When the shoulders hunch, the chins go down and your meetings begin to feel a little lacklustre, it’s time to pep up the office atmosphere.
Sustaining a tight team dynamic is vital, so why not do something about it and organise a spot of team building in London?
Whether you’d like to set your colleagues some challenges or simply get away from your desks and take a fresh perspective with an added dash of fun, we have plenty of unusual team building ideas to give you plenty of inspiration.
The announcement of a company away day isn’t always met with resounding cheers, but keep the eye-rolls to a minimum with an engaging and challenging programme which will really stimulate your team, as well as providing plenty of ‘sweeteners’ such as a great lunch, exciting entertainment and making sure that you choose a memorable venue. When it comes to unusual team building activities in London, you don’t have to look far (as in, keep on this very website!) for some really interesting and diverse options.
1. What do you want?
The most important first step is to take into consideration what you want the outcome to be. Are you expecting to conduct any specific training over the course of the event? Are you more interested in deepening the sense of trust and respect between members of your team? Perhaps you simply want to invigorate the dynamic with a break from the office and introduction of a different pace.
2. Who’s coming?
You really need to pay close attention to the attendees and the sort of thing which would suit them and that they would enjoy. Senior management teams might not be quite as on board with a Love Island-themed festival of challenges, while younger teams probably won’t appreciate a day’s clay pigeon shooting. That being said, it’s always interesting to choose activities which aren’t the obvious ones, so your attendees may surprise you!
3. Mix it up
Something we have found works especially well for our clients who have multiple objectives is to hold a multi-functional day with various different elements. Why not kick off proceedings with some interesting challenges to get your team thinking in a different way and to really break the ice? Enjoy a delicious lunch, then move onto whatever content you might want to get across. The afternoon is a great time for your talks, workshops and presentations, where hopefully your team will be able to put what they learnt in the morning into practice. Then all you need to do is round off the day with some fun socialising and your team will be ready to hit the ground running!
4. Fun fun fun
Make sure there’s plenty of scope for informal enjoyment and excitement. Team building activities should be well planned and scheduled – always leave them wanting more is a good guide to go by!
Encourage socialising by providing lots of opportunities for mingling. Even something as simple as catering with a standing buffet rather than a formal sit-down meal means that your team will naturally chat to more people rather than getting too ensconced at their table.
5. Surprise!
By all means, keep your team up to date with the main itinerary and what will be expected of them, but it always pays to keep a few tricks up your sleeve. Whether it’s a fun social afternoon in place of what they thought would be more training, or something as simple as something which raises the bar on the catering stakes. For example, interactive dessert stations and doughnut walls are becoming increasingly popular.
6. Challenge
One of the most important things about your team building event is that it’s got to really stretch your attendees beyond their comfort zone. Ensure you choose formats which will encourage your teams to work with people they don’t usually have many dealings with. No cliques allowed!
Popular team building activities in London include cookery days, outdoor challenges, escape rooms and more corporate-focused events such as professional development workshops. A lot of these activities use forms which will be unfamiliar to the teams and so they will have to open up to the challenge and hopefully find ways of overcoming adversity while building friendships and strengthening their team.
7. You don’t have to do a Bush Tucker trial
You can, of course, and it might even be quite fun if you’ve chosen a survival theme. However, we find that an event often runs on its stomach and that’s a target no amount of mealy grubs can hit! If you’re going to be hard at work for a whole day, you’ll need to make sure you have delicious treats lined up for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, tea and supper. Our in-house catering team, Tobacco Dock Food are experts in keeping delegates sustained and in creating imaginative and memorable menus which your team will be talking about for days!
And don’t forget the drinks. Large Kilner jars with fruit water help everyone stay hydrated, while a supply of good coffee is a non-negotiable! A celebratory wine, beer or cocktail will round off the day very nicely.
8. Competition
A sure-fire way to get a conversation started and strategies flying is to inject some competition into the proceedings! For example, each year we hold the Agency Games, where we gather the city’s leading event agencies and challenge them to a series of activities. It serves well as a means of getting to know our clients better and to thank them for business, but it’s also a fantastic format for team building. Teams of up to 6 are presented with a series of challenges up at our rooftop bar, Skylight, which in the summer months becomes a lawn club. The teams try their hand at events such as speed croquet, croquet distance shots, cocktail mixing, ping pong and pétanque accuracy trials.
We find this to be a great format, as it’s fun, engaging and competitive while encouraging team members to bond together and support one another.
9. Enter into the spirit
Sometimes all office morale needs is a treat! If you want to bypass the team building activities and just do the party bit, we won’t tell. A summer party up at Skylight, complete with croquet, cocktails, street food and spectacular views could be just the perk your team has been dreaming of. At the other end of the calendar, our Christmas parties are guaranteed to put smiles on all the team’s faces. This year you can run away with the circus or skate up a storm on our roof at our Dream Circus parties, or at winter Skylight.
10. Join in
As with so much, you’ll get out what you put in, so don’t leave it to the others to build the team, make sure you’re as engaged as everyone else. We guarantee that come Monday, the team will be back to firing on all cylinders with renewed vigour!