The sun is finally shining, and everyone is looking for ways to spend as much time as possible outdoors. There’s only so much activity you can squeeze in on the weekends, and anyone who spends most of their time working indoors will tell you they want to take advantage of the nice weather while it lasts. This makes it the perfect time of year to plan team building activities outdoors for your workplace.
Who doesn’t want an excuse to spend some good times outside with the people they enjoy being around or people they want to get to know better? In fact, the beautiful weather can be just the kind of thing that a group of people needs to bond.
Why Team Building?
The benefits of team building have long been established, but sometimes it takes a reminder — and some solid facts and figures — to properly convince you (or upper management) that investing in corporate events is truly worth it, in both the long and short-term. Some of the main benefits of team building activities are that they help to relieve stress and keep employees engaged with your company. Research has shown that highly engaged employees are 38% more likely to have above-average productivity; so not only does engagement make your employees happier, but it helps your bottom line.
What’s more, these kinds of activities help to align your employees’ goals and values with those of the company, help them to feel valued, and promote unity. According to the American Psychological Association, 93% of employees who report feeling valued at work say that they are motivated to do their best. So whether you are looking to build on your company mission, or simply boost your business goals, team building provides ample opportunity to do both.
Why Outdoor Team Building?
So why should you take your corporate team building activities outdoors? Well, first of all, because it’s fun! In most states, warm weather lasts year-round. Nothing is better than getting outside, enjoying the sunshine, and having fun together!
You might worry that taking your team building activities outdoors might make them difficult to organize, but that’s not true. At Best Corporate Events, we work with you to coordinate everything. An outdoor activity could be just the thing to add some variety to your corporate events and keep things interesting.
Here is just a selection of some of our most popular outdoor team building activities for your employees:
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Team Olympics
Host some Olympics-style games with Team Olympics. You will have a group warm-up, form teams, and compete through activities like sack races, a ski team challenge, flipper flash relays, and more, all to earn the coveted gold, silver, and bronze medals — and bragging rights, of course!
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Amazing Chase SmartHunt
Each team in this outdoor team building activitywill be given iPads with instructions and clues in the Amazing Chase SmartHunt that will help them create a winning strategy to beat the other teams. They will navigate a custom route and compete in challenges and activities along the way, including quizzes, puzzles, photo and video missions, and tour points of interest.
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City SmartHunt
Alternatively, if you are based in or near a city, you might consider a City SmartHunt. Using the interactive SmartHunts app on your iPads, you will have an adventure around a city where you will explore and learn as you go.
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Build-A-Raft
For a more hands-on, high-energy, collaborative activity, your team will love the Build-A-Raft Competition. Each team will work together to build a makeshift raft using only the materials provided as quickly as possible. Teams will test their rafts in the water before having a relay-style race. For a group that enjoys corporate team building activities outdoors and physical competition, this is an excellent choice.
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Catapult
The Catapult activity is exactly as it sounds: each team will work together to build a catapult, and compete with others for both distance and accuracy. All materials are provided, and the winners will be announced.
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Bridge to the Future
Bridge to the Future is a good activity for organizations that want to emphasize their core values and get employees involved in the mission. Teams will work together to build a real bridge representing their organization’s future goals and aspirations. Of course, it must still have structural integrity, and each team will be in charge of part of the bridge, which will then be crossed by the group at completion.
As you can see, there is ample opportunity to hold just about every kind of corporate team building activity outdoors. Summer and good weather don’t last forever, so why not take advantage of it and try something different for your group?
