Myth Busted Small Offices Cant Have Team Activities - CareerMetis.com

Myth Busted Small Offices Can't Have Team Activities Building a cohesive team is important for every business. While the bigger corporations hold a team building exerciseor corporate events regularly to give the employees a breather from the routine and foster communication, small businesses often overlook them on account of a low number of employees.If you have been believing this myth, you have got it all wrong. As a team leader, irrespective of your business or employee scale, you want to create an environment where the staff works in sync with each other as one unit.evalA small business thrives when the employees collaborate over activities that test their skills and initiate communication in a bid to forge a stronger work bonding.However, many team leaders make the error of making team building activities time consuming and super expensive. If you think you have to splurge and go out of the way to host a team exercise, that’s another myth we’ll bust for you.Read on to know more about how you can host a good corporate event com plete with interesting team building activities that are proven to be highly effective for a small organization.1. What’s On Your Desk?Sometimes the simplest of activities bring out the maximum creativity and fun quotient. This little activity is a classic example of that. It requires use of the participants’ imagination and creativity.Ask the employees to rush to their desks and pick out one object and present it as a new product, complete with a brand logo, name and slogan. Set the timer to 30 minutes under which the task is to be finished.Once the timer beeps, test the employees’ imagination and ask them to pitch their brief marketing plan. This could lead to a good brainstorming session and get the creative energy flowing through the office space.2. TriviaIn order for the team to get to know each other better, nothing comes to save the day as a classic game of ‘Trivia’. This fun team-building activitycan be played in many different ways with the right questions.evalIf you can get your hands on one of the trivia games online, you’re good to go. No boards or extensive objects or materials required. Just some questions and an excited crowd.Divide the employees into teams of two. Roll out a question to one team with only a minute to answer. If they fail, the other team gets bonus seconds.You can also add to the competitive spiritand make it a ‘trivia face-off’. You’ll need a buzzer or a ringing bell for this. Once the question is rolled out, the team to buzz first gets the chance to answer.This is a fun activity to test the knowledge skills and promote team unity.3. 2 Truths and A LieevalPlayed at camps and in parties, this activity is also an effective team building exercise. It encourages stronger communication at work and helps the colleagues get to know each other better.To play the game, ask the employees to jot down 3 statements about them on a piece of paper. Of these statements, two should be truthful and one a blatant lie. After this , allow them to have a 15 minute interaction with one another as a last attempt to gather as much information about one another as possible. The participants can also use this time to trick the fellows.Once the 15 minutes are over, have them each read their statements out loud, one at a time while the others guess which out of the three is a lie.4. Dinner and DrinksThe employees spend a major part of their day in the office space. To break the monotony of this routine, take them out for a round of drinks and a nice dinner or lunch.This enables them to loosen up a little and interact more freely among themselves and with the leaders, thereby eliminating the communication barrier.What makes this activity ideal for smaller businesses is that there are lesser employees. So you won’t be spending a lot of your personal money or the company’s, but forge an understanding bond with your employees. However, make sure everyone drinks responsibly and nobody is too inebriated to drive or go back home.Also try holding this activity on a Friday night. That way the employees can rest up during the weekend and come back to work on Monday without being hungover.4. Community ContributionHelping out the community is another great team building activity where you don’t only help eliminate a serious societal issue and work towards helping the less privileged, but also get the whole team to interact meaningfully outside of the workspace.Volunteering together gives the employees some common ground to talk about and takes away the sheer awkwardness of small talk.evalVolunteering is also a great way to work on personal growth by acquiring good communication and interpersonal skills and get an overall sense of purpose in life.5. Team OffsiteNo, not the off site where you discuss work and hold seminars. Plan a team offsite that focuses primarily on team building. Team outings are a great way to foster bonding within the team, reduce employee stress and give them the chance to inter act and know each other outside of the office.You can include a number of activities for the outing; anything from adventure challenges to treasure hunts and strategic games will be interesting enough to make the outing successful and help build trust and understanding among the employees.ConclusionWhile you may assume that your small office does not need or can’t have any team building corporate events, they are vital to promote a good work culture.For your employees to become more productive and have a healthy work life, it is important to host team building activities every now and then. This gives them an opportunity to take a break from their routine and interact with one another.evalThis interaction leads to an understanding of each other’s skill sets which helps them work together as an efficient unit. Now that we’ve busted the myth, start planning a team building event for your employees