New year's holiday and summer team building are part of the corporate culture of most modern companies. It is good if employees attend these events but it is better when they are eagerly awaited.
A corporate holiday should not be formal: forced chanting of the company's anthem will not add to employee’s enthusiasm and motivation. Today we are seeing a positive trend: companies are increasingly abandoning the traditional concept of "corporate" when the same scenario is played from year to year with a plentiful feast and performances by guest artists. The changes are mainly related to the format of events. Conscious representatives of customers together with the organizers are looking for fresh ideas so that events are not only entertainment but also an effective tool for building harmonious internal corporate relations. Employees need new experiences, "changing the frame", so in winter, instead of a traditional Banquet, they are willing to ride on dog sleds, build snow fortresses and organize ski races and in summer… In summer, the scope for imagination is limitless.
A well-thought-out approach to organizing a summer corporate trip allows you to take into account a wide range of employees interests and take them into account when planning activities – it is important to help people relax after a hard work, and at the same time, it is interesting and useful to spend time.
The goal of team building is to build employee’s loyalty to the company, help them understand their significance and the significance of their contribution to the common cause, as well as to broadcast the company's values. Ideally, the employee will form an awareness that he is the company. It is necessary to develop both the team spirit and the individuality of everyone. An effective team is a bright personality and the development of each will be an advantage for the entire team.
Games that people play
People are no longer interested in being just spectators, they want to be involved in the event more and more, and what can be more exciting than a game? Over the past few years, gamification (the use of gaming processes in everyday life and business) has become not just a fashion trend but a proven behavior management tool that allows you to maximize the audience's involvement in the process.
Trainings are effective in those conditions when the team members have a really significant and interesting goal for which the participants will be able to realize their potential and show their abilities. In the process of active interaction on the way to the goal of the game the productivity and motivation of employees increases. The use of game techniques in the organization of corporate events contributes to the development of creative thinking, stress relief. Trust, mutual assistance and inspiration from joint creativity restore a healthy climate in the team, as well as help managers and HR managers better understand the interaction algorithms of team members.
To achieve the best results at the end of the game, it is important to analyze each stage, get feedback from the organizers, instructors and team building participants.this way, you can evaluate the results, find fresh solutions for team building, improve mutual understanding and trust, and transfer the experience from the Playground to your daily life and work.
Popular types and forms of team building
Quest is one of the most common and successful forms of game team building in terms of setting and achieving goals, building effective communications, role distribution, emotional cohesion, and forming common goals. In the organization of the quest, it is important to choose and work out a topic taking into account the corporate tasks of the customer and understanding the interests of the participants, and then within the game combine both tests of dexterity, strength, endurance and erudition, intelligence, logic, and creative skills. Quests can take place on the streets of the city, in the office or in nature, the main thing for the organizers is to create an exciting scenario so that for a few hours the participants are immersed in unusual circumstances and live this exciting adventure together.
Modern man is already quite difficult to surprise. To get new unusual impressions, team building based on managing emotions in unusual situations is created. For example, you can offer a team to "escape" during a natural disaster in a strictly limited time. Or arrange a field trip for employees, providing them with only the most necessary for survival for two days. Not everyone will decide to take such a risk but if such a scenario is implemented at a high level, the team drive and sharp emotions are provided to the participants. Of course, such "extreme" situations must be well prepared and perfectly organized by a professional team that will always be there and will be able to ensure safety throughout the event.
Family Day is a real hit of recent years. The format of a corporate family picnic festival gives you the opportunity to spend time with your family and socialize with colleagues in an informal setting. The Family Day format is remarkable for its democratic approach to entertainment and the site can accommodate a variety of activities. Everyone can find something to do-serious and funny sports, creative workshops, mini-quests, flash mobs, music and dance classes, photo zones, and a children's playground.
Family corporate events bring people closer together, improve the psychological climate in the team and give you the opportunity to get to know your colleagues better by getting to know their families. Often, the possibility of combining personal and corporate interests is one of the decisive factors in making a decision to participate in an event. From the point of view of corporate culture development, this format is useful for unobtrusive study of the company's values, and at the same time demonstrates the company's readiness to pay tribute to the value of family as one of the most important components of an employee's life.
Recently gaining popularity of semi-professional sports event format in which you can organize formal performance standards for the all-Russian sports complex TRP. The activities of the TRP complex are aimed at forming the desire to win, promoting a healthy lifestyle and team building. It can be integrated into any active corporate event: FamilyDay, team building, sports day, etc. As a result, employees receive not only a lot of positive emotions but also the state insignia of the TRP, and the results of testing are recorded in a single state database – the TRP AIS.
Art team building is always a favorite and effective format of team building, because through creativity it is easiest to find new points of contact, get inspiration for a common cause, improve communication skills and mutual understanding. Joint creativity gives emotions, helps to liberate, get closer in an informal setting, develops ingenuity, creativity, and the ability to find non-standard solutions. Art team building in the right hands can take a variety of forms: staging a corporate skit / musical / circus show or shooting game corporate films and clips, drum teambuilding or culinary trips to different countries and barbecue battles, joint creation of art objects and even a corporate Museum. In art team building, the boundaries are set only by the financial capabilities of the customer and the level of creativity and professionalism of the team of its creators.
Eco-team building is a popular trend that demonstrates corporate social responsibility and develops a conscious approach to environmental conservation. People feel the need to do good deeds, especially when the result is a meaningful result, tangible here and now. Joint tree planting in parks and on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, forest cleaning or construction of birdhouses and other eco-actions will give a special meaning to the corporate event. However, the eco-format is not limited to such actions: you can arrange for employees to go to a real village, immerse them in village life for a few days. For residents of cities, this can be a really new experience, because not everyone has the opportunity to go "to my grandmother in the village" every summer.
Thematic team building involves immersion in unfamiliar topics and areas of activity. For example, take part in a staged Western on a ranch: ride horses, shoot arrows, spend the night around a campfire; or become a participant in a medieval quest within the walls of an ancient fortress: participate in a jousting tournament and learn ancient dances. In this format, attention to detail is important, in order to create an event with full immersion and get a real wow effect, you need to study artistic and historical materials, create the most detailed scenario and scenery, use authentic costumes and accessories. And if these ideas are difficult to implement due to a limited budget, you can recall the successful experience of one foreign airline. The idea was that once a year, all high-ranking employees of the airline went to work outside of their jobs: the head of the Finance Department for one day became a baggage handler, and the Manager of the direction of flights to Europe became a controller on the baggage belt. This experience suggests an important idea – all employees are part of a single "mechanism" that is the driving force of the company's development.
