Now more than ever, building strong relationships within your company is pivotal to a happy, healthy and productive workplace. Companies rely on endless hours of collaboration and brainstorming in order to get the job done timely and effectively. However, many companies simply just forgo this practice, and their work reflects it.

It’s important to reduce any possible friction or angst that may exist within your workplace, even virtually, and strengthen interpersonal connections. After all, you want your employees to actually enjoy what they do and where they work. To do so, give your employees some time to just kick back, relax and get to know the person that lies behind their job title and responsibilities.

Here, we’ll list the 5 best company team building activities—virtual and in-person!

1. Happy Hour!

Perhaps the most popular option out of the five listed, but happy hour has proven to be one of the best company team building activities. This gives your employees and coworkers an opportunity to let loose a little. There’s no stress of deadlines or work that needs to be done, just a group of people sitting back and having a drink or two. Like we said before, this gives you a chance to actually know the person behind the job title. Sure, you might know Jeff “The IT Guy”, but do you know any of his interests? What his hobbies are? Most likely not. And then there’s Marissa, the quiet one who you’re almost positive has never once said a word at work. Regardless, this hour can spark new, long-lasting relationships between your employees and increase productivity in the workplace.

2. A Friendly Contest

Who doesn’t love a little competition? Whether it be for a small prize, or simply just bragging rights, your employees will most likely go all-out to win. The contest can be something along the lines of a board game, charades, or a painting/drawing contest. You really can’t go wrong here. Have your employees team up with someone they’re not entirely familiar with and let the games begin! This way, they will figure out ways to collaborate with someone they don’t know too well and build a relationship at the same time. The idea here is that this bonding will ultimately translate into your workplace.

3. Community Service / Volunteering

As simple as it may seem, volunteering or community service is one of the most surefire ways to build a bond within a large group. Getting together for good will give your whole team the feeling of accomplishment while also building some good karma at the same time. This is something that can be easily done as well and implemented into your workplace for years to come. Most people think that volunteering needs to be an entire day trip out to your local park to clean it up, but it can be (and is) much more simple than that. Hold a food drive at your workplace, have 30 minutes to an hour to create cards for children in the hospital, make snack kits to hand out to the homeless. Truly, the possibilities are endless. Not to mention, you can offer incentives to your best performing employees to give them a little push in the process. If you’re interested, Swoovy offers a painless and easy to implement volunteer management software that allows you to track your employees and their efforts in and outside of the workplace; and gives you feedback on your corporate social responsibility (CSR).

4. Spark a (Work Friendly) Debate

Let’s preface this one by saying that “work friendly” are the KEY words here. Clearly, we want to stay away from the highly controversial and very opinionated topics that can ruffle some feathers. Yes, were mainly talking about politics, laws, economics… you get the point. In this case though, we’re thinking something much more passive. For example: Who’s the greatest basketball player of all time? Michael Jordan? Lebron? Kobe? By having a debate like this, it gives your employees an opportunity to express themselves and their opinions, while also listening to the viewpoints of others. We can see this in the workplace constantly. Think of a marketing manager or someone on the creative team. These teams need to sit down and brainstorm ideas that they think will reflect best with their target audience, and of course, there will be some creative differences. So when these debates are underway, try to express that everyone should come to a consensus. Or at least give the other people some respect for their viewpoints.

5. Brainstorm Hour

Piggy-backing off of the last idea, hold a brainstorming session. Make up a fake marketing campaign or scenario and see which team can come up with the best ideas. While your marketing team (if you have one) may be all too familiar with this practice, the people over in finance seldom have the opportunity to let their creative juices flow. As a creative myself, I know that these sessions play a pivotal role in building relationships and teamwork skills. So try it out!

Conclusion

Team building activities have proven themselves time and time again to have a positive impact on your workplace. Taking just an hour or more of “work time” a week to set aside for these activities will bring great results. Employee engagement will increase, communication will thrive, you will understand the strengths and weaknesses of your employees, leaders will be identified, and so much more.

Want to learn more about how Swoovy’s employee volunteer program can easily bring your team together through shared interests? Book a demo, we’d love to help out.

The 5 Best Company Team Building Activities