6 Team Building Ideas for Work That Actually Work
You’ve heard it before – team building is important. But let’s be real, some of those classic activities can feel unnecessarily cheesy. Who actually wants to don food a blindfold and get led around by their coworkers? And don’t even get me started on trust falls…
While bonding is definitely key, you want team building to feel natural and fun, not forced. The last thing you need is for your colleagues to make an anti-group for extra “team time” together!
That’s why we’ve got some workplace team-building ideas that are proven to bring people together while feeling much more low-key. Activities your crew will actually look forward to instead of secretly rolling their eyes at (as proven by some of our most fastidious employees).
- 1. Escape Room Challenge
Imagine this – you and your coworkers, stuck in a box of concrete together without a way out. Sounds terrifying, isn’t it? That’s why we think this team-building idea is perfect for your team to be compelled to put problem-solving and teamwork skills to the front. You will need to put aside all the fuss to work towards a common goal (which doesn’t seem as much different as work hmm…)
- 2. Office Trivia
Weekly trivia can be your office’s new custom to divert everyone’s eyes from the computers for a while. It’s also easy to set up, you only need a quiz platform like AhaSlides or Kahoot, and everyone can access to play via their phones.
- 3. Pulse Check
It’s always a good thing to check in with your colleagues about their feelings, thoughts, and emotions at the beginning of the day. For this activity, you can create a word cloud poll and pin it under the team’s work chat. The size of the words represents the number of people that are under the same thing. If a word like ‘distress’ pops up big and bright, watch out!
- 4. Book Club
We all read but in different ways. Some prefer multitasking while listening to audiobooks/podcasts, some sign up for TedX membership, but there’s a general consensus that everyone loves to share a couple of things or two about the findings they have contemplated throughout the process, hence we think starting a book club is a great idea.
Start a new Slack channel for the book club, and invite everyone to join. Each month, they can submit an idea about what topic they want to dive deeper into via a word cloud poll, and start choosing a book to read based on the theme. Debate ideas over sandwiches – it’s more fun than you’d expect!
- 5. Lunch and Learn
Ever wonder what unique skills and hobbies lie outside your colleagues’ job titles? Kick off ‘Lunch and Learn’ to find out. Between bites, have staff give short presentations on whatever they’re passionate about, from photography to foreign languages. You’ll be amazed at what people can teach you, and it’s a relaxed way to get to know each other better.
- 6. Cultural Exchange Day
No team is one-note. Celebrate your diversity by hosting a ‘Cultural Exchange Day’. Each month, appoint a designated person to bring favorite dishes from home to share cuisine and stories of their backgrounds. Learn a few words in different languages too. Appreciating each other’s uniqueness creates empathy, and who doesn’t love trying new food? (I’m swooning over English scones and Indian butter chicken!). It’s a tasty way to learn.
Nothing boosts team morale better than skipping those overly gimmicky activities in favor of ideas your actual team enjoys, and these activities we mention above are lighthearted, and require minimal effort, letting people naturally socialize outside the structured “team building” label.
