The following is a guest post from our friends at Team Tactics. Remember that if you need personalised T-shirts for your team-building in London (or anywhere else in the UK), we’re here to serve you.
Even though building considerable professional/social bridges can be a great way to reward a hard-working staff, team building activities aren’t just ‘jolly’ — they’re a way of delivering vital team and communication skills training as well as motivating and inspiring employees in a high impact, memorable way which benefits everyone involved:
Refreshing the team’s morale and productivity through team-building activities can be vital to overall business growth and success.
They are good for business
Any and all events and activities which raise employee morale will benefit the business, particularly as this morale boost usually translates into improved productivity. This is a vital aspect of team-building for businesses, particularly those where long-standing policies, processes and procedures have affected productivity – not necessarily negatively, but through that persistent sense of ‘same-old’ which can cause productivity to plateau and motivation to plummet. Refreshing the team’s morale and productivity through team-building activities can be vital to overall business growth and success.
The fact that team-building events literally help to improve a cohort’s ability to work together can also add a sense of empowerment to a team, particularly useful in supporting a team’s overall ability to respond to and collaborate effectively to work-based challenges.
These benefits to teamwork can even include wider team collaboration as inter-team building events can offer smaller work teams a chance to build wider networks within the business and enable them to establish contacts and collaborate with other teams effectively without additional management input.
They are good for employees
Where team-building events require a team to engage in an activity which is out of the comfort zones of usual location, regular task or working alongside familiar colleagues, this immediately removes barriers to communication as in order to progress with the activity or challenge, they may need to develop new ways of working and communicating ideas. This is a great way to enrich and develop stronger communication skills for individuals as well as within and between work teams.
Individuals within a team can also experience increased motivation as success in the activity and the challenge of working in a different kind of way (or in a completely different role such as managing instead of being managed) brings improved self-confidence. Inviting all members of a team to be involved also improves commitment as it boosts an individual’s sense of company recognition and appreciation of their contribution to the team.
That change of location or setting for team activities also offers considerable benefits, as one of the reasons many creative-types need to move away from their desks and take a walk outside is that this helps to get creative juices flowing. Changing the setting and presenting a group challenge which involves using practical skills in an outdoor setting can have a big impact on increasing creativity, problem-solving skills and in communicating ideas about both problems and solutions.
Being a ‘team player’ is a regularly cited skill in business, but surprisingly few members of any team work in a role which specifically presents the opportunity to demonstrate or develop this vital attribute. Participating in a team challenge gives all members of the team the chance to explore different team roles which can help to nurture leadership skills such as instruction and delegation, offer the opportunity to try a niche and develop skills in really contributing to a team task.
Overall, the benefits of team-building events are innumerable and, just as there are many unique characters in every team, there are numerous unexpected and unique ways to deliver something special to your team, all with the exciting backdrop of the City of London…
Team-building in London
Team Building Treasure Hunts – these highly competitive treasure hunts are designed to bring out the best from every team member. With high-tech interactivity and the opportunity to create bespoke hunts which incorporate business-specific objectives and customised clues, treasure hunts are a great way to build teams, foster skills in individual team members and to reward hard working teams with a fun-but-purposeful day out. Options include a London cab-based treasure hunt or on-foot challenges, great for also familiarising the team with the city.
– Turbo Challenge certainly a way to develop the team’s skills in meeting a challenge, the London’s Turbo Challenge offers three extreme experiences, designed to demand and develop the very best a team has to offer, through:
- Thames Power Blast – a fast paced and quick-thinking challenge.
- Climbing the O2 – all about strategy and teamwork.
- ‘Flying’ an Airbus – all about problem-solving, reacting to challenges, teamwork and communication.
– Ice carving at London Zoo whether your team has too many lone wolves or is a close-knit clan of Meerkats set in a comfort zone, a trip to the zoo could be just the thing to encourage teams to bond and for individuals to thrive. The ice carving activity demands that teams work together, communicating and collaborating to achieve success in carving a creature from a solid block of ice. Nothing quite breaks the ice for a newly established team like this challenge!
– Going Underground in Greenwich to inspire the teamwork you’d expect from Elite Special Forces, an underground bunker in Greenwich offers an unlikely, but highly atmospheric setting for paintball and laser tag challenges. 2 playing fields in a decommissioned Cold War bunker facilitate on-the-move team training of the extreme problem solving, co-operation and quick-thinking leadership kind.
– Bear Grylls Survival Academy anyone who’s watched The Island will understand the pivotal role that communication and teamwork both play in surviving – in life and in business. Team training at the Bear Grylls Survival Academy offers a chance to explore this in action by replicating the challenge faced by Sir Earnest Shackleton in 1915 when he and his team became trapped in the unforgiving Antarctic pack ice. It was only through leadership, learning and teamwork in tackling challenges which enabled Sir Shackleton and his team to survive. The story alone is inspiring but the Bear Grylls survival activities based on this offers an extreme challenge for teams, but with outcomes such as increased communication, collaboration and contribution which relate strongly to modern times. The challenge is offered at various levels and can be fully personalised to create the ultimate team experience.
Speaking of teams…
We’re offering a special guide to our readers. Want to learn how to organise better team building activities? Our ‘Team Building’ Guide will give you all the tools you need to increase your team’s morale. This guide has been designed for start-ups and small teams. The professionals of today that work hard and play hard. This guide will teach you:
- What team building is really for
- Its benefits
- Morale building VS Team building
- To do and NOT to do
- And more!
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Final words
Finally, as well as offering benefits to working practice, one of the major benefits team building activities can bring to any business is that these also foster better working relationships – because you can’t collaborate and communicate without cooperation, something which lies at the heart of positive working relationships.
As such, involving your team in team-building events in London also offers positive reinforcement and recognition of the team’s value and contribution to the business, whilst offering the ideal way to deliver CPD or show appreciation in a cost-effective and ‘outside the box boardroom’ way.
To see more engaging team building activities in London visit Team Tactics.
If you enjoyed reading this post, then you might also like:
- How to organise team building activities that people will love
- How to design workwear that inspires trust + 80 real examples
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