Gone are the days of awkward team building exercises and blindfolded trust falls in the car park. Nowadays, there are a wide range of activities available to employers and their staff, which promote teamwork and encourage them to utilise the skills they need to create a great workforce.
There are so many reasons why you should arrange these types of team building activities in your business, but here’s seven just to get you started!
Team building ideas
Before we go to deep into why you should organise team building activities, let’s quickly address the types of activities you could arrange for your staff. Far too often these activities are dismissed as stuffy or uncomfortable, but the reality is, team bonding can be great fun and very beneficial. So why not consider different types of exercises like cooking team building activities or problem solving days like escape rooms. Making these activities fun means they also act as a reward to your team, as well as serving a practical purpose.
Why you should consider team building activities in your business
Below we’ll outline the top reasons why team building activities can be beneficial for your business, including why cookery courses in particular are a great way to bring staff together.
1. Teamwork and communication
Most obviously, one of the biggest benefits of team building exercises is to encourage staff to work better with one another. It helps them learn to communicate with one another and work more closely. This is especially true if you choose to take part in problem solving activities which requires them to help and support one another.
2. Rewarding staff
Choosing fun activities like cooking courses, while beneficial for team building, are also a great way to reward your staff. Organising days out of the office is a chance for employees to blow off some steam, but also shows them that you value their hard work.
3. Getting to know one another
This might seem odd, of course we know our co-workers - we see them almost every day! But getting to know one another outside of an office environment can help staff to relax and share more with each other. This can make them to feel closer and they might even discover something interesting that they didn't know about one another before.
4. Promoting friendly competition
Some team building activities can promote a sense of friendly competition. You might choose to do a cooking contest like the MasterChef Team Building Cookery Experiences from Seasoned cooking school. While these types of activities are fun, they also encourage staff to work their hardest and compete with one another. This can be translated in the workplace by running employee of the month schemes. All of which will push staff to work hard to achieve great results.
5. Building your company culture
You want your workforce to get a long, as this will help boost your company culture. But what’s more, running fun team building exercises is a great selling point for your company. Create a great
culture and a company that professionals want to be a part of. This will help you to attract and retain talented workers.
6. Practising important skills
As well as encouraging staff to work on their communication skills, there are a number of other important skills they can work on during these team building exercises. They’ll be able to practise leadership and motivation techniques. In some cases they might also need to delegate to their team or oversee a project. Not only this, but some activities require problem solving, careful planning and being able to recognise and solve issues quickly.
What’s more, some of these activities will allow staff to learn new skills. For example, when participating in a cooking course, for those who don't often cook meals like this it can be a fun way to learn new skills.
7. Boosting morale
For many of the reasons above, team building activities are great for boosting morale. Staff who work better together and get on well with each other will be happier in their role. What’s more, if they feel appreciated by you the employer, they’ll feel more satisfied at work. All of which will lead to a boost in morale. Which in turn, will make the working environment even better - it’s a win-win!
As you can see, there are a huge number of benefits to team building activities, cooking courses and fun exercises like these can be perfect for your workforce, and give your team a chance to blow off some steam, whilst getting to know one another better.
