5 top-notch team building activities your employees will fall in love with

“Oh my, they came up with another dumb idea,” says a displeased employee while trying to ditch another corporate game. Have you ever eavesdropped on such a reaction? Unfortunately, many HR managers have. And such a reaction is a telltale sign that the chosen forced bonding activity is just a waste of time, and the company can forget about any residual benefits.

People are tired of lame games. It’s true. If the company wants to break the ice between employees and knit their team together, they’d better be inventive and revamp the attitude toward team building. It is especially vital nowadays, as many companies switch to remote work.

We, the Fantasy Invest team, have been there. We’ve heard this chorus of groans while encouraging our team to participate in yet another attempted team-building activity. But we found the way out and hope our successful experience will help you boost what matters most — the human connection. So, here are 5 super brand-new activities you can easily implement in your company.

Fantasy Leagues

In the beginning, we thought that our diverse team had nothing in common. All conversations were about work only, uninspired, and focused on accomplishing our work tasks. While we were brainstorming on bringing our team together and boosting each employee’s morale, the greatest idea dawned on us — we should create Fantasy Leagues! We did it, and it showed such an excellent result that we decided to share this gem with you. But first, let us tell you a bit about who we are.

Fantasy Invest is a real-time data edutainment game about trading. We gamify the stock market by using proven Fantasy Sports mechanics and combine the thrill of competition with the ups and downs of stocks.

How do Fantasy Leagues work, you may wonder? Well, the mechanics are quite simple — a company has its own room and leaderboard, where they can see the results and each player’s scores. In fact, your employees play the usual FI games, but they compete within their own team.

Usually, the team competes for a couple of weeks as this time is enough to puzzle out the game, get to know all the colleagues, and enjoy the thrill of the stock market. At the end of the League, there will be a board with top players — the Fantasy League winners entitled to a prize. The prizes are also up to you — from company swag to local coupons. Your company can play an unlimited number of leagues and even customize the design of your League.

The mechanics of the games are so universal that they suit any company, from accounting to car detailing. The results will exceed your expectations — the team will bond while exchanging tips and bragging about their success. Besides, the personality of each member is revealed through healthy competition. So we invite you to jump on board and let your team conquer the stock market!

#GettyMuseum or #MoviePoster Challenge

The #GettyMuseumChallenge is a widespread challenge that flooded social media during the lockdown. The idea is to recreate famous paintings of your favorite artists at home with the help of things at hand. You can find some examples on Twitter — the challenge went viral. And, of course, it can also be transformed into a great and hilarious virtual team-building activity. Just imagine your colleagues recreating the Last Supper!

If your team isn’t fond of arts and museums, you can transform it into a #MoviePoster recreation challenge or choose another topic your team is geeky about. You can recreate anything — whether it’s your favorite fairy tale, game character, or a famous singer.

All you need is any video conference platform and about half an hour of team time for this activity. Assemble your team, present paintings that you’ve chosen in advance, and make your colleagues pick one of them randomly. That’s all! Give all participants around 15–20 minutes to recreate the painting and take pictures to reveal in the end.

You will be surprised to find out what people can come up with in 15 minutes. The only problem with this challenge is to make people do it in the beginning without feeling awkward. But if you are successful, their creative approach can truly reveal their personalities. To make the challenge even more fun, you can create a leaderboard of the best and the most creative ideas. Let people vote for each other and compete for some prizes or virtual titles — nobody will refuse to be named the New Botichelli or the Mind of Picasso.

Beer making experience

Such craft is a great team-building option for both online and offline.

If you want your team to become brewers for the day in the comfort of their own home — organize this team building on Zoom. It is a fun activity with no prior knowledge needed. All you need to do is find an online instructor and deliver the necessary ingredients and equipment to your employees’ doors.

Just imagine that your colleagues can create a custom label or a team beer recipe! Of course, the beer idea is quite extravagant and needs some preparations. Still, you can quickly transform it into a “make anything together online” event and even set up prizes for the most exquisite or yummy (if you’re all cooking dishes) thing created. And you can enjoy the fruits of your labor together.

Virtual escape rooms

We’ve all heard of offline escape rooms where you have an hour to solve a mystery and escape from some closed area. Usually, it’s a team quest that gives chills and excitement to all the members. Virtual escape rooms are almost the same — they provide a challenging and immersive adventure for teams of all kinds, whether in the office, at home, or a mix of both!

Your employees can get the same challenges, puzzles, and tasks to overcome as they would in a physical room while working towards a shared goal — escaping and winning the game. Many companies organize such events for teams from 4 to 12 players. All you need is a host with a live camera to guide you through the room full of adventures and clues and a good voice to keep you awake.

The quest’s theme can be anything from breaking out of prison and finding the artifact to solving an art heist. This is a great way to learn about your colleagues, communicate with each other, do some problem solving, bond, and have fun!

Surprise!

People love surprises and to be positively surprised by something they didn’t expect. So the surprise challenge is an excellent way to allow the team members to express themselves and show a part of their personality that your team probably wasn’t aware of previously. Moreover, it’s effortless to set up.

All you need is to start a virtual conference with each person’s camera being turned off. One by one, each person has several minutes to turn on their camera and surprise everybody in any way possible, from showing your violin skills and standing on your hands to making your dog perform some outstanding commands. It’s no competition, but it may motivate your employees to raise the stakes of creativity. Still, it can be hard to make shy or introverted people reveal themselves, so be prepared first to show them your own skills.

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We’ve tried all of these activities and found out tons of interesting facts about our employees. It turned out that our accountant dabbled with ballet, the office manager can fly a plane, and the graphic designer plays with stocks on the Elon Musk cosmic level! We wish you the same kind of incredible discoveries, a close-knit team, and mind-blowing success.