It can be a daunting job to plan a team building event. Therefore, we’re here to guide you through this, especially if it’s your first time planning it! With any kind of event, there are certain things you have to avoid. The last thing you want is to fail at a seemingly simple task your boss entrusted to you! Firstly, there has to be a purpose behind the event, or something that you want out of it. For team building, this can be straight to the point – to improve relationships within your team. To do so, here are 6 team building mistakes you need to avoid!
1. Not planning ahead
There’s nothing worse than finding out you have a team building activity to plan in one week, and scrambling all over trying to find the perfect activity. To avoid last minute situations, always plan ahead! It doesn’t matter if you’re swamped with work or not, we cannot emphasize the importance of giving yourself enough time to plan the activity! The least you could do is to jot it down in your calendar, and set aside half a day to research about the perfect team building session. By starting early on planning, half the stress will be lifted off your shoulders and you will have ample time to discuss with your colleagues and vendors about the details of the activity!
2. Choosing the wrong activities
Another fatal mistake you can make is choosing unsuitable activities! Most of the time, employees dread team bonding because of the boring games associated with it. To change your colleagues’ minds, you need to ask for their opinions, or find games that are interesting yet foster interaction and teamwork! For example, games such as combat archery tag and laser tag are increasingly popular as team building games because they encourage players to work together to achieve a certain goal. These games are also fun and different from your usual team bonding games!
3. Scheduling the team building session on personal time
This is the one mistake that will earn you groans and silent curses under your employees’ breaths. After a tiring work week, attending a work event on a Saturday is the last thing your staff would wish for! In order to get them to be pumped up for this team building session, you need to block out half a day for the activity to take place during office hours, and not the weekends. This will reassure your staff that they will have work-life balance in your company as such team building activities will not eat up any of their personal time.
4. Being the “boss” during team building
It doesn’t matter whether you’re the boss during office hours, try not to reign full control of your employees during team building activities! You wouldn’t want your employees dreading the activities you’ve carefully planned out because they feel that it is just another time for you to showcase your prowess. Instead, let them take charge and delegate tasks while rendering help when needed! Remember, don’t over-manage or place too much emphasis on winning. Afterall, team building is for everyone to have fun and build bonds!
5. Making team building a one-time event
Close bonds within a team do not just happen overnight. Often, this takes years of effort on both ends. If you want your team to foster teamwork and work closely, try organising team building sessions at least twice a year! These sessions can be done in half a work day, so don’t be afraid that it’s gonna take up too much working time! With continous fun team building activities, your team will feel more comfortable with each other and even look forward to team building sessions!
For more fun and exciting games such as bubble soccer, laser tag, archery tag, saber tag, ninja tag poolball or saberFit , book your team building with The Fun Empire now!