are out of the office for a team building event, there should be no job titles involved to allow the team building event to be a success. People are known to drop their guard and communicate at a more personal level when not being bossed around. This is definitely the perfect time for bosses to know more about their team!
9. Have fun
Having fun is the final concluding tip for all successful and effective corporate team building events. It’s all about letting loose during the event, which makes the event successful, and to build bonds among your team to have a relaxing day together!
10. Ask for feedback!
Even if you are not the one who will be planning the next team building event, always try to ask for feedback a few days after the event to find out how the event went for your team and what they felt could do better. This information can be passed down to the next planner who would then be able to improve and organise another good event, or even better!
Team Building Activities to consider
1. Copy My Lego
The aim of this game is to replicate your opponent’s Lego structure in just 10 minutes. Separate everyone into two equal teams and assign them to go into separate rooms. Each team will be given an equal set of Lego blocks and to build a structure of their choice. Once that is done, a member (spy) from each team will go over to their opponent’s room to fully absorb the design and rebuild that design.
The spy has the responsibility to lead the team by communicating well on how to build the Lego structure. Thus, he must remember details such as the colour and block types to ensure that the design is as close as it can get. The team with the most similar Lego structure wins!
2. Karaoke Night
You might be sitting right across this person but have never gotten the chance to get to know them better. They may have hidden talents that you are not aware of too. Team building games like a karaoke night can be an icebreaker for you to get to know the person on a more personal level. You can get people to sing individually or separate them into groups. Kick it up a notch by including a contest to the karaoke night party. The team who performs the best wins and gets a prize!
3. Cooking Classes
The safest pick to a team building game is enrolling in a cooking class. Besides, everyone loves food! Through this cooking session, you will learn how to make luxury dishes with the help of your colleagues. This is also the perfect place to break all hierarchies by asking the admin person to be the head chef while your boss prepares all the ingredients. The aim is to create the most aesthetically pleasing and tasty dish as fast as possible. Though you would not be rewarded with prizes, the reward of tasting your own cook is much better!
4. Combat Archery Tag Singapore
If you have got a sporty team on board, try combat archery tag for your next team building game! With the bow and arrows, you are going to shoot at your opponent. Not to fret, as the arrows are foam padded and you can go about shooting. There are several gameplays to Combat Archery tag and rest assured you would not be bored throughout the session. It can get intense midway through the Combat Archery Tag game so ensure you gear up!
5. The Escape Room
The fastest way to get everyone communicating is through team building games such as the escape room. Each team will encounter a problem which is the puzzle that needs to be solved. Along the way, you would need to find hidden clues and objects that will lead to the missing key. The key needs to be found in order for you to escape the room. It may sound like a simple game but it sure is harder than it seems. Some teams might not even find the key within the stipulated time. However, being able to escape or not is final. Learning about teamwork, leadership, and patience is what makes this experience worth it.
6. Go Karting
Racing is a unique hobby and something that you do not get to do on a daily basis in Singapore. This is an opportunity for you to make go-karting as your next team building game! Being able to race up to 50km per hour against your colleagues is going to thrill the adrenaline junkie out of you. Challenge each other as you drift and zoom on the racecourse in a 200 cc 5.5 horsepower racecar. It is going to be competitive and challenging. But above all, it will leave you with an experience that you will remember for a lifetime!
And we that, we hope you have a successful team building session. Engage with The Fun Empire now and we’ll help you do the work! Have fun!