When running a small business you have to make sure that your staff are happy. Here are our top five team building exercises.
Running a company involves a lot of problem solving and often some high pressure situations on set and even in pre-production. What this means is you have to know when and how to let of some steam. It’s really important to down tools every so often, cut loose and have some good old fashion fun. It is your staff that really keep the gears turning so making sure they not only work well as a team but enjoy working together is crucial to the success of your business and certainly to our creative content agency. So now and then it’s great for your staff to do some team-building exercises or go on an ‘away day.’ So we have searched the internet for the best team building exercises for your staff to do while also throwing in a few paid experiences for your business. Our list features the five favourites we have found, which fit a few different price points and would suit a team from a creative video agency or production company. However not all of our suggestions may fit your business, if not we recommend you ask your staff what sort of thing they would like to do and go from there.
Number One: Paintball
We start off our list with paintball, the famous shooting sport, it may seem a bit counter intuitive, but it appears getting your staff to shoot at each other works wonders for morale within your squad, but why is that? Perhaps the biggest benefit of it is that your staff has to work together in a team in an environment without much pressure. Many of these skills can be used in the workplace, and certainly one of which is the need for communication to bring greater cohesive understanding and humility. In paintball, it’s so important to plan your next move and work together to achieve a united goal. Communicating well during shared projects and especially in pressure situations will help you to achieve infinitely better results.
Another benefit of paintball for your staff is that it is a great healthy alternative to having a party or food-based team-building exercise. When you play paintball you experience a full-body cardio workout that boosts your endurance levels because of the extended amount of time spent playing. Paintball also aids in weight loss. The intense exercise gained from a session of paintball can improve sleep cycles and boost metabolism. Apart from burning more calories, exercise through paintball also reduces the risk of heart diseases, blood pressure and depression.
A good place in LA that is good for paintball are Critical Paintball, based in Northridge in south California.
Number Two: Football
The second sport, that turns out to be quite good as a team-building exercise, on our list is the most popular sport in England, and most likely the world…football. The sport that has been played for hundreds of years provides similar benefits to paintball for people but could be a more popular option for people than paintball. It also burns more calories than paintball, with football burning anywhere from 600 to 1200 calories an hour while paintball can burn a max of 680 calories an hour.
But it doesn’t have to be just normal football, there are plenty of different types for you to play or even watch. One example would be five-a-side football, which provides a quicker game than traditional football, or zorb football which is a funnier way of playing football, another option for a football-based team building day would be an ‘away day’ to go and watch a game of football, going to watch your local team in a box is a nice way to have a bit of fun, especially around the Christmas period.
While football isn’t a traditional sport in America there is still plenty of places for you to either watch or play football in LA, you can watch one of the two LA MLS Teams, LAFC and LA Galaxy
Number Three: The Bear Grylls Survival Academy
This more unorthodox team building event put together by Right Angle is an experience-based off the TV shows created by bear Grylls. The Right-angle website describes the experience like this
The challenges this experience entails are, the Gross Eat Challenge, Stalking, Air Crash, Shipwreck, Land Rover Pull, Stretcher Race, Knot Tying Challenge, Navigation Challenges and Raising the Flag, all these challenges are great for team spirit as they are all competitive events, which excellent for your staff, like the other events we mentioned it’s perfect for teamwork which is always good when doing a team-building exercise.
Number Four: Make Your Own Short Movie and post it on social media.
This team-building exercise is perhaps a better fit for a more creative office than others, but even for the least creative offices it’s a great bit of fun that brings people together and also allows people to show off some of their skills that people may not know about. You dont have to be a professional London production company to do this. In fact, it’s probably better that you are not! Of course you can search YouTube for tutorials on basic film making and animation to get some ideas about how to create your own feature film movie trailer. And when its a wrap why not post it and see if your movie trailer will go viral?
Also, this option is either incredibly cheap or even free if you would like to be. One way to deepen the idea would be to have two teams who compete and both make a short movie, which then a few people in the office vote for what movie they prefer and whoever wins will get a small award.
Check out this 2D animation tutorial.
Number Five: Cocktail Making Class
Our final option for team building is definitely one where you can have a bit of fun and a few drinks, cocktail making classes are pretty self-explanatory, a mixologist teaches you how to make various alcoholic beverages. Cocktail making classes are great for team building because it’s a fun environment where your staff can play around with different things and get drunk while doing it. This is perhaps the priciest option on our list though as classes can set you back anywhere from 40 pound per person, however, this price will most likely vary from place to place. Our price example is using a class in Los Angeles a class would set you back anything from 60 dollars to 100 dollars. If you do choose to do this we recommend you shop around in your local area and see what prices people are offering near you. A great place to go in Los Angeles is The Natural Mixologist in downtown LA.
Heres one YouTube cocktail making tutorial that we really like.
