Team Building Exercises

If you’re looking to foster some office harmony, and give the members of your business something to focus their efforts on, then a team building exercise might be just the thing. Let’s take a look at some of the activities you might consider for your workforce!

Paintballing

If you’re going to try and encourage people to work together, it’s almost always useful to give them an incentive to do so. And what better incentive can there be than the sight of some other department of your business – or another business – crushed and humiliated?

Often, a workforce that’s too relaxed and friendly with itself will benefit from a little bit of adversity and competition. That’s where a competitive wargame can come in. By working together to defeat another team, your workforce will need to forge the bonds of co-operation in the heat and pressure of armed combat! But, happily, they’ll be able to do so without risking life and limb.

Singing

Does your workforce work as a single, harmonious whole, or is it rather a collection of individuals working toward their own ends? If your answer leans toward the latter, then it might be time that you fostered a little more co-operative spirit – and that’s where singing can be very helpful.

The skills that you might learn from listened and harmonising with other people are applicable in a wide range of workplace scenarios. That’s why workplace choirs are becoming more and more popular – in part thanks to the success of Gareth Malone’s series of sonorous television programmes.

No matter how dreadful or amazing at singing you are, you’ll be able to blend your voice in with those of your colleagues. This is an exercise that will help transform a discordant mess into something pleasant and consonant!

Cookery

Cooking is an incredibly popular and useful pastime and life skill. Thousands of hours of television on the topic are broadcast and enjoyed every week, and miles of shelf-space across the country is consumed by cookery books. But however much we might aspire to gastronomic greatness, there’s no substitute for real, hands-on instruction. And that’s where a cookery class or two can come in handy.

If your workforce has shown an interest in the kitchen, then getting them into the same room to cook something new is a worthwhile activity. It’ll put them into competition with one another, to be sure. But perhaps more importantly, it’ll teach them a life skill that will keep them healthy, and save them money that might otherwise be spent on takeaway and restaurants. What’s more, cookery can be fun, too!

Charity Walking

If your workplace environment is a little on the sedentary side, then encouraging physical activity is a hugely useful thing to do. Getting those office workers out of their seats and moving will make them healthier, and consequently happier and more productive. And there are few physical activities easier to get on board with than walking. After all, walking is something that we’ve all been doing every day since we first managed to put one foot of the other.

Walking exercises come in many different forms. Some require more planning and preparation than others. You might organise a charity hike, perhaps in an exotic foreign land. A charity challenge abroad will have the benefit of giving your workforce something to work towards, which will give them an incentive to train for it. Moreover, it’s an excuse to venture somewhere unusual and break the office routine apart a little. You’ll be raising money for a good cause, too!

Another form of walking exercise is more economical. Divide your workforce into teams and issue them all with pedometers. Whichever team takes the most steps in a given space of time (say, a month or so) will be declared the winner. You might even have a leader-board in the office, displaying which member of staff is making the greatest contribution.

Charity Bike Ride

If your workforce are all keen cyclists, then you might consider upping the ante a little further. Team charity events like a lengthy bike ride demand not only physical effort and mental robustness – they require people who can work together, too. When one member of the team starts to waver, it will be down to the other members to offer support and encouragement. This team dynamic is even more important during a bike ride, as riders will be able to gain a significant advantage from riding within one another’s slipstream. When the team finally crosses that finish line, they’ll be more together than ever before – and they’ll be more effective in the workplace for it!