If you’re beginning to see some tired faces at the workplace, it may be high time for your company to plan a day out for the entire team. A team-building activity offers an opportunity for each member to learn more about their colleagues in a more casual setting outside the office. It can also help strengthen ties between team members and alleviate work-related stress.
To organize this kind of event, it is imperative that you understand what a team-building event entails. It is also helpful to know the different benefits and some tips on planning to ensure a memorable company get-together.
Understanding the Concept of Team-Building
A company works best if its employees are always working as a team. This is where the idea for team-building activities comes from.
The activities aim to establish a team-based environment where complex tasks like planning and decision-making are done in cooperation among staff members. As the saying goes, “Two heads are better than one” (or more than two, in this case).
When you bring your employees to a team-building activity, you invest in motivating your people to work together like a well-oiled machine. By encouraging open communication, collaboration, and positivity, a team-building event will help ensure that your employees drive your company to reach its goals.
Awesome Benefits of Team Building
The main purpose of team-building events is to solidify relationships within the workplace. When this is achieved, the quality of your employees’ output also improves.
When a team cultivates a strong bond, the work culture becomes stronger. This is because employees with a solid relationship within a company tend to work with and for each other.
In contrast, a company with a weak culture often has people working against each other. While there’s nothing wrong with healthy competition, too much of it can often cause people to pull one another down, dragging the company down with it.
Aside from overcoming a weak work culture, team-building events also offer several advantages for your company, including:
- Boosting the morale and leadership skills of staff members
- Pinpointing barriers that prevent employees from performing their best
- Enhancing company procedures and processes for optimal work results
- Defining company goals more clearly
- Developing problem-solving abilities of the team
- Determining the company’s strengths and weaknesses
4 Tips for Planning a Fun Corporate Outing
To make sure you do it right, here are four tips for organizing a fun corporate team-building event that your employees will surely enjoy:
1. Identify the event’s goals
Before you can even begin to plan activities and choose the venue, you must first identify the specific goals you want to achieve by the end of the event. This will ensure that the gathering is both effective and fun at the same time.
Use the five “W” questions to spark an idea: who, what, where, when, and why. As you answer each question, you should put together as many details as you can.
Here is an example of how the five “W” could be questions answered:
Who: 45 members of the marketing team
What: Fun activity
Where: La Mer, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Why: To reward the team for their exemplary output in the past quarter
When: December
When you put all that in one objective for the team-building event, you’ll get this:
“We want to reward the 45-personnel marketing team for their exemplary output in the past quarter with a fun activity this December in La Mer, Dubai, UAE.”
2. Plan your budget in detail
Your team-building event budget will depend on how much the company can allocate and its equivalent value according to the expected outcome. Often, the company owner gets to decide this part, but if he doesn’t have anything concrete, a general idea can be derived from details about past corporate events.
From there, you can start aligning costs according to the different aspects of the gathering, such as:
- Airfare and other transportation costs
- Permits and venue booking
- Budget for activities
- Food and drinks throughout the event
- Insurance
It would also be wise to set aside an amount to serve as a buffer for unforeseen costs. Then, put these in a spreadsheet and add up your expenses. Monitor how you spend as you move along the preparatory phase for the team-building event.
3. Choose a practical and workable venue
Picking a venue is crucial to the success of your corporate team-building event, so be sure to book a venue that can accommodate your group and chosen activity.
For instance, if you’re preparing outdoor activities for the team, you might want to steer clear of urban hotels that only have function rooms. In this case, it may be better to choose a location with enough elbow room.
You should also do a final headcount of the people attending the gathering to determine whether your prospective venue can accommodate everyone. Extra amenities such as audio-visual equipment and access to the Internet should also be considered.
Other factors you must look into include:
- The available parking space and accessibility to the airport (in case of overseas events)
- Amenities to boost your adaptability to the weather
- Other services like entertainment, catering, and accommodation (in case of overnight events)
4. Prepare Activities
You can prepare plenty of fun games for your company event based on your venue or the chosen theme.
For example, if you decide to bring your team to a beachfront waterpark in Dubai, you can prepare a sand maze or a scavenger hunt. Both activities can help test your staff’s teamwork, problem-solving, and analytical skills.
And since some of the most common goals of corporate getaways are to develop rapport and build a stronger bond between teammates, you could also incorporate kayaking into the event. After all, there’s no better way to work together than to paddle and steer a kayak on water while trying not to end up soaking wet.
Key Takeaway
Teamwork is crucial to a company’s success. A team-building activity can help bolster your employees’ capability to work together while providing a way for them to relieve stress and develop friendships.
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