How To Organise A Successful Team Building Day

Team building has a mixed reputation. For every employee who has participated in an effective team building event, there are always others who have endured a badly organised, embarrassing or irrelevant team building experience. Then there are the events that sit somewhere in the middle; an enjoyable day out, but one that fails to deliver lasting positive change back in the workplace. With such a variety of personality types, interests and departmental goals to account for, how do you execute a successful team building event that warrants your investment of time and money?

A considered, well managed team building event is an extremely effective business tool for instilling a positive team mentality, promoting confidence within your organisation and building engagement. The most successful team building events are goal oriented; overcoming workplace issues by equipping employees with valuable business skills, such as problem solving, project ownership, management, communication, negotiation and leadership. That doesn’t mean team building should feel like another day in the office. In fact, the success of a team building event also depends on choosing fun, rewarding and memorable activities, that encourage team relationship building through shared experiences.

Inspiring Team Building Events

Whether you’re managing a small team or a large organisation of multiple teams, coordinating the right team building event can be an intimidating task. Choosing activities that achieve the optimum balance of training and fun and stay within your budget is a considerable responsibility.

Here are our top five tips for a team building event that yields rewarding results for your employees and for your bottom line.

1) Define Business Goals

Effective team building strategy focusses on achieving clearly defined business goals. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate team dynamics and establish what is working well along with areas for improvement. Goals can then be set around target areas, enabling you to seek activities with clear purpose and function. This approach helps to define your expectations and provides the criteria to measure success.

2) Remember Workplace Relevance 

Team building encompasses a wide spectrum of motivational group activities, from business workshops to indoor and outdoor challenges, each designed to energise your teams and inspire creativity. Look for fun activities that support your business goals, encourage team bonding and develop key skills that can be implemented back in the workplace.

3) Go Offsite

Conducting team building activities offsite provides a fresh, memorable environment for learning. By allowing employees to escape the confines of their workplace roles, managers gain a unique perspective into the true dynamics of how their teams and departments interact with each other. This highlights weaker areas to address with training back in the workplace and positive behaviours that should be encouraged and rewarded to create a culture of excellence.

4) Use a Professional Team Building Company 

Delivering a successful team building event takes planning, expertise and experience.

There are many logistical considerations to plan for; including selecting and booking a suitable venue, catering and comfort facilities, arranging travel, and sourcing appropriate insurance cover.

Professional execution is vital to maintaining credibility. An established team of events management specialists will cover all the time-consuming logistics, design activities to your requirements, and provide highly trained coaches and facilitators to deliver a professional and polished event. Freedom from running the event enables managers to participate in or oversee activities; sending a strong message to employees that they are emotionally invested in the success of the event.

5) Reinforce Positive Lessons in the Workplace

Failure to continue team building back in the workplace is the most common reason many team building events fail to deliver lasting results. While a one-off event can be enjoyable and a great way to reward a team, growth within a team requires ongoing reinforcement of the skills learned. A successful team building event provides valuable insights for incorporating into a strategy for development back at the workplace.

To continue the momentum and create lasting change, it’s important for managers to set immediate, medium and long-term goals to work towards as a team. Accomplishments and ongoing achievements should be rewarded to incentivise teams and create a long term positive mentality where employees actively experience and understand the benefits of a unified workplace.

Choosing the Right Event for Your Organisation 

At EML Team, we offer inspirational, tried and tested team building activities, alongside custom designed team experiences, to give your businesses the perfect team event to achieve your objectives and build great teams.

Learn more about our 5 step process to creating team building that really works. Or get in touch with our experienced team to find out more.

Get in touch now for a fast, tailored, team building activity proposal.

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