Tips for Planning a Successful Corporate Team-Building Event

Are you currently planning for your corporate team building event, but you don’t have any idea what to do or where to start?

Here at Quest Adventure Camp, we have our on-site facilitators that can help you manage your team building event from start to finish. However, we understand if you need some insights on how to prepare for a corporate team building event, that’s why we came up with this list of tips that can help you get started planning for a successful corporate team building event!

As we previously discussed in our last blog, team building is indeed effective to build teams and mold them throughout the process, but here’s where the caveat comes in: the effectivity of a team building event lies on how it was prepared and executed. Team building events help foster trust in the team, as well as build relationships that make work easier.

How to Plan the Best Corporate Team Building Event

Are you excited to make the most out of your team building event? Let’s get the ball rolling as we give you tips on how to host an effective team building event!

1. Define your objectives and set a budget. There are many purposes why teams plan a team building event. What is your goal in hosting a team building event? Are you looking forward to celebrating the success of the team for securing a big client? Did the team exceed this month’s quota? Are you managing a new team and you want to make sure that they will start getting along just fine? Once you determine the goals for hosting a team building event, start going through a budget for your event. Compute the necessary expenses you will spend, along with potential expenditure that may be shouldered by the employees.

2. Schedule the activity without compromising their personal time. To avoid nonattendance, we recommend scheduling the team building activity during work days. Why? Some of the participants may not attend the team building event if it falls on their day off. If the team building activity is done on a work day, they will be obliged to participate and attend. Most of the team building activities are an overnight affair, so make sure that your participants can still join despite the schedule.

3. Check their workload. Ideally, team building events should be held during the earlier days of the month, usually after reporting time and while everyone’s just about done with their tasks. If they have too much on their plate, they will have the tendency to be distracted from the activities. Consider rescheduling other tasks or finding the right timing for conducting a team building activity that would not coincide with a busy week.

4. Consider the travel time between your office and the venue. Preferably, you should choose a location that’s near your office if you’re planning an overnight stay on the venue to maximize the time for the activities. For example, Quest is just 45 minutes away from SM Masinag in Antipolo. If it takes several hours away before you reach your destination, consider hiring a van or a coaster to transport your employees. Make sure that they are comfortable so they have enough energy and enthusiasm to go through each activity.

5. Build the team from inside out. In a team, there’s always the conflicting teammates that do not go well together — take the opportunity to settle their differences through this. If you have people in the team that go well together, combine them with other groups so they can meet new people and make new friends. Friction between members of the team should be eased out to keep a healthy work dynamic within the office. Personality-wise, try to combine contrasting personalities in a group and let them discover how to adjust in a give-and-take situation during the activities. Team building isn’t just to build the interpersonal side of every individual, but it also involves building self-awareness and other intrapersonal qualities of each team member.

6. Titles are left at the office. In planning the best corporate team building activity, you should remind every member that here in the team building venue, there are no bosses nor subordinates. Everyone is on equal footing. Even if you’re a team leader for a high-performing team, you will be treated the same as the newbie on the low-performing team. Keep egos out of the team building venue! This can help people open up, and eventually, we can discover potential leaders that can even improve team performance inside the office. For example, someone can be chosen as the new leader instead of the office leader of the group; this gives them the push that they need to come out of their shell and unleash their hidden potential as a leader as well.

7. How was the team building event? Ask them to leave some feedback. It is important that after a team building event, ask for your employee’s feedback anonymously. This can help you improve your planning on future events. With their feedback, you will know what went wrong during the team building event, but also you will know what people loved about your team building activities. Aside from feedback, you should observe if the effects of the team building activity are evident. There are various metrics that you can apply in assessing their improvement post-team building. With the data that you gather, you can start planning for more activities that may improve their knowledge and skills. Re-evaluate your goals after two to three months to determine its full effectivity.

8. Look for team building facilitators. If you think that planning is taking too much of your time, Quest Adventure Camp can help you plan it from start until the end of your team building activities with us. Our facilitators are well-trained — we build through play, so expect exciting activities throughout your stay with us!

Perhaps the number one advice we can give is to continuously challenge them. In a team building venue, they are out of their comfort zones. They aren’t groupmates with the usual people that they hang out with — everything’s so unfamiliar with them. This is the opportunity to tap into their hidden potential. An introvert may turn out to be a good decision-maker for the team as they go through the different obstacles in the area.

Planning the best corporate team building event for your team may be difficult at first, but the benefits you may reap will be worth it.