7 simple team building exercises
You do not have endless budget, but you need to get some team building activities going within the office. Here are some simple team building exercises to get you started which do not need loads of cash or use of external companies: -
1. Team sports day – allocate a day and time period to re-create your own sports day/afternoon. Put the office/workplace into teams and have a set number of races. The winning team receives a small prize and the overall team receives something a little more substantial.
2. Cooking challenge – depending on the number of staff in the business, either do it in twos or teams. Set a day when the team cooks the lunch and brings it in. This can be done over a number of days/weeks. Everyone votes on the lunch and the winning team receives a prize.
3. Catwalk – in teams design a themed outfit for a catwalk show. Set the catwalk show for a certain date and let them teams think, design and create their outfits over a period of a week or so.
4. Camping night – this doesn’t need to cost a lot of money. Camping is cheap and food and drink can be taken with you. It will give everyone the opportunity to bond in a non-workplace environment and relax and enjoy each other’s company.
5. Simple games within the office, for example, a game called ‘concentration’. Put everyone in two long lines facing each other. One line turns around whilst the others change 10 things between them, like, jewellery, clothes, hair, etc. After a minute, the other line turns back around and has another minute to work out what has been changed. Simple, quick and fun game!
6. Poker tower – this is great for a small office where the teams are up to 5 people and each team has a pack of cards and a pair of scissors. Each team has to create the largest tower using the pack of cards within a set period of time.
7. Dragon boat racing – find out when the local races are and pre-arrange a team. A great activity involving team working and a lot of fun!
There are thousands of team building games that can be played depending on the size of your workforce. Whatever the number of employees, there will options for you. If you can get out of the office and book something with a larger budget, then this is great too. Maybe use things like paint balling, go-karting, parties, weekends away etc as incentives.
