Significance of Team Building Activities
Organizations of all types and sizes often emphasize on the importance of teamwork. It is expected that individuals with different skill sets, and personalities align with the organization’s vision and work productively towards it. It is also often assumed that individuals when put together in a team naturally get along with each other or collaborate smoothly. However, that does not happen most of the times. Teams are often prone to disagreements, conflicts, and competitive environments. A report on workplace conflict commissioned by CPP Global confirms that 85% of employees deal with conflict at work. One way for organizations to minimize conflict, improve collaboration, and build a positive organizational culture is to organize team building activities regularly. An investment in team building activities reflects the organization’s commitment to employee wellbeing while increasing productivity.
The importance of team building activities was very evident during the pandemic as organizations were experiencing low employee engagement, high employee turnover, and poor mental health of employees. The team building industry quickly evolved and adapted by offering innovative solutions that are 100% virtual. As the future of work becomes more dominated by remote and hybrid work arrangements, virtual team building activities will be key to maintaining relationships among team members. Although employers have been initially skeptical of organizing team building activities online, they turned out to be more engaging and intriguing than physical activities.
How to conduct team building activities?
It must be noted that while all team building activities are fun to do, choosing the right activity is vital to achieving the objectives of the team. Moreover, not all activities are suitable to all teams and might need customization. The factors that need to be considered while organizing team building or team bonding activities are the objective of the activity, team size, resources needed, team composition, previous experience with the activity, and the involvement of the leadership team. The most successful team building activities are planned and customized to the teams. For example, if improving team communication is the objective, activities like board games may not be the most suitable ones. Rather, activities like escape rooms or icebreakers work better. Some activities might also need outside facilitators to be executed perfectly and achieve the objectives. Outside facilitators ensure participation from all team members and do not leave room for bias.
The success of a virtual team building activity also involves the technology or the platform used to conduct it. As organizations increasingly moved towards virtual team building during the pandemic, a plethora of virtual platforms that enable virtual events have evolved. Although standard platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft teams do provide enough features to conduct these activities, platforms that are tailored to virtual experiences empower organizations to deliver an engaging and impactful experience. One such example is the virtual experience platform Remo. Ever since Remo was born, they set out on a mission to transform virtual experiences into more human experiences. Remo offers many virtual experiences that help in reducing ‘zoom fatigue’ and improving employee mental health in a remote work environment. Adapting customized virtual platforms like Remo to conduct virtual team building activities also help in delivering out of the box experiences for employees.
Image shows the user interface of virtual events platform Remo
Some other ideas for team building activities that can be organized in the new normal are mystery games, icebreakers, virtual scavenger hunts, virtual movie nights, virtual weekends, virtual adventure days, mindfulness activities etc. Thinking out of the box ideas for team bonding is key to organizing the most intriguing and fun activity. Take into consideration what all your co-workers might enjoy. If possible, try including family members or pets as a part of the activities to make them more memorable. To conclude, ensuring that all the team members participate and enjoy the activities is more important than organizing them. Choose the right vendor or facilitator, outline your objectives, get feedback from your team members, and involve the leadership team for the best experience.
Virtual Team Building
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