Team Building Encourage Exercises That Your Employees Will Love  | #hrmanagement #hrexecutive

Making sure that your team of co-workers get along isn’t always the easiest of tasks. However, ensuring that you have a strong, collaborative, and motivated team will do wonders for their levels of productivity and efficiency. This is why team building has been such a success in the workplace. Not only will team building encourage communication, camaraderie, and collaboration, but it will also help your employees learn new and valuable skills. 
Team building exercises encourage employees to work together as an effective unit. Some exercises are designed with the intention of addressing any interpersonal problems that group members may have. The end goal is for your group of employees to feel more united by the end of the exercise. Team building can be achieved by going outdoors to play some sports or it can even be organized virtually. Here are a few team-building exercises that your employees are sure to love. 

Team Sports 

Team sports is one of the oldest methods that exists to foster team building. Not only will this encourage your employees to keep fit and active, but it will also improve leadership and communication skills. If you have a large staff, you could organize different teams and make them play against each other.
Find a sport that will appeal to a large variety of your workforce. Dodgeball, soccer, basketball, and baseball are great crowd pleasers and the rules are easy to learn. A fun idea to ensure that this isn’t a one-time exercise is to host a small championship every few months. You could even set this up outside and make it a little party. Hire a hot dog vendor, set up some heavy duty tarps for shade, and let the games begin. 

Virtual Team Building 

Even if you have swapped the physical office for a remote work environment, it is still crucial that you invest in your company’s culture. Whether you run a virtual office or you have had to switch to remote working because of coronavirus safety regulations, there is still time to encourage team-building. 
Some fun exercises to play whilst on a virtual call include ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ and ‘Favorite Things’. These are more communicative exercises designed to break the ice amongst co-workers and let them learn more about each other. They may have more in common than they think. 
‘Two Truths and a Lie’ involves each member saying three statements. Two of these should be truthful and the other should be a lie. Try to create a realistic lie, as your teammates will have to guess which statement is a lie and which are true. This game really helps introverts break the ice in new settings. 
Similarly, ‘Favorite Things’ is a great conversation starter. This game is very simple, you assign a topic of conversation and let your team members do the talking. For example, you could ask “What is your favorite part of working together?” or “What do you enjoy the most about working from home?”. 

Escape Rooms 

Employees with real and meaningful connections are more likely to have better experiences at work. What better way to get some genuine bonding time and resolve any conflicts than by trying to escape a room together. Escape rooms have witnessed a boom in popularity over the last few years. This activity involves solving clues and puzzles to find ‘the key’ and escape the room. 
You can play this game in its physical form or even virtually over a video conference call. Make sure you keep the teams relatively small, as too many voices trying to get their point across is often a recipe for disaster. If you have to split up a large group into two, why not challenge the teams to see who can escape the quickest. There are many different themes to choose from and if this method of team building works well for your office, you can even make it a quarterly activity.  
You may be lucky and have a team that gets on amazingly, no questions asked. However, even the most close-knit teams can really benefit from some good old-fashioned bonding time. Relationships need to be nurtured, even those that are formed in the workplace. 
Having some time off to conduct these team-building exercises also gives your staff a chance to unwind, relax, and socialize. The key to running a successful business is having a successful team behind the scenes. There are countless ways to rally your colleagues together and encourage team spirit. 
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