Creating effective team-building ideas for IT professionals can be a wonderful way of rewarding your staff and helping them build connections with co-workers. Team-building can nurture fantastic working relationships and improve company culture. In this article, we consider the benefits of team-building and suggest activity ideas that might work well for your team. If you need support recruiting IT professionals, contact Archer IT Recruitment for more details.
What is team-building?
Team-building is a management strategy that involves organising games and activities between workers to help foster bonds, develop problem-solving abilities, and enable teamwork. It can be a great way of breaking the ice between new team members and letting them get to know each other outside the working environment. Activities are designed to encourage communication, creativity, and collaboration and often allow workers to use talents that they might keep hidden in the workplace.
What are the benefits of team-building activities?
Team-building activities offer a host of benefits to organisations and groups. There are several reasons why it is worth investing time and thought into choosing quality team-building activities. Consider the following benefits:
Forming relationships. Workers today are often highly focused on meeting goals and company targets. Sometimes contact time between co-workers is limited and conversations centre around work tasks and responsibilities. Social distancing and the rise in employees working from home has contributed to this issue. Yet having friends at work makes people happier and boosts productivity. It also brings more fun to the workplace. Meeting colleagues in a new environment and involving them in tasks encourages more relaxed interactions.
Increases motivation. Team-building activities often take place in a new environment. The focus is on collaboration and entertainment, and activities are designed to promote positive interactions. Teams often have challenges to meet, and in a new setting, members are likely to come up with solutions and draw on their skills to perform as a team.
Boosts confidence and trust. As workers get to know each other in a different context, they become more confident in communicating. Team collaboration builds trust among workers. Professionals also get to see the strengths of their co-workers and discover new ways of working together.
Health. A lot of team-building activities involve physical exertion outdoors. This can be a great way of adding physical activity to the working week. It is also helpful in promoting good mental and physical health.
Helps workers feel valued. Workers tend to enjoy team-building activities, especially when they involve away days and trips. It shows them that the company cares about their contributions to the team and is willing to invest in their training and well-being.
Connecting remote teams. Many IT professionals report feeling isolated due to the rise in hybrid teams and remote workers. Organising events in locations that all team members can attend can go a long way in building more cohesive teams.
Learning opportunities. Team-building activities often involve learning new skills. Coding workshops are a popular choice and can enable all workers to learn important skills together in a cooperative environment. Consider organising coding competitions at work. Language learning, beer brewing, and cocktail-making workshops also provide excellent learning opportunities in a fun context.
A better company culture. Teams work more effectively together when they socialise together. Workers return from team-building days feeling happier and more confident at work. This creates a positive ethos within the company. Photos and images of fun Team-building days can help boost the brand image and encourage more talent to the company.
How to plan effective team-building activities
Effective team-building activities require some planning. Consider the aspects of teamwork that you hope to develop in your workers and choose an activity that focuses on this aspect. Think about the workers that will be involved and opt for an inclusive activity that they can participate in. Team-building activities should be ongoing, regular events for your company.
Top team-building activities in Malta
Malta is in the ideal location for planning team-building activities. Its wonderful climate and stunning beaches mean professionals can get involved in various excursions and outdoor activities within a short distance from the workplace. Consider the following popular team-building activities on the island:
Historical tours. These can be a great idea for new talent and an easy way to introduce IT professionals to their new location. Many organisations within Malta will do themed tours by shuttle, bicycle, speedboat, and segway.
Wine and culinary tours. A big favourite among professionals. Workers get to discover and sample the culinary delights of the island.
Water Sports. Learning an activity together in the great outdoors can be fun. It can get professionals interested in a new hobby and provides great opportunities for workers to get to know each other in a fun environment.
Treasure hunts. A huge favourite among workers. Treasure hunts are an excellent way to help people strengthen communication and problem-solving skills. Participants tend to really care about the outcome of the hunt. Treasure hunts can bring out leadership skills and help build stronger worker bonds.
Wellness retreats. With the huge focus on corporate well-being in today’s work culture, colleagues really value wellness and mindfulness retreats. Whether this involves organising time out at a residential retreat centre or bringing an instructor into the workplace to do meditation or mindfulness sessions with professionals, this is a great step. When done as a shared experience, it can strengthen bonds between colleagues and will benefit everyone in the workplace. It can also be easily organised online.
Indoor team-building
While organised events involve advance planning, you can easily incorporate ice-breaking activities and quick quizzes at the beginning of small-group meetings to foster camaraderie and better communication. Games like team-building bingo and trivia quizzes take little time to set up and can be really engaging.
Consider installing popular LAN games at work so workers can play popular games like Call of Duty on an internal server. Provide opportunities for Agile team-building games for developers. Provide regular upskilling and coding training sessions and workshops for IT specialists. Organise brainstorming sessions on highly specific areas of IT and bring an expert in the field into the office for ask-and-answer sessions.
Virtual team-building
With more team members working from remote locations, management teams have come up with creative ways of enabling them to interact more with colleagues online. Consider some of the following ideas for encouraging remote team building in your workplace.
Virtual Escape Room. An online version of Escape Room that gets teams working together to answer questions and solve conundrums to escape a room. This can be a real winner in the workplace.
Virtual Scavenger Hunts. This can be a quick and fun way of making people think quickly and get their hands on objects around their place of work. It can be done as a mini-activity before a meeting starts as a warm-up activity.
Virtual Murder Mystery games. With a bit of thought, you can come up with some highly creative ideas to stage and play murder mystery games online. They are all about fun and problem-solving and can really bring out the sleuth and problem-solvers in workers. Historic-themed murder mystery games can involve costumes and really bring the activity to life.
There are many creative ways of incorporating team-building activities in the workplace. They are essential for developing soft skills. Monitor the activities and get feedback from professionals to make them as effective as possible. If you need help with your recruitment process, contact Archer IT Recruitment Malta.