A guide to making fun work, and work fun
With goodwill all around, and most members of staff feeling relaxed thanks to the upcoming holiday, Christmas is a fantastic time for a bit of team building. Not only are staff more open to socialising and connecting with their colleagues at this time of year, work tends to wind down in the run up to Christmas, providing employers with an excellent opportunity to turn their attention to company morale.
As Christmas is now just around the corner, you’ll need to get moving if you want to plan good-quality team-building activities this winter. To help ensure you make the most of the season, we’ve come up with a few corporate event ideas to get your brainstorming session started.
Plan a Christmas party with a difference
Though a relaxed Christmas party is a great opportunity for members of staff to socialise, nothing works better for team morale than a few days away. This year, instead of planning the same meal out or office drinks, why not whisk your staff off for a long weekend in the country complete with a Christmas dinner, parlour games and plenty of socialising?
If you want to add an extra dimension to your corporate escape, arrange for your team to take part in an outdoor activity like canoeing, hiking, mountain biking or orienteering. That way they’ll be able to bond over a shared experience and get out and enjoy the countryside.
Communicate
This one a game changer. Communication holds the key to everything! An opportunity to get to know your staff properly, and for them to get to know each other, beyond every day small talk, could be exactly what your company needs:
“FuelBox explores the importance of two way conversation and expression, and highlights the impact of poor communication through a team building activity. Our focus is on enhancing communication in the team, and results are seen and felt after the event. Using FuelBox, we can facilitate team building events and ‘away days’, ensuring participants have fun and get to know each other better. FuelBox not only encourages great conversations during the event, it can be taken away and used for further team meetings to continue building relationships.” – Kate Doyle, Director of FuelBox UK
Perhaps you’d like to push your teams communication skills to the next level. Why not try an engagement strategy game. The Great Escape Game is a fully immersive experience, where the team are locked into a themed room and must solve a series of puzzles before the time runs out. This team building activity requires you to communicate together, whilst having common sense, logic and a lot of enthusiasm in order to crack codes and ultimately escape!
“Problem-solving and engaging activities can increase creativity, improve colleague satisfaction and reduce staff absenteeism.” – Krissie Akrill, Marketing Manager at The Great Escape.
Volunteer
Nothing epitomises the Christmas spirit better than volunteering. What’s more, spending a few days together helping a worthy cause will give your staff morale a real boost and give your team something to be proud of. Contact local charities and worthwhile organisations to find out if any are planning events around the Christmas period. If you can’t find a suitable opportunity in the local area, ask your staff to collect donations for a worthy cause and spend a day together sorting donations into boxes.
Get cooking
The standard corporate Christmas party normally consists of splashing out on a meal in a restaurant. Why not do something a little different this year, like cupcake decorating! Getting your staff together in an unfamiliar but fun environment, will give them the chance to learn a few new skills and provides a great opportunity for socialising:
“At La Belle Cake Company, we offer cake decorating classes as team building events. Teams will decorate cupcakes individually and larger cakes in groups. It is extremely fun. When the participants decorate their own cupcakes they discover what cake decorating skills they excel at individually. When they split off into group it’s all about using the individual skills together to produce the ‘winning’ cake. It generates skills in confidence, communication, and co-operations.” – Michelle Shulman, Owner of La Belle Cake Company
Get competitive
If your office needs a bit of a shake up, perhaps try and get the team together for some competitive, outdoor activities. HS Activities offer paintballing, laser tag, archery and clay shooting:
“Team building and corporate events give work colleagues a chance to really get to know each other outside the workplace. Seeing people supporting each other within teams and building eachothers confidence.” – Michaela Hutchinson, HS Activities Centre
Sing your heart out
There are few things that bring a team together more effectively than shared embarrassment. Help your staff get to know each other better with a night of karaoke.
You can either head down to your local karaoke venue or hire equipment and set up a karaoke bar in your workplace. Arrange a prize for the best performance and encourage staff to dress up as their favourite singers to make the night even more memorable.
Organising a few games, events and outings this Christmas will help your staff to bond and help your company morale to sky rocket. Get planning now to ensure you give your team have a festive celebration they’ll never forget.
To make your team building events, activities and experiences even more memorable, why not hire a large country house for the weekend and make the activity part of a longer corporate getaway.
Whatever you choose to do with your team, don’t forget to seek out the best accommodation to suit your needs, you might find that the venue already accommodates for the activities you’re looking for.
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