Engaging Team Building Activities: From Innovation Workshops to International Dinners

No organization can function without effective teams. It is in the best interest of organizations to foster collaboration, enhance communication and keep morale high within teams.

One effective way of doing this is through team building activities. Research shows that team building can have measurable and positive effects on the team and motivation. It also shows that activities that focus on interpersonal skills, problem solving skills and experiences have considerably better outcomes.

When planning a team building activity, it is important that the team’s interests and objectives are considered and that the activity does not feel forced or like a management decision. This defeats the purpose of a team building activity and builds a more negative perception of team building activities in general. Research shows that most employees have been a part of dysfunctional teams and therefore may be more motivated to work towards building a more effective and open team dynamic. It is important to set clear goals, involve the team in the planning process and implement a clear feedback & impact measurement process.

Ideas for Team Building Activities

1.Hackathons and Innovation workshops:

Workshops in general, when structured well, help unlock creativity and openness in its participants. Hackathons and innovation workshops heighten this- they are intense, creative sessions where groups of participants work together to solve problems that face the organization or the world at large. They can be both guided or free flowing but introduce participants to tools that they can use to structure their thinking.

This could be a good way of bringing together diverse groups of people in the organization more naturally without it feeling forced. It also contributes to new ideas and approaches to a problem being faced by the organization. The problem solving, creative thinking, intensity and goal oriented nature of these workshops help in creating a stronger team bond.

2.A Start-up Immersion:

According to the Austrian Start up Monitor 2022, almost 50% of start ups in Austria have an impact focus. Most social enterprises usually have innovative business models and products that they use to tackle the social focus. Teams can come together to explore Vienna through the impact lens, learning about the innovation and entrepreneurial mindset that these enterprises have. Engaging with social entrepreneurs could help teams rethink their strategy or look at things from a new lens that they had not considered before. It also helps to give a sense of what they can take from the entrepreneurial mindset into the workplace.

Each team can be given a different social topic and meet social entrepreneurs and later meet to exchange learnings, thoughts, reflections and what they can take from this experience into their own context. Learning and experiencing new things that aren’t directly related to your work can spark new ideas as well as creativity. It is an interpretive exercise that could lead to a lot of fun and innovative sparks.

3.Management Simulation Games:

This is a fairly common practice at business schools but a great one to export to the workplace. It involves roleplaying and simulation and gives you a deep understanding of how teams and roles function together. This could unlock understanding of barriers and enablers for other roles apart from the role that they have and create a more open stream of communication.

Each participant is given a role, a personality and a mission and then, things play out the way that the participants play their characters. The endgame is not to complete the mission but to unlock as much as possible from the roleplaying itself. It can help in boosting leadership skills, decision making skills and much more.

4.Corporate Skill-based Volunteering:

Many studies show that volunteering increases employee retention, boosts productivity and increases employee engagement. Something that’s gaining popularity is to volunteer not just time but skills as well. The non-profit sector and impact start-ups are more often than not, minimally staffed with a lot to get done. This is the perfect opportunity to volunteer skills.

Teams can be given the opportunity to pick up volunteer projects that they can contribute to. The opportunity to choose reflects their interests as a group and therefore their motivation to contribute is higher. Their sense of purpose volunteering is also heightened. It leads to higher morale and job satisfaction, contributing to a more positive work environment.

5.International Dinners:

There is no doubt that food brings people together. An article by Harvard Business Review highlights research that there is a deceptively simple approach to team building: Encourage teams to eat together. At Impact Hub Vienna, we use food to bring our community together to unlock new conversations through our event series, check out the Impact Hub events.

Coming together in a communal space to cook and eat together can create stronger team bonding. Sharing cultural connections and stories around food is a great way to foster communication and shared understanding. Pairing these meals with storytelling- sharing your fondest food memories and traditions could be a great way to make it personal. It’s also a great way to celebrate the diversity in teams.

While these are just starting points, there are many other ways to unlock team building and cohesion like participating in sports or outdoor activities together, traveling together, creating a piece of art or craft together and even just spending time together outside the context of work. At the end of the day, it’s about what works for the team in question.

Personal motivation is usually the most important driver in employment but the truth is no project is done entirely alone in any organization. Whether you have to rely on someone for data and information or input, sign-offs from leadership, operations teams, there’s almost always someone else involved. In this context, it is important to make sure that your organization has effective teams. Team building activities are one way to enable drivers and reduce barriers of effective teams. No matter what activity you choose, remember that it matters not what you want to do- but what the team as a whole wants to do in order to have an impact.

At Impact Hub Vienna, we are experienced in setting up hackathons, innovation workshops, social enterprise immersions and have the spaces that you need for your team building activities. Located in the heart of the 7th District in Vienna, we can become your go to place for all your events, not to mention, we are a green location and help you host events with a sustainability lens. Explore our event location in Vienna and see how we can make your next event a success!