The Advantages of a Great Team Challenge
Having pioneered research into the effects of corporate team challenges over the last 30 years, here at Catalyst Team Building UK we don’t just design fun games, but we make sure they’re effective too. In order to continue producing the high quality, results-oriented games that we are known for, we make sure to track and analyse the effectiveness of our work which has highlighted multiple different benefits that team challenges can offer your business.
Focused Skills Training
The first of the notable advantages is how team challenges can be designed to test, develop and train a specific skill. If you have identified a skill deficit in your business or team, then it’s easy to locate a team building event which can grow that ability. Furthermore, if you want to formalise the development your staff are undergoing, then a team building training course can be used to discuss what was learnt during the team challenges, highlighting the key points for attendees to take on board.
Morale Boosting
Above all else, team challenges are meant to be fun! Your staff spend more time at work than at home, so for them to remain happy and engaged, the environment must be exciting or enjoyable. The biggest danger of remaining in the same role and position for a long period is the threat of stagnation and boredom, leading to decreased morale, unhappiness and poor productivity. Team challenges enable you to add something new to your staff’s experience at work, avoiding stagnation and preventing the threat of lowered productivity.
Improved Team Bonding and Cooperation
Along with boredom, a lack of cooperation can cause serious efficiency issues within your team. Usually, poor cooperation is either a business culture or staff relationship-based issue, both of which can be helped through the use of team challenges. By bringing staff together to achieve a goal or compete, they are forced to bond and get to know each other. This familiarisation process often has a huge impact on the effectiveness of a team and their willingness to cooperate within the workplace.
What Makes a Good Team Challenge
Picking out a good team challenge can seem difficult. There are so many activities available that it often feels like you can’t know the quality of the event until you have tried it – but this isn’t the case. There are a few key points you can look out for to ascertain exactly how effective a team challenge will be.
Participation
Any good team building activity requires participation by everyone involved. If at any point, the participants are disengaged or left to their own devices, then the lessons taught by the team building event become forgotten or irrelevant because they will only remember being bored whilst attending the occasion.
Uniqueness
There’s a good chance that your staff has engaged in icebreakers or other team challenges before and if they have, they will probably know most of the common team building activities or might even view them with distrust or contempt. Therefore, to make sure that the attendees get the absolute most from your team challenge, it’s important that you pick something unique which they won’t have tried before.
Healthy Competition or Cooperation
Bringing people together can be a challenging prospect but the two most effective techniques are through healthy competition or necessary cooperation. Good team challenges often use both of these approaches to create an environment where participants must bond and work together, motivated by the reward of bragging rights or a small prize for defeating their colleagues. Utilising humanity’s innate desire to succeed, discover or win is a big part of any effective team challenge.
Finding the Best Team Challenge for You
With the advantages and key points to look out for in mind, finding the best team challenge for you becomes easy. The most important point to keep in mind is that you must have a predefined goal for your challenge before you start looking. Understand what abilities your team needs to develop and focus on the team challenges that grow these relevant skills. By choosing an appropriate activity based on your needs, you should be able to ensure that the challenge you select will be useful and effective. Use our event finder to refine your search and pick out the perfect team challenge.
