Team bonding Archives

5 Fun Work Activities To Bring The Office Together This Summer

When you work in an office, you're used to seeing your co-workers every day. But when was the last time you bonded with them? What team-building activities have there been to strengthen your connection and improve the workplace culture?

If your office hasn't made team-building activities a priority in the workplace, don't worry. With more sunshine and nicer weather, summer is a great time to bond with your co-workers.

Here are five fun summer work activities that will bring your office together:

1. Ice Cream Party

Woman eats ice cream at work during the summer

Everyone loves ice cream! While it may not be the most unique suggestion for a fun workplace activity, an ice cream party doesn't require a lot of planning (or funds) and it's always guaranteed to be a hit.

On a hot day, bring the office together with some sweet treats. Sit outside and soak up the rays while cooling off with a cone. To make sure no one feels left out, take note of any allergies or sensitivities your colleagues may have and offer enough safe options.

The great thing about this fun workplace activity is that it can easily be something you do regularly. Make it a monthly tradition to celebrate your co-workers and all of their hard work!

2. Office Bake-Off

Man gets a plate of food at a work party

One of the best things about summer is the fresh food! Have fun and bond with your co-workers with an office bake-off (or cook-off) using whatever is in season. Whether it's from a local farm stand or a personal garden, this activity will not only make you feel connected to your colleagues but to your whole community.

Want to make it more interesting? Make it a competition! Encourage everyone to bake or cook something, and then have people vote for their favorite dish or dessert. The winner could get a gift card, an extra vacation day, or just plain old bragging rights. You can even set some rules for everyone to followâdepending on how competitive your co-workers are.

Lots of fresh summer food and a fun competition to bring the office together? Sign us up!

3. BBQ And Lawn Activities

Keeping with the food trend, a classic BBQ is the perfect activity to get to know your co-workers better. You could either do this at work or at someone's house and have everyone bring a dish and their favorite lawn games.

If you decide a weekend day is the best time for a summer work party or BBQ, you can also invite family members to join in on the fun. While this type of activity requires more planning and resources than most other summer activities, it's also probably the best way to bond with your co-workers outside of the office.

Think you might want to host a work party this summer? Don't hesitate to send out your invites! Your co-workers won't want to miss out.

4. Photo Contest

Woman on vacation takes a picture of the view

Most people take a vacation during the summer months. So, why not use that as an opportunity to start a photo contest?

Whether it's pictures of animals, family, nature, beautiful cities and landscapes, or adventures, have your co-workers submit a photo or two from their vacations this summer for a chance to win the office photo contest. Winners could receive a monetary prize or (with their permission) have their photo posted somewhere in the office or on the company website.

A fun activity like this lets employees show off their creative side, and it might even compel them to travel more and use up those vacation days they've been hoarding all year.

5. Start A Company-Wide Team Sport

Coworkers start a team sport during the summer

No other activity can help you bond with your co-workers quicker than playing a team sport together. If your company doesn't already have a few sports teams you could join, start one yourself!

Common team sports like softball/baseball, soccer, basketball, and even dodgeball are all great options. Not only will playing a team sport with your co-workers strengthen camaraderie, but physical activity will help everyone stay in shape, which might in turn help job performance and employee health. Depending on how big your company is, you could form different teams for each department and play against each other or battle it out against other teams in your community.

Sound like fun? Grab your sneakers and gym bag and get your team together today! You won't regret it.

Summer is the perfect time to bond with your co-workers over seasonal activities and fun competitions. If your office could use some fun team-building activities to boost morale, try one of the five summer activities above. Your teams will be stronger because of it!

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5 Fun Work Activities To Bring The …

If two heads are better than one, then how about ten?

The pace of change is speeding up, as is the pace of business. This brings new problems to solve, more of them and faster than ever before. New problems demand new ideas. How do you generate these ideas quickly?

One method is the very old-fashioned but very effective brainstorming session.

People often talk about brainstorming, but not many people know how to run a brainstorming session.

Itâs actually pretty straightforward.

A Simple Definition

Woman leads a brainstorming session at work

A brainstorming session is a meeting between two or more people. One person presents a question to be answered or a problem to be solved. Everyone present thinks of many ways to solve the problem in a very short space of time. The organizer collates the ideas, then works with the group to choose the most useful, which are then used to formulate a plan.

The Process

This can be applied to any number of people in any setting. If followed properly, the whole thing can be finished in 20 minutes or less.

Brainstorming is quite a formal process. The formality is there for a reason. The rules make the process go faster.

Make sure that all participants know and understand how the process works before you begin. When running the brainstorming session, make sure all participants stick to the rules.

Step 1: Presenting The Problem

Present the problem to be solved as a question.

The question will usually be: âHow do we _____?â or âThe situation is _____. Now, what do we do?â

In a face-to-face setting, write the question on a whiteboard or flip chart. In a remote setting, write your question in the chat of your communications application.

Step 2: Generating Ideas

Tell the participants that you want their answers in two or three minutes. The urgency will motivate them to come out with the first things they think of, without their thoughts being filtered by notions of practicality, or by the fear of saying something âstupidâ or âinappropriate.â

In a face-to-face setting, participants can call out their thoughts while a âscribeâ writes them down. This favors the more extroverted members of the group at the expense of the rest.

Alternatively, ask participants to write their idea on paper and hand those in. Where your brainstorming session is done remotely, people can write their ideas in the chat.

At this stage, the most important rule is that there is no such thing as a stupid idea. All participantsâ ideas are equally as valuable. No one has the right to criticize someone elseâs ideas.

This will give you more ideas than you need.

Step 3: Filtering Ideas

Here is one way for the team to filter out ideas that will not be adopted:

Assuming you have 10 ideas on the board/displayed on the screen, ask each participant to rank each idea with a number from 1 to 10, where 1 is for the best idea and 10 is for the worst idea.

Get them to call out their scores. Add them all up. The idea with the lowest total score is the âwinner.â

Select a second and third choice as well, in case some external factor prevents you from running with the first idea.

Get the team to vote on the most âcreativeâ/âoriginalâ idea as well. This cannot be included in the âtop 3â results.

âCreativeâ ideas may not always be immediately practical but may be possible later. Look at a suitcase from the 1960s. Why did it take so long for someone to put wheels on luggage?

What Next?

âOnce you have your âtop 3,â then itâs up to you to decide what happens next.

Do you ask your team for a plan to bring the idea to fruition?

Do you ask them to write a proposal to pass up to senior management for approval?

That depends on the situation. Like any other conversation with a purpose, there should be a concrete result that is used in some way.

âTrainingâ Your Team

If your team has never done brainstorming before, they may find it quite uncomfortable and not produce the best results the first time around.

It makes sense to use it for a less important topic first, like ideas for the next team event, just to get people comfortable with the format.

Benefits

Remote team brainstorms together on a Zoom call

As well as being a great way to generate ideas quickly, it can also be a bonding experience for the team. Participants will see a different side of their colleaguesâ personalities and will actually work as a team, rather than as a collection of individuals who do more or less the same thing in the same office.

Over to you!

Your team is your âcollection of experts.â Think of your most pressing problem. Can you boil it down into a âhowâ or âwhatâ question?

Set up the meeting, run the brainstorming session, and tell me how it went!