Five benefits of team building activities – and some pitfalls to watch out for

Written by Emily Gent | 11th October 2022

Team building is an important investment to make in your employees and business – not just an excuse to get out of the office!

If you get it right, it can go a long way to support a positive workplace culture, improving communication, productivity, and morale.

Here are five potential benefits of team building activities for your business – and five pitfalls to watch out for.

Benefits of team building activities

They encourage better communication

Good communication is essential for great team performance. Team building exercises help to break down barriers in communication, especially between managers and team members. As a line manager, participating in team building shows you are approachable, leading to improved trust.

You are also likely to see team dynamics improve. Changing up the daily routine and setting up a fun environment helps to bring people together, from different departments or positions in the business. People can connect with colleagues who they don’t usually interact with.

It gives your employees the opportunity to get to know each other and become more comfortable around each other, making communication easier and bettering the team’s performance in the future.

They build trust

Trust is the foundation of a great team and will have a huge effect on improving many areas such as communication, morale, engagement and as a result, productivity.

Team building gets people out of the office and away from the stresses of work, and they will tend to contribute more openly and engage with more confidence. The result being improved trust among team members.

Team building exercises develop skills

Depending on the team building activities you choose, there is an opportunity to develop your employees’ skills in different areas.

Activities that require problem solving or leadership highlight both individual and team strengths and weaknesses. You can then use this information to allocate the most appropriate tasks to people, which will improve overall productivity. It will also help you to identify who in your team has leadership potential.

Escape rooms are great for logical thinking and collaboration, but whatever you choose there’s an opportunity to see where your teams’ strengths lie.

They improve morale and motivation

Team building activities have always proved vital in boosting employee morale in the workplace.

When a group of employees accomplish something together, such as winning a game or solving a problem it motivates individuals to give their best effort as an active member of the team.

A good way to keep up the morale of your teams is cheering them on while they take part in various activities!

They encourage creativity

Team building days and activities are meant to be exciting, engaging and fun. They are designed to take the employee out of the 9-5 so they can engage with their colleagues in a different environment and some activities can really require people to think creatively and outside the box.

Team building tasks enable employees to use their imaginations and come up with a creative solution and this can uncover some fantastic ideas for your business as well as giving everyone the chance to contribute.

Also, this should result in your employees feeling more comfortable with one another, which will show in the workplace through engagement and increased productivity.

Potential pitfalls of team building exercises

It can be difficult to get team members on board

Despite your best efforts, you may have employees that just don’t enjoy team activities or refuse to participate.

Of course, you can’t always please everyone, but to avoid this, you should make clear to your employees that this is a time to relax and forget about the stresses of work. Encouraging them to switch off their computers and leave emails unread might also get people more enthusiastic about team activities!

They are time consuming

Team building exercises can be very time consuming both in planning and doing, but you will soon see the benefits. It should be kept in mind that one single team building event will not have the long-lasting effects that you may want – team building is a constant effort that needs to be worked on regularly.

Even if you don’t think you have time for team building, or that it will take away time from more productive tasks, you should make time for short sessions – perhaps a Friday afternoon where everyone comes away from their desks for an hour.

Some activities can be costly

Team building events can be quite costly and if you want to spend money, the sky’s the limit. You might feel the pressure to spend more money on blowout events or trips, but in reality, there are many more affordable options that are as effective, if not more so.

Small group chats, team games, outdoor picnics, office parties or presentations can bring better results. No matter what you can afford, putting in the effort into team building now will greatly benefit your team down the line.

Some people don’t work well together

There will always be a few people who don’t mesh well together. Forcing them to work together may lead to more resentment rather than positivity.

Insights Discovery can help with this, giving you a deeper understanding of your people and why they might behave in the way they do. This team building session can give you insights into the personalities and relationships of you and the people in your teams, aiming to help improve performance. The workshops we run are fun, engaging and proven to reduce conflict, creating a happier more productive workforce.

They can make people feel excluded

An action-packed day out will probably sound appealing to many. However, this will not be the case for everyone. Depending on the activity people with disabilities might feel excluded, and non-sporty and non-outdoorsy people might feel uncomfortable.  There are so many other factors to consider. Not everybody can swim for example, some people are afraid of heights and so on.

Also, if you plan to eat together as a team you need to think about different dietary restrictions people might have.

Issues like these can be avoided by carefully picking the activity and knowing (or finding out) enough about your team members to be able to take their individual needs into consideration. This should be part of the larger process of assessing your team before choosing a team building event.

Of course, there is no one team building that will appeal to everyone’s tastes. That’s why switching up the types of team building activities you do is important.

It’s important to keep the momentum going within the workplace and don’t forget that team building activities shouldn’t be held once in a blue moon. One good method to encourage team building and to understand how different people work ad are motivated is Insights Discovery Profiling. To find out more on how we can help implement this for your bsuiness visit our service page.

If you have any questions about how best to implement team building in your business, get in touch with our team at info@realityhr.co.uk.