Team building is an integral aspect for companies, big or small, however the pandemic has made it incredibly difficult to take place, while remaining socially distanced. Team building is important for a number of reasons, as highlighted below:
- Team building helps to develop skills in your staff members, which they can then bring to their work. One of the main aspects is problem solving, helping them to considering how they tackle a task and whether there is a more organised approach or whether utilising the skills of people around them will yield greater results.
- These activities help to break down the communication barrier between employees of different levels of seniority. It also helps to break down the communication barrier between different departments. A junior marketer might have never spoken to a finance manager, but this offers them a chance to get to know each other a little better, which can help the team to feel closer, as well as open the team up to cross department ideas.
- People tend to naturally focus on their daily tasks rather than looking at the bigger picture. A team building event can help staff members to take a step back and consider new innovative ideas on how to gain greater results in the workplace.
- Many of the activities are perfectly orchestrated to build trust between the team and create a stronger bond.
With this in mind, how are brands meant to keep teams close when most people are working from home? How do you ensure motivation remains high and a strong level of dialogue occurs between staff members? Fizzbox considered this, as they launched a range of virtual team building activities, with some of the best highlighted below:
Murder Mystery
A 1.5 hour mystery for your team to crack, in order to find the killer. This activity utilises professional actors who adorn their costumes and lead you down different paths, requiring your group to use their initiative and work together to find the clues and solve the mystery.
Of course, as soon as the murder mystery is solved, the actors will say goodbye and the company team can also stay in the chat to have some follow-up celebrations if they wish.
Bake With A Legend
This isn’t your usual cooking class, these are run by previous members of the Great British Bake Off, including the likes of Howard Middleton, Julia Chernogovora and Glenn Cosby.
With a selection of different fun recipes to pick from, each member will be sent the ingredients in the post, before having a go at it themselves. You can ask any questions you may have during the process as the cook guides you through every step. In fact, if you’d prefer to ask questions about the funniest moments with the presenters then that’s absolutely fine!
Escape Rooms
Escape rooms are a brilliant activity to get the team working together, solving puzzles and finding clues in order to escape the room. You will have a gamemaster host guiding you along the way, while you can also split into teams in order to add a little competition to the event.
This event is very interactive, and the host will get you all up and will highlight items around your own room as challenges along the way. This activity is hilarious; however, it also pushes the team to use their initiative and creativity if they want to win.
In fact, team building isn’t the only way that corporate celebrations are evolving, with the growth of virtual Christmas parties. This has accounted for 93% of all Christmas party bookings for 2020, highlighting the drift towards home-based Christmas celebrations that have no danger of being cancelled.
Fizzbox, being one of the biggest companies in the UK for stag weekends, hen do’s, team building and birthday parties, has adapted their business model and that has managed to help the business to not just survive, but thrive through the year.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
So, what will you be doing for your office Christmas party this year?
By Tom Bourlet
About the author
Tom works in the marketing team for Fizzbox, while he’s also an avid blogger on CBD Sloth. Tom has worked in marketing for ten years and is also a judge for the EU Search Awards and the UK Agency Awards.
