13 Practical Team Building Tips for Managers and Team Leaders to Strengthen Employee Bonds

As a manager or team leader, setting clear goals will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness and success of the team building activity. You can set quantitative or qualitative goals and use these as a benchmark to track, report and demonstrate the business impact of team building activities. Setting and reporting on goals can also be used to guide future team building efforts. 

Here are some examples of team building goals and how to measure them:

When choosing the team building activity, go with an event that your team won’t forget. Avoid picking an event closely linked to your company. Stepping outside routine fosters memorable interactions, encourages deeper conversations, builds empathy between colleagues and promotes work-life balance. 

Even a team building activity that seems unrelated to the daily work can be highly relevant to your team, encouraging people to think critically while working together and building trust while overcoming novel situations in ways that endure after the event. Unique team building activities such as games, challenges or adventures will ultimately spark innovation and connectivity back on the job. 

Here are some team building ideas for unforgettable team experiences: 

Incorporating your team’s input when selecting team building activities can help generate more engagement. Ask your team what kind of activities they would enjoy participating in and make sure everyone has a say. This will help avoid having people on the sidelines during the activity and ultimately enhances the overall effectiveness of the team building experience. 

By putting people first in the team building event planning process and asking for their preferences, you’re not just getting new ideas, you’re empowering your team. When managers and team leaders listen to their team and incorporate their insights, it shows commitment to collaboration, makes the whole process feel more inclusive, highlights the importance of each member and boosts the chances that everyone will jump on board. 

Here are some ways you can get insight from your team before the team building event: 

Selecting a convenient time and location for your team building event will ensure that everyone can participate without hassle. Here are some things to consider:

By factoring in these elements, managers and team leaders demonstrate a thoughtful approach to team building, making it more likely for the entire team to engage in the experience without added stress or inconvenience. 

A team building activity shouldn’t feel like more work! Base your team building on a fun activity, incorporating elements of gamification and playfulness. Making participants laugh creates an enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere where they will engage and contribute to the team effort. When an activity feels more like play than work, it not only boosts morale but also taps into the cognitive benefits of relaxation. Giving the brain a break will inspire your team to come up with innovative ideas and adopt fresh perspectives. A fun and light-hearted approach to team building will enhance team collaboration and create an environment where creativity thrives. 

Here are some fun team building activities ideas: 

In your team building schedule, incorporate breaks from planned activities. Allowing unstructured times during you team building event creates space for natural conversations between your employees. This fosters a relaxed and friendly environment and contributes to a more genuine and cohesive team dynamic. 

By providing opportunities where team members can share thoughts about the event, exchange ideas or catch up on personal conversations, you help build relationships beyond the confines of structured tasks, strengthening the overall team bond and enhancing the social aspect of the team building activities. 

A team building event can be a great opportunity for managers and team leaders to encourage collaboration between departments and individuals within the company who don’t typically work together. This will help break down departmental silos, bring together diverse perspectives and skills and will lead to a more innovative, interconnected and productive workplace. 

To facilitate collaboration between departments, you can rotate team members across regular team building activities. As team members who don’t usually work in the same team collaborate during team building activities, they get to know each other better, developing stronger working relationships. 

During a team building activity, you should observe how participants interact with each other. By doing so, managers and team leaders can identify individual skills and communication styles and gain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the team. Post-event, you can use this first-hand knowledge to identify latent talents, potential leaders and areas that may require improvement. 

Observing how team members work together and how they respond to challenges within the team building activity, will reveal their adaptability and teamwork skills. Post-activity, you can conduct debrief sessions to discuss observations and collaboratively strategise ways to leverage strengths and address weaknesses in future initiatives. Ultimately, this continuous learning loop from team building activities contributes to the team’s growth and increased productivity. 

As a manger or team leader, participating in the team building activity alongside your team sets a powerful example. By making team building a shared experience for both managers and team members, you demonstrate a commitment to teamwork and set a positive organisational culture. 

This approach bridges hierarchical gaps, increasing organisational transparency and promoting open communication. By engaging in both professional and social aspects of team building, you become a relatable figure which helps build trust, strengthens interpersonal connections and establishes a sense of unity. Moreover, managers and leaders can use this opportunity to showcase their own teamwork skills, emphasising the team spirit ethos teams expect from their leaders. 

Additionally, this creates a more inclusive environment, encouraging employees to express themselves freely around their superiors. This active participation communicates that team building is not just a work activity but a valued and enjoyable part of the organisational culture. 

Capturing photos and videos during the team building activity is a great way to immortalise the event. Share the materials with your team after the event to create momentum and remember and laugh about enjoyable moments. This will help you reinforce the positive impact of your team building initiative. 

Beyond internal use, photos and videos from the team building event can also be utilised in external communications such as marketing and PR. You could post them on your company’s social media platforms to showcase the organisation’s vibrant culture, potentially attracting talent and clients. You can also incorporate such content into your website’s “About Us” section to humanise you company and give your visitors a glimpse into your fun and inclusive culture. 

Asking for feedback from your employees after a team building event provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of the activity. It can help to: 

Here are some methods you can gather feedback post-team building event: 

Making team building a regular practice within your company cultivates a culture of collaboration and unity. Consider holding a bigger team building event at least once a year as an opportunity for in-depth bonding among team members and something to look forward to every year. 

Additionally, integrating shorter team building activities into the daily work routine, such as simple meeting energisers or fun Friday activities, contributes to a continuous positive atmosphere in the workplace. These bite-sized activities inject a dose of fun and relaxation into the work day, reduce stress and rejuvenate team spirits.  

Incorporating team building into your company’s culture, with a mix of comprehensive team building events and short energisers, establishes a solid foundation for lasting team cohesion and enhanced overall performance. Here is a guide to help you plan a successful team building activity for your team. 

Organising a unique and creative team building activity demands time and resources from managers and leaders. An alternative you should consider is partnering with a specialised events company. They can offer a range of exciting team building activities and can bring invaluable expertise and experience into team dynamics and event planning. 

At GOTO Events, we offer over 100 team building activities and we can customise many of our events to fit your preferences and requirements. Our team building events package offers: 

To discuss your upcoming team building event and request a free, no-obligation proposal, get in touch with our team today.