Fun Employee-to-Employee Relationship-Building Ideas
Your business is a team. Although big organizations may have a large number of teams --- even global and/or virtual ones --- and small businesses may have fewer, the overall operation of your business is dependent on the cohesion of them. As the old saying goes, "The family that plays together, stays together"; small businesses especially operate under similar family dynamics. Relationship-, or team-building, activities may foster the business family's team spirit and increase productivity.
Other People Are Reading
-
Scavenger Hunt
-
Use a corporate team-building event company to host your scavenger hunt, or design your own. Designate teams and give them a list of things they need to collect by a certain time around your headquarters, city or other location. The list may include area-specific signs, such as one including your city name; people, such as a picture of a man wearing a green shirt; or activities they need to complete, such as a nonteam member taking a picture of the whole team eating ice cream. Be creative and tailor the list to your company and employees. The team who completes its list in the fastest time or has the most items completed by the finish time wins bragging rights or a prize designated by you.
Murder Mystery
-
A murder mystery is a fun, corporate team-building activity that may also include a celebration dinner. Corporate hosting companies are available nationwide and can assist you with a tailored script and specific characters for your company. Typically, you assign a team to develop the murder mystery with the hosting company; your team provides information on your employees, writes the script with the professional hosts and casts players in the mystery, including the murderer.
Invite your entire company to the event and assign them to teams who are seated together at dinner tables. Use vintage and contemporary crime shows or detective names as team names, such as Team Magnum P.I. or Team CSI. The professional host uses the dossier from your committee to interrogate your employees throughout and after the dinner, using pieces of information that may be surprising to each of them, as well as to their colleagues. Teams get together at the end, share clues and theories and present their final conclusions. The team who guesses correctly wins bragging rights or a prize designated by you.
-
Tournament
-
Some of your employees are likely to be athletic; others may be cerebral. Design a tournament of multiple activities over a day or evening where both types are comfortable and able to shine. Designate a planning committee of employees and ask them to assign teams, mixing up athletic and cerebral types, as well as departments and introverted or extroverted personalities. Rent a sports bar and create a program that includes contest rounds of pool, darts, trivia and another cerebral games such as "Who Am I?"
For the latter, ask employees to each submit a bio to the committee; pass the bios out to all employees to review in advance of the tournament. Ask each employee to pick a name when he enters the tournament and, without looking at it, fasten it to his back or ask another employee to do so. During the tournament, employees go around and ask others questions such as "Am I male?" or "Do I work in accounting?" and, finally, "Am I Mary Smith?" Assign points for each game in the tournament and total all for each team. The team with the highest points wins bragging rights or a prize designated by you.
Fun Czar
-
Relationship- or team-building doesn't have to be a big annual event. Rotate an employee every year to plan ongoing --- monthly, for instance --- activities, such as group discounted theater, movie or sporting event tickets. Although not every event will appeal to every employee, an ongoing variety fosters a sense of camaraderie and gives your employees a chance to get to know each other outside of work, which, in turn, may foster their relationships inside of work.
-
References
- Photo Credit BananaStock/BananaStock/Getty Images
