Team building

In the workplace good communication builds trust between colleagues in the corporate world and helps us to get the job done more efficiently- but it can be tricky to get it right. If your team is struggling with trust and communication problems, find out how team building events can save the day.

From the constant buzz of emails to our ever-growing to-do lists, office life is becoming increasingly fast-paced. When colleagues are stressed out or under pressure, good communication can go out of the window, leaving your team feeling unmotivated and resentful.

It’s easy to make a mistake but it’s not always as easy for colleagues to forgive and forget. In a fraught environment, even something as simple as a missed email or snappy response can cause colleagues to lose trust in each other. In some companies, you may find yourself with ‘more chiefs than indians’ or employees who would rather do everything themselves than delegate tasks. Personality clashes, poor communication, fallouts and office gossip can also damage relationships between colleagues, leading to lack of trust and poor working environments.

Team building events isn’t just about delivering company messages and building brand awareness, it’s also an opportunity to patch up relationships between colleagues and develop their communication skills.

Getting employees out of the office will encourage wallflowers out of their shells and give more outgoing employees the chance to blow off some steam. It also takes people away from day-to-day stresses so they can get to know each other on a personal level, relax, bond and have some fun.

Team building exercises throw people together and demand quick solutions. With no time for indecision or disagreements, teams learn the best ways to communicate to reach their shared goal most efficiently. All of this should be reflected in their work back in the office, leading to better procedures and working patterns.

Whether it’s staying calm under pressure when you’re lost in the middle of London or finding a secret talent for solving treasure hunt clues, team building has a way of unlocking people’s potential. Increasing self-confidence and boosting trust amongst employees, team activities are a great way to bring out the best in your colleagues.

Team events that push people out of their comfort zones, and encourage them to try something different. Allowing groups to engage with each other’s strengths and weaknesses, experimenting in a fun, pressure-free environment helps teams learn how they can combine their skills and support others.

Be a Dragon for the day

Dragons’ Den is a team-building event that makes a brilliant corporate event. The chance to do some real blue-sky thinking out of the office. Participants are split into teams and encouraged to conceptualise, research, and create a brand new product, idea, or service to take the market by storm. The theme can either be based on your business, for example, creating a marketing advert for an internal campaign, or simply left to the team’s innovation.

If you are looking to bring the best out of your staff, this Dragons Den idea is just great for:
Great for sharing new ideas and creative thinking
Brings the best out in people
Gives everyone the chance to be heard
Exposes new talents you may not see in the office
Ideal for getting involvement and buy in to new ideas or products
Fun, competitive & inspiring
Links energy and results directly back to the workplace

Teams arrive in the ‘Den’ complete with themed music & graphics to emulate the real thing. The resident Evan Davies introduces the dragons who are normally a mixture of your senior members of your team. Groups head off to breakout rooms ready to plan their ideas and pitch.

Stages the teams could go through;
PLANNING: sharing ideas to come up with the winning formula concept
RESEARCH: target audience, competitors & unique selling points
MARKETING: graphics, presentation material and mock up designs
FINANCES: start-up costs, profits and forecast business value
THE PITCH: each member of the team must be involved in inspiring the Dragons

The event is light-hearted and FUN; however, a more serious twist can be applied. You may see an idea go on the market!!

Team building entertainment

Virtual Reality Team Building

The VR stands for virtual reality, which is similar to augmented reality, but a lot more immersive. Anyone who is involved in the experience must wear a headset in order to take part, which instantly transports you to another building or world, where you have to work together in order to get ahead. Imagine being teleported inside a video game and that is a perfect way to explain the entertainment you’ll get from a virtual reality team building experience. The technology has already been hailed by Facebook and HTC (to name but two) and there have even been events specially created where you get to defeat zombies as a team. What fun!

Cycling Competition

This is a fab form of interactive entertainment that allows two guests at your event to compete and see who gets the best time. Wonderful for events or parties where you have a few prizes to give away and the best bit is that there are no bikes endlessly coursing in and around your event. These two pedal powered beasts are attached to a small plinth to take up a minimum of space at your venue. Just plug in and go!

Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt

AR or augmented reality (to give it its full name) is all the rage in the past few weeks thanks to the launch of Pokémon Go. It’s a simple enough technology that even the most technophobic of guests will be able to understand. The virtual reality game makes use of your GPS and camera on your phone to create fun photos and make it appear as though you are not alone in the room. It’s not just Pokémon or solving clues that the technology is limited to either. As the photo shows, you could hold an entire band in your hand!

Interactive Dance mat.

Dancing is great fun but there are always a few guests at an event who don’t really fancy getting involved as everybody else does the Macarena. The solution? Some interactive tiles of course! Perfect for an enhanced dance mat experience or put in place as a competitive game, interactive dance tiles can be used to ensure that getting fit is a bonus at your party. The more feet the merrier (perhaps the more steps, the bigger the prize?); this is an event installation you won’t want to miss. And yes, you can totally recreate that scene from the Billie Jean music video.

Live TV experience

The television screen is everywhere in our lives. It is the most important aid to modern business. We use the screen for home entertainment, computer use, i-pad and even on our mobile phones, but most of us who watch television, have very little idea as to how our favourite television programmes, adverts or other important communications are actually produced. Well, this is your chance to step inside where the magic happens and experience it for yourself!

This fun filled day out the office is a true insight to how television programmes are made, and a great environment to spend a day with colleagues in order to achieve a common goal. It’s 100% down to you and your team! Your challenge is to produce and record two television programme sequences successfully:

Ideas for entertainment

Filming:

Based on a similar format to the popular quiz ‘Have I Got News for You’, where the presenter opens an envelope of questions live on air, and two teams battle it out, in a head-to-head competition, to correctly answer the questions for points…sound easy? That’s only a tiny piece of the jigsaw! While all of that is going on in front of the cameras, the rest of the group will take on crucial roles behind the scenes, which include the Director, Technical Crew, Sound Mixers, Camera Operators, Floor Manager and Visual Mixers, and during the day everyone will rotate and have a bash at each position.

Will you be running around the studio like headless chickens with the responsibility and shame of an axed show on your hands, or work together to create the next big thing and challenge Jonathan Ross for his Friday Night slot?

Shopping Channel Slot

“On air in 5, 4, 3, …, …” this task will not only challenge your team to operate the technical equipment in the studio, but will also test your team’s ability to successfully sell a selection of products ranging from wigs to jewellery, live on air, through the medium of TV.

The day could be recorded and participates get a copy of the DVD