Team coffee, music quiz, or classic brainstorming sessions… These HR team-building activities are useful. Still, most companies have already experienced all of these at least once. When the usual forms of team building are boring, and the team needs to be shaken up, it’s time to think original! Here are some unusual HR team-building activities specifically designed for hybrid teams – take note of them and put them into practice. It will not be boring!
Self-testing events
Often, a team lacks cohesion because it knows only part of its product or has only theoretical ideas about it. HR team-building in the “self-tested” style solves three problems at once: it collectivizes employees, allows them to learn more about the product from the buyer’s point of view, and increases their loyalty.
Let’s say your company produces beer. Usually, only the tasters know its flavor, and the rest of the company knows it only marginally. To make sure employees all know the product, you could hold a remote beer tasting or online beer party with contests. Send beer to your employees and organize a video conference (on Talkspirit, for example) where you will taste the beer and discuss your impressions. This way, you can give people good prizes and get some product information into their heads.
Dance/movement therapy (DMT)
This is a fresh and original HR team-building activity, although, at first glance, there may be many objections. The essence is as follows: music greatly affects people’s minds, and dance not only makes the team more united but also produces endorphins—hormones of joy.
Dance/movement therapy (DMT) is not about teaching HR employees to professionally dance flamenco or hip-hop. In a virtual setting, DMT takes on a different form. Rather than gathering in a physical space, team members can join a dedicated video conferencing session from their respective locations, dressed comfortably. Throughout the session, they engage in various activities facilitated by the HR team, all set to music playing in the background.
Team tasks are performed, and people fool around. At the same time, they open up in improvisation, performing, for example, standups. At some point, they are invited to listen to themselves by closing their eyes and dancing in the dark.
Such HR team-building activities allow people to open up and get to know each other better, and help remove any communication blocks within the team.
Hiking trips
The skills of HR employees are perfectly tested in unfamiliar conditions. So why not travel to the mountains with your team?
Fisherman’s trail is an awesome option for team building. You can either do a small part of this hiking trail, or the complete trail if your team has experienced hikers. If that trail is too far or too complicated for you, you could also search for something else on a website like AllTrails.
For most companies, however, a simple trip to the countryside with an overnight stay can also be enough to create team cohesion.
Virtual quests
Modern technology has allowed us to bring team-building activities into the digital space, and the virtual quest is one of the most exciting ways to foster a collaborative spirit within a team. In this adventure, each participant becomes a hero by solving puzzles and completing challenges that require teamwork and creative thinking.
Here are some ideas for organizing a virtual quest that will help make your corporate event unforgettable:
- Mystery of the ancient manuscript – participants must decipher ancient symbols and find the hidden treasure
- Space Odyssey – the team goes to save a lost space station, solving problems on logic and attention
- Spy Detective – employees as secret agents must uncover conspiracy using clues and ciphers
These events not only bring your team together but also allow everyone to bring out their best in a relaxed environment.
Dialogs in the dark
In 1995, Andreas Heinecke developed an interesting “Dialogue in the Dark” project. This training, which takes place in the dark and lasts for several hours under the guidance of blind trainers, can involve two to several dozen people. The point of the training is to help build and strengthen the team, using the effect of darkness, which sharpens perception and helps us be more frank, as well as better feel everything that is happening, not just see it.
Using VR technology, hybrid teams can immerse themselves in a simulated dark environment. VR headsets can simulate the sensation of darkness and limit visual input, creating a similar atmosphere to the physical experience. Guided online by blind trainers or facilitators, participants can engage in various team-building activities and tasks within this virtual space.
Participants are given various tasks, from determining the size of a room they do not know to teamwork—solving some spatial problems—and so on. This is very unusual and productive—for example, experts say, such training can easily identify the “anti-leader” in a team.
Creative workshops
As it is known, everything created by a particular person is extremely valuable to him or her. For the HR team, it is possible to conduct creative team building, for example by creating your company office in Minecraft. Or you can create a fun city together.
Participants in such training are offered a set of tasks: to attend creative online workshops and eventually create a company office in Minecraft. There will be both delegation of authority and involvement of everyone as well as fulfillment of individual tasks. For example, one HR employee is responsible for a specific office part, and then, coming together, the parts form a single company office in Minecraft.
Use Talkspirit to create workgroups to facilitate collaboration within and between your employees. Organize video conferencing sessions to share project ideas in real-time, and use the chat to get some quick feedback from your teammates.
During such an HR team-building activity, employees will learn a lot of new things and get inspired. The masterpiece created at the end of the workshop can be put in the office. And it will always remind HR employees of a fun, creative day.
Conclusion
Unusual HR team-building activities are not a way to show that one company is cooler than its competitors but a real method to increase engagement and retain top talent. After successful HR team-building activities, people interact more effectively at work and feel more comfortable in the team. Collaborative tools like Talkspirit can help you organize such activities and gather feedback on what your employees would like to try. So don’t hesitate to take advantage of it!
