How To: Tackle team-building activities when lockdown’s over

It’s often more stressful than organising the Christmas Party, but preparing team-building activities doesn’t have to be a chore. As we edge to wards an end to lockdown Nicky Brown, Director of Arctic Fox Events offers some wise words of advice for bringing your teams back together…

Teambuilding can be a word that casts fear into the hearts of event organisers and attendees alike. But it needn’t be a laborious task for you in the planning stages or a daunting exercise for your event attendees once they get onsite.

Here are a few tips on how to make your teambuilding choices work for you.

• As the old saying goes, there is no ‘I’ in team – make sure you choose an event space or venue that encourages collaboration and has an emphasis on shared space. Venues are increasingly offering shared breakout spaces or room for creative learning with a more relaxed style and theme that encourages collaborative learning and teambuilding.

• Embrace the great outdoors – if you are looking for more physical activities to complement your event programme, look for a venue space with grounds for outdoor ventures and teambuilding. Whether that’s for a treasure hunt, go-karting, high wires or sheep herding, there are so many activities that can take place rain or shine. Some venues have their own onsite teams to manage your teambuilding sessions.

• Understand what you are trying to achieve through your teambuilding. Are you looking to get a department out of the office and socialising together? If so, more relaxed activities are perfect – consider private hire bowling, escape rooms, indoor golf, a ball pit or even axe throwing for some relaxed (but still competitive) activities.

• Work with the experts. There are lots of companies that specialise in tailoring teambuilding activities to your event programme and can help your attendees to either create content or to explore the core message of the conference through the teambuilding activities. 

As with most things event related, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you have an idea of what you would like to do or achieve, then consider who you outsource to as the right team building company and venue finder can turn your ideas into a reality and make a real difference to your event programme.