Team Building Exercises That Actually Work

When operating a business, your team is your most valuable asset. You could have a warehouse stocked of items, a bank account full of zeros, and a never-ending client roster, but you’d still be nowhere without a great team to support you. Strong employer-employee relationships are essential for success, but almost more important is the team dynamic within your employees.

While you may be busy with brand development leadership responsibilities, your team is on the ground working on client work — and they’re often working together. If they don’t get along, this can quickly become an issue that has a negative impact on your bottom line. Poor morale is devastating to the client experience and will eventually lead to a high turnover rate. 

In order to combat this, it’s important to develop team-building exercises for your employees to hone their collaboration skills and nurture their internal relationships. Here are a few team-building exercises to consider.

Play some office games

You don’t need to do anything fancy to implement team-building exercises into your business. In fact, you can start by incorporating office games to help people grow more comfortable with one another and have fun in the office environment. This is an especially great tactic for newer who haven’t yet established strong relationships.

“Team-building is often about creating trust, which can be difficult to manufacture with a group that is skeptical,” explains Anthony Lambatos of Footers Catering. “You have to start with a level of comfort where everyone can participate and not detract from the activity. Ask people to share who they are as a person, detailing favorites and hobbies. We have an exercise where you have to draw the five most impactful things that have happened to you in your life on a poster board, then present it to the group. The point isn’t to create a work of art (there are a lot of stick figures and scribbles), but to paint a picture of what has shaped you as a person.” 

Plan an evening out

If you want your work team to feel like a family, you need to start acting like one. Think about what you would do on a night out with friends or family, then plan an outing with your team. This is a nice way to get everyone out of the office, brush the cobwebs off, and reconnect on a personal level beyond work responsibilities.

“We have outings for bowling, tailgating, and ball games (we reserve a box and have food and beverages),” shares Lon Lane of Lon Lane’s Inspired Occasions. “We’ll take them to our local alternative theatre when a play is playing that is relevant to our business and have pub food and drink before or after. In addition, we have taken the staff to movies (like “Chef,” for example) and then have bar food and drinks after while we discuss the movie.”

Create an environment of support

It’s important to recognize that each of your employees has a personal life, rich with hobbies and interests separate from your business. Accepting that is one thing, but supporting and encouraging it is another.

See if your team members are comfortable sharing their hobbies with the team and make a plan to attend someone’s adult league basketball game or someone’s child’s holiday recital. The more team members show up for one another outside of the office, the more they’ll show up in the office.

Lane elaborates: “One of our staff members is in theatre and we treat the staff to bar snacks before or after her performances. She has three to four plays a year and we support her by taking our staff to her performance.”

Take a trip

Travel is inherently stressful, so if you can get through it with your team, you will all find that it’s a deeply bonding experience. In all reality, a company retreat is an excellent way to build stronger relationships within your team and give everyone a chance to refresh and restart. This is a good time to talk about the future and brainstorm new ideas for the company, as everyone will have a fresh take on business.

There are different stages of team building and, before planning your approach, you will need to consider where your team’s dynamic currently stands. If it simply needs a refresher, you may consider a monthly or quarterly lunch outing for the office. If it needs an overhaul, on the other hand, it may take more intentional effort to get people engaged and supportive of one another. Know where you stand, as well as where you want to go; then, make a plan and stick to it.