Team building games, or 3 ideas for successful integration

There are many reasons why team building should involve employees in games and activities, both in and out of the office. Thanks to this, they can get to know each other better, exercise their communication skills and problem-solving skills. What reason will appeal to everyone? Fun! If you're looking for an activity that your entire team would like to participate in, don't hesitate to follow the suggestions below. Meet team building gamesthat really work.

Team building games - what exactly is team building?

A well-coordinated, efficiently functioning team of employees is one of the foundations of a successful company on the market. Only a group that knows how to get along can effectively manage crisis situations. He can also use the potential of each of his members. In addition, she effectively performs official tasks and scrupulously achieves goals. Thanks to this, it supports the company's development.

But how to create such a team? Team building is the key to success. Team building is a group of strategies aimed at strengthening the employee team and improving its functioning. It can be described as a tool for working on a group that improves communication in a team and equips employees with useful skills, such as the ability to profitably divide roles, solve problems together, or efficiently make important decisions.

Team building is implemented in the form of interesting, engaging games. What are the benefits of implementing such actions?

Team building - what is it?

What does team building give us? Most of all, it helps people who are just starting to work together to get to know each other. It also helps to integrate with the team of new employees. It is known that entering an existing structure can be difficult. Team building games allow you to break the first ice quickly. Thanks to them, it is also possible to integrate individual departments of the company - employees have to cooperate with each other, and often they do not even know each other. Team building will give them the opportunity to get to know each other, and perhaps even more importantly, understand the specifics of work in the neighboring department. This will certainly facilitate communication when carrying out subsequent tasks.

Team building - tasks

The task of team building is also solving problems in the group - conflicts at work are not conducive to the effective performance of official tasks. And what's no less important - games in this area give employees a boost of energy and allow them to de-stress.

Effective team work requires coordination of activities, mutual understanding, appropriate communication between team members, understanding of the purpose of activities. It is also worth remembering about timeliness! Partial tasks affect the whole - after all, everyone works on the end result. Team building games will allow employees to feel part of the team.

Team - who is it?

In ads when we see team of people working together, they are always smiling, friendly, friendly and satisfied. However, reality is not always so rosy. We feel an instinctive, unmotivated antipathy towards some people. In others, we are frustrated by the way we are. Someone is talking too loudly, gesturing too vigorously. Someone else seems too withdrawn and therefore, in our opinion, adds nothing to the team as if he had no opinion of his own.

Team building

Team building it can make us look at colleagues differently. We will get to know their dreams, but also their troubles. Strengths, but also minor flaws. We will look at them as people, not just cogs in the company's machine. And we will see that we can talk and communicate with everyone. A colleague who gesticulated so strongly can talk with passion about the runmagaddon races in which he has been participating for years. This teaches him to be persistent and overcome his own weaknesses. And this quiet, seemingly withdrawn young man volunteers at a local animal shelter. When he talks about his charges, he suddenly becomes very talkative. This passion teaches him to react quickly and decisively in crisis situations and to resolve conflicts. Each of these employees has something to offer the company and the team. Team building games let us see it. And then use it at work.

Office party

Deadlines are constantly chasing us in the company. Rush and stress are not conducive to bonding. Only team building - preferably away - allows the team to actually integrate and learn to cooperate in the group. After playing and having fun together relations in the company will certainly improve.  

Team building game 1 - everything on P

This seemingly simple game forces intellectual effort and raises linguistic creativity to the heights, causing volleys of laughter at the same time. Prepare cards with slogans and their categories, such as item, movie title, etc. Divide employees into teams of several people. One of them draws a password that he does not show to the other participants of the game. It only reveals from which category the password will be described. It can only do this by using words that start with the letter "p". Each team scores a point for guessed password. The winner is the one who manages to score the most points after playing a predetermined number of rounds.

This team building game teaches you an unconventional approach to known things. At the same time, thanks to the relaxed atmosphere that it builds among the players, it allows you to break the first ice if you don't know each other. As it does not require any tools or large space, it can also be successfully carried out in the office. It is an integration for companies that will work anytime and anywhere.

Team building fun 2 - build it!

Another suggestion, however, requires going outside. For this game you need at least 10 members for each team and a coordinator. Its role is to announce loudly what shape the members of the group are to shape. After hearing a message such as a "square", teams must quickly shape themselves into its shape (in seconds, with the time being adjusted depending on the size of the groups). Starting with simple shapes, to warm the participants up, you can move on to more complex ones, such as "circle within square" or "square intersecting a triangle". The team that takes the shape first wins. Good communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills determine victory. So everything they are based on team building games. Therefore, the larger the group, the more difficult the game.

Team building fun 3 - adrenaline and adventure

Rafting, i.e. rafting, is an exciting activity that will certainly break the monotony of everyday life, while strengthening the ties between colleagues. Team building in this form, however, requires not only leaving the office, but going to a place where you can experience this unforgettable adventure. Rafting along the picturesque Bóbr Valley is very popular. 

Training center of the Commplace agency - Dwór Korona Karkonoszy

Why is it worth using team building games?

Efficiently conducted team building can bring a lot of good to the company. Above all, it teaches cooperation. It shows that a strong, well-coordinated team can do more. It can achieve what cannot be achieved alone. Why? Because it can get the best out of the knowledge and skills of its individual members. Has more creativity and potential. He can share everything and look for solutions that would be difficult to find on his own.

Team building helps to resolve conflicts in the workgroup and teaches how to communicate effectively. Employees who have undergone team building training quickly exchange the necessary information, and thus effectively perform all business tasks.

fun integrative for adults

Team building games strengthen ties between employees, increase trust in colleagues and effectively motivate to action. Strengthening the existing team is not the only advantage of team building games. Team building can also be used for newly formed teams. It is a great way to integrate the group - also among employees who have never cooperated with each other.

Properly selected games are a chance to get to know your colleagues better, strengthen bonds in the newly formed team, and thus create strong foundations that will improve their daily work. Usually, during these games there is a huge dose of emotions, sports competition and great fun. All this means that the time spent together will bear fruit in the future.

Games for the team - examples on integration trips and every day

It is obvious that team building games they must be interesting, arouse interest, attract. However, they also have to match the group. For the team to have a good time, the games shouldn't be too hard physically or intellectually. Challenge - yes, but in moderation! Because team building, in addition to its main function, which is building a harmonious team, should provide participants with fun and provide them with an unforgettable experience. So it's important that it's interesting and inspiring - for this particular group. So it cannot "stand out" too much from the team. Thanks to this, members will fully engage in the tasks, their emotions will be authentic and, most importantly, team building will bring results. It's perfect integration exercises!

Team building games

Team building is a great way to diversify an integration trip. An excellent idea is to organize company games consisting of interesting games, games and competition based on the rules of competition. The Olympics are a dose of great fun combined with learning cooperation and efficient communication. The game will enable employees to get to know better, show the strengths and weaknesses of individual members of the group, and this will translate into the effectiveness of their work on a daily basis.

Examples of team building games - for physically active people

Many people like to spend their time actively. For them, team building games such as trekking trips, stalking or a trip to the rope park are perfect. For those who prefer stronger impressions and a lot of adrenaline, let's organize off road rallies, survival camps, downhill camps or rock climbing. Rafting, zorbing and bungee jumping or rafting on a mountain river will also prove very fashionable.

Examples of team building games - for the mentally active

Employees who prefer mental rather than physical entertainment should feel good at team building games and activities such as escape rooms, escape rooms or detective game consisting in looking for a serial killer or spies of a foreign country. 

An interesting variety of games that usually take place in an escape room can be the so-called team escape. Usually, there are only 4-6 game participants in ready-made puzzle rooms. We usually employ more people in the company. An interesting scenario can be realized in an office building with much more space. The whole team can be involved in the game, possibly divided into groups. On the Internet you can find ready-made play scripts, for example, a game My rich uncle. Workers in the middle of the room find a suitcase full of puzzles. The game host reads a letter from the lawyers of a recently deceased relative. An inheritance will be given to those who solve puzzles - and only a true heir is able to do so ... Other games of this type include Haunted house if Mr. car (refers to the famous series by Zbigniew Nienacki). Of this type team building games provide a lot of excitement.

Integration games for adults - for creativity 

Each group will include creative people who like dressing up games or playing different roles. For them, movie-style parties will be the best - maybe medieval knights and princesses? Or the characters from Star Wars? Or are the Vikings so fashionable lately? It could also be epoch-style parties - like crazy 1920s-style fun… Or the golden age Hollywood! Choosing outfits, scenery, accessories, and makeup for people who like fashion challenges is a real paradise!

Team building games

Team building elements can be integrated into the corporate everyday life. From time to time, it is worth organizing a team building meeting in the company. What to do during such a meeting? The game is one of the reliable team building games that can be used in company conditions Two truths and a lie. What is it about? The selected person presents three pieces of information about himself to the other participants. Two of them are true and one is a lie. The players' task is to guess which is false. The game greatly relaxes the atmosphere, allows you to get to know employees better and thus helps to build friendly bonds.

Other interesting team building gamesthat strengthen bonds are, for example, a game Shared traits. Participants sit on chairs arranged in a circle. One seat remains empty. The person sitting to the left of the vacant chair tells the other players one fact about himself - for example, his hobby, some character trait, his favorite meal, something he cannot imagine his life without. Affected players must change seats. This game is great for newly formed teams. It integrates well and shows how much some employees have in common. After such a game, our colleagues seem closer, less inaccessible. It also turns out that we have many common topics for talks, not only business ones.

Successful integration

All the games described above have one goal - integrating the group. To work effectively, a team must be able to communicate and cooperate. It seems that these are the basic skills of every employee in any company, but in practice it often turns out that not necessarily at all. The so-called soft skills are not known to everyone. An employee who cannot get along with colleagues, clients or the company's management, even if he is the best specialist in his field, will not be a valuable asset. In the long term, personal and interpersonal skills are essential to be successful at work. These are universal competences, useful in every company and in every position.  Principles of teamwork they are actually the same everywhere.

Basic soft skills

What soft skills can be trained or tested, or improved during team building games? Here are some basic ones:

• ability to work in a team - the company's success depends on all employees. There is a saying: success has many fathers, failure only one. And there is some truth in that. For the company to operate efficiently and effectively, all its employees must contribute to it. But one employee who spoils the atmosphere in the company, cannot cooperate with anyone, does not do his job properly, can ruin the efforts of everyone else

• effective communication - the message should be tailored to the recipient. It's supposed to be obvious, but not everyone realizes that improperly given orders may not be carried out because they will simply not be understood.  

• resistance to stress - there is probably no job that would not generate stress. It's worth learning how to deal with it.

And the clock is ticking ...

Ability to work under time pressure - everyone associates work with a situation when the deadline is approaching, time less and less, and our project is still not ready. You have to make sure that the awareness of the passing time does not paralyze, but mobilizes to effort. Timeliness is very important, but sometimes for independent reasons there is too little time to finish a job, and that's when perfect time management comes in handy.

Team building games - other interpersonal skills

• conflict resolution - there is no point in deluding ourselves, in every group of people, whether on a private or professional basis, there are always some disputes, misunderstandings, quarrels. The trick is to be able to talk about them, find a way out.

• creativity - innovation is the key to success in today's world. A self-employed worker is a real treasure from the employer's point of view. Initiative should always be appreciated.

• working out compromises - nobody likes them. It is not for nothing that they are nicknamed "rotten" ... But in professional work (and in life as well) you often have to give up your vision, at least partially, and listen to the opinions of others.

• Troubleshooting - every employer appreciates a person who not only reports the existence of a problem, but also finds a way to solve it immediately. Of course, this requires critical and creative thinking.

• delegating tasks - many bosses, especially the new ones, have a problem with that. They try to do all the work themselves, unable to distribute tasks among the crew. And even if they do, they are unable to effectively execute their commands.

• work according to strict guidelines - sometimes you just need to be able to obey orders. Some employees have a hard time doing this. Team building games can help in learning this difficult, contrary to appearances, art. Like all the competences mentioned above.   

Employees, even if they are the best specialists, will not do much if they do not communicate skillfully, share information, answer their questions and talk about joint tasks. Team building games allow them to develop or develop the necessary skills.

Integration games for adults – which one to choose?

What integration game for adults is the best? There is no clear answer to this question. It all depends on the group, place and time. There is actually no universal one integration game. Team building games must be "tailor-made", only then will they bring the expected effect. What? Cooperation, understanding, communication, kindness - there is a chance that colleagues will describe the atmosphere in the company after one or more trips or meetings with elements of team building with these terms. Group integration is an important area and should be an inseparable element of activities in every company.