If you want to find a way to bring your teams close together, you might consider a team building exercise. Team building can help to break down barriers, forge new connections and boost team morale. It’s an ideal way for workers to know one another outside of the context of their usual working environment.
Why is team building so important?
Team building helps employees to get to know one another better. When you only know your colleagues in a professional context, it can be difficult to relate to them. Communication can be less effective because you don’t know the best way to reach out to these individuals. Over time, this can breed resentment and poor employee morale.
By introducing team building exercises, you give your employees the framework to be able to get to know their colleagues. They’ll learn more about their background and their life experiences. They’ll also learn how to communicate more effectively and how to give feedback in a way that will be well-received.
Another benefit of team building is the process of introducing new team members so they can quickly feel comfortable in the workplace. It can also help to promote cross-department collaboration, as the barriers between the teams will be broken down once they get to know each other.
Types of team building activities
Team building exercises can be split into different categories, with each one offering something unique. Popular team building categories include:
- Active team building, which can help to break up the working day and encourage everyone to be more active.
- Problem solving, where teams work together to devise a solution to a problem.
- Ice breakers, where individuals can get to know one another and learn more about each other on a personal level.
- Networking events, where individuals can get to know others from throughout the organisation or from different offices.
These are just some of the categories of team building events you might want to consider. It’s common for organisations to try different types of team building events throughout the year based on the changing aims.
For example, you might want to host an ice breaker event soon after taking on a large number of new employees to help them to settle in. And if you’re thinking about promotions and want to know who has leadership potential, a problem solving team building event might be more appropriate.
With this in mind, let’s look at 20 different team building exercises you could try in 2024 and how they will help with your business objectives.
Ice breaker team building ideas
The purpose of the ice breaker event is to give everyone a chance to get to know their colleagues outside of a professional setting. This can help individuals to work together more effectively as they will understand one another on a more personal level.
Two truths and a lie
In this team building game, every participant has to come up with two truths and one lie about themselves. The rest of the group then have to guess which is the lie. This can help to spark some interesting conversations about the team and help them to discover common ground.
Team trivia
A trivia night will help to break down barriers and let everyone share their unique perspective on the world. Even if individuals think they aren’t good at trivia, there’s always something that they bring to the table, and this can help individuals to identify common ground.
Book club
A company book club will help to bring together like-minded individuals within your organisation and allow them to bond over a shared passion for literature. This can help the more introverted members of a team to feel included in the team building activities, even if events usually cater more to their extroverted colleagues.
Company retreat
A company retreat will get everyone away from the office and allow them to bond over fun activities. Spending an extended period of time away together can help to break down barriers and let everyone relax in each other’s company. Everyone should leave with new insights about their colleagues and how best they can work together to achieve incredible things.
Personality tests
Taking a personality test together and then discussing the results can be eye-opening for many teams. It will help individuals to see how they are similar and how they are different to their colleagues. It can also help management to spot where there are concentrations of particular personality types within the organisation.
Active team building ideas
An active challenge is a great way to encourage everyone to get to know each other in a new setting. Those who are looking for ways to be more active will love the challenge. And those who are already quite active will love having their chance to shine.
Office olympics
You don’t have to get outside to get active. You could host an afternoon of active challenges within your office. Paper balls can become basketballs and rubbish bins become hoops. Rubber bands turn into an archery challenge. Pencils become javelins. Corridors become race courses. You could also combine office olympics with sports day activities such as an egg and spoon race.
Charity bike ride
The purpose of a charity bike ride is not for one person to win, it’s for the team to complete the challenge as a group. They will also have the chance to train for the event outside of work, which will encourage more socialising outside of the actual team building event. This is an excellent way to build a sense of camaraderie and to help inspire collaboration.
Yoga class
Active doesn’t have to mean getting sweaty. Sometimes it can be a more mindful type of movement, such as yoga. Yoga is a great team building exercise as it is welcoming to all body types and abilities. It’s a great way to get away from the desk, improve posture, and spark conversations that wouldn’t happen in the usual networking event.
Problem solving team building ideas
When you want to identify untapped potential in your employees, it’s time to plan a problem solving team building exercise. These tasks are likely to be nothing like the challenges your team face every day, so they will have to approach it in a completely unique way. This can help you to spot which members of the team could have leadership potential.
Escape room
An escape room is a fun way to get everyone on their feet and thinking through problems together. It requires teamwork, a strong sense of leadership, and the ability to delegate tasks. Split your team into groups and let them battle it out for supremacy as the group that can make it out of their escape room first.
Scavenger hunt
A scavenger hunt can be about physical items, or it can be more conceptual. It could also include doing challenges, not just finding challenges. This type of task will require excellent teamwork and the capacity to allow one person to take the lead, even if everyone feels capable of being the leader. Often, leadership is as much about being able to work collaboratively rather than simply stomping your feet the loudest.
Building challenge
A building challenge is a fun and engaging team building activity that will encourage everyone to think outside the box. The most popular challenges include giving participants a random selection of items and then asking them to build a structure with specific qualities. Common ideas include the tallest structure, the strongest structure, or the most protective. It could also be a waterproof or seaworthy structure. Like the scavenger hunt, the building challenge will require everyone to quickly assess which is the strongest idea and then work together to achieve it.
Blindfolded challenge
With the blindfold challenge, one person is blind folded and then has to complete a task with guidance from their team. This will test their ability to communicate effectively. Everyone should take it in turns to be the one that is blindfolded so they can get a sense of empathy for how difficult it is.
Dumbest ideas first
If your team is creative and enjoys a silly challenge, you could try the dumbest idea game. In this team building activity, the team is presented with a challenge. They have to come up with the dumbest solution to the problem. The solution still has to fix the problem, it can’t just be ineffective, but it needs to be an inefficient or silly way to achieve it. You could apply this to the field of work that you are in to make it more relevant.
Networking team building ideas
Team building can often be a case of simply creating the ideal conditions for your workers to get to know one another. This can help to break down barriers between departments and encourage more cross-collaboration.
Company picnic
In a world where many of us are working from home more often, it can be hard to get everyone in the same place. If you have offices around the country, the challenge is even greater. This is where a team building company picnic can come in handy. Bring everyone together for an afternoon of fun in the sun. Everyone will have a chance to eat, drink, get to know their colleagues and attend talks or seminars on issues that will impact their work.
Potluck lunch
A potluck lunch is a collaborative effort that will allow everyone to share their favourite foods with the group. The idea is that everyone brings a single dish and then the team gets together to share a buffet lunch. Make sure you coordinate mains, sides and desserts so that you get an even mix of everything instead of everyone bringing their favourite dessert. You could also theme the event, or make it a coffee morning.
Guest speakers
Inviting guest speakers to your company to share their insights is an incredible way to bring everyone together. The speakers don’t have to be sharing thoughts on your own industry. It could be a talk about wellness in the workplace, environmental responsibility or anything that interests your team. Make sure there is an opportunity to share insights at the end of the event.
Company talent show
The extroverted members of your team will love a chance to get up and perform. Planning a company talent show is a great way to inspire some creativity and thinking outside the box. Split the group into teams and then let them decide what their group talent will be and how they can scoop the coveted trophy. The fun part of this challenge is that their talent could be absolutely anything, which will make for an entertaining watch when the talent show comes around.
Roundtable discussions
A roundtable discussion about the things that currently impact your work could be an interesting way to bring everyone together and let them get to know one another. You’ll need to appoint a mediator and a topic. Everyone will have a chance to prepare a short introduction into their insight on the topic and then the mediator will run the debate. Often, the most interesting conversations are the ones that transpire after the roundtable, when everyone has had a chance to digest the topic and break it down together. Make this a regular event so that everyone has a chance to get away from their usual work demands and discuss industry topics in a new setting.
Final thoughts
You don’t have to try the same event over and over. You can mix things up, and try different events in an effort to connect with different members of the team. Remember that your team likely has lots of different personality types, including introverts and extroverts.
Team building is not about making the introverts more extroverted, but it’s about everyone learning how to see differences as a strength rather than a weakness. Through regular team building, your employees will be more empathetic and supportive of one another as they will know them as individuals and not just as colleagues.
