Organising a team-building event: everything you need to know to make it a success

In recent years, team-build­ing has become essen­tial in com­pa­nies, from start-ups to multi­na­tion­als. Com­pa­nies are increas­ing­ly aware of how team spir­it, work atmos­phere, moti­va­tion and moments of relax­ation can be reflect­ed in the com­pa­ny’s over­all per­for­mance. In addi­tion to indi­vid­ual tech­ni­cal skills, team-build­ing helps devel­op soft skills.

Do you want to organ­ise a team-build­ing activ­i­ty but lack ideas or don’t know where to start? Here is a sum­ma­ry of the main ele­ments:

1. Why organise a team-building event?

There are many rea­sons why com­pa­nies organ­ise team-build­ing events or ses­sions.

The pos­i­tive effects for the com­pa­ny and the teams are often under­es­ti­mat­ed. Team-build­ing allows to:

• Strength­en group cohe­sion, team spir­it, dynamism and com­pet­i­tive­ness;
• Devel­op the capac­i­ty to go beyond one’s lim­its;
• Reduce stress­es with­in the team;
• Improve inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion;
• Strength­en employ­ees’ sense of belong­ing to your com­pa­ny and thus increase their loy­al­ty;
• Con­vey the val­ues of your com­pa­ny and the dif­fer­ent strate­gies for the short, medi­um and long term.

2. Set goals

Although a com­pa­ny team-build­ing activ­i­ty is a stress-free moment of con­vivi­al­i­ty and a real break from dai­ly work, it is essen­tial to remem­ber that its effec­tive­ness depends on the goals set before­hand.

Each team-build­ing event must have its goals, depend­ing on the desired results. For this rea­son, it is essen­tial to define the spe­cif­ic areas where your staff will have to work dur­ing the organ­ised activ­i­ties.

You can only start think­ing about the activ­i­ties and chal­lenges that best suit your goals once you have estab­lished some basic guide­lines on what you want to achieve. Indeed, it is evi­dent that true team cohe­sion can­not be achieved sim­ply by gath­er­ing as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble in one place.

There­fore, each activ­i­ty or game pro­posed dur­ing a team-build­ing exer­cise must be thought out, worked on, and metic­u­lous­ly planned to bring cohe­sion, har­monise, open minds, encour­age ini­tia­tive, pro­mote dynamism, etc.

3. Choose the right time

If you don’t plan your event with your employ­ees’ sched­ules and per­son­al lives in mind, you can’t expect every­body to par­tic­i­pate.

If you want to organ­ise a team-build­ing activ­i­ty in the after­noon, make sure that every­one is avail­able and that the event is list­ed on the agen­da and val­i­dat­ed by the atten­dees.

Please also note that wait­ing to plan the team-build­ing activ­i­ty may be advis­able if your employ­ees are work­ing on an impor­tant project or on a tight dead­line.

4. Draw up a budget

Once the goals have been defined and the date cho­sen, it is time to set a bud­get for the team-build­ing activ­i­ties.

Before mov­ing on to the organ­i­sa­tion­al aspects, con­sid­er your bud­get, as this will guide you in deter­min­ing what you can afford and the size of your team-build­ing event.

You can achieve your event goals in var­i­ous ways, some of which are almost free and oth­ers quite expen­sive. These are some of the costs to be tak­en into account beyond book­ing the venue, if applic­a­ble:

• Trans­port and park­ing
• Exter­nal ser­vice providers for planned activ­i­ties (coach­ing ses­sions, role-plays, facil­i­ta­tors…)
• Food and drink
• Insur­ance
• Etc.

You can also turn to spon­sors or part­ners who can offer ser­vices for your team-build­ing event.

5. Offer a fast online registration service

To bet­ter man­age reg­is­tra­tions for your team-build­ing event, you can use an online reg­is­tra­tion ser­vice that is easy and quick to imple­ment. Prepa­ra­tion is essen­tial to define key ele­ments such as the num­ber of atten­dees, bud­get, venue, activ­i­ties, meals, etc.

6. Team-building activity examples

Are you lack­ing ideas for your team-build­ing activ­i­ties? Here are some:

• Remote team-build­ing: It is not sur­pris­ing that remote team-build­ing has become so pop­u­lar with the rise of remote work. For this, you can opt for online games such as an online escape game or home chal­lenge;
• Dif­fer­ent and cre­ative team-build­ing exer­cis­es: Your employ­ees will enjoy an orig­i­nal evening of laugh­ter with atyp­i­cal activ­i­ties that you can hire from dif­fer­ent providers (shows, come­di­ans, magi­cians, etc.) and that will allow them to relax and release ten­sion;
• Sports team-build­ing: Team sports, tour­na­ments and activ­i­ties such as paint­ball are pop­u­lar options that help atten­dees test them­selves and strength­en group cohe­sion;
• Inno­va­tion and the dig­i­tal world: Dig­i­tal activ­i­ties relat­ed to new tech­nolo­gies have replaced tra­di­tion­al team-build­ing exer­cis­es due to their inno­v­a­tive and dis­rup­tive nature. Atten­dees can learn new skills while hav­ing fun with their peers by par­tic­i­pat­ing in activ­i­ties such as sim­u­la­tors or activ­i­ties with vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) or aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) head­sets.

7. Gather feedback

To know whether your team-build­ing events have been suc­cess­ful, you need to col­lect feed­back from the atten­dees.

Cre­ate a sur­vey, prefer­ably anony­mous, in which employ­ees can share their opin­ions about the team-build­ing activ­i­ty, includ­ing what they liked, what they did­n’t like and what they would have liked to have. This will not only give you sug­ges­tions for the next team-build­ing activ­i­ty but also allow you to iden­ti­fy the under­ly­ing prob­lems and try to solve them in oth­er ways.

Are you organ­is­ing a team-build­ing activ­i­ty? Make it easy with Weezevent and its solu­tions for online reg­is­tra­tion, access con­trol, cash­less pay­ment, and CRM!

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