Although many modes of working have evolved post-pandemic leading to the new normal, employee morale isn’t back to normal. Employees have been feeling depressed and disconnected. With the global economic environment also pointing to recessions, employees have been grappling with insecurities. Therefore, to kick off 2023 on the right note you need to get together your teams with some unique activity ideas for team engagement. And it’s time to put scavenger hunts and ice breakers to rest. They have been around for years, and employees are no longer excited about them. They are too mundane and monotonous in 2023.
Here we have brainstormed 10 unique ideas for team building events for 2023:
- The blindfold: Although this does not seem like a new one, it can be done in many ways to make it interesting. Blindfold games have two main advantages. They build trust and they help introverts too take part without getting conscious about themselves. It can be as simple as talking games while being blindfolded or as unique as finding a way to something while being blindfolded. Don’t forget to ensure team engagement here.
- The slow race: As we are too busy catching up with the race in life, why not slow down for a moment. It would be good to encourage your teams to slow down and embrace characteristics like patience and empathy. Slow race can be a unique game where the winner will be the one who completes a task at last. Slow and Steady wins the race!
- Miniature Kitchen: This might sound like an old fairy game. But it still works to instill patience and perseverance in your team. Have a group cooking day in miniature utensils. You can also time the game to make it more exciting. It would surely take a lot of precision and patience to win this game.
- Date night: Not to worry, this isn’t to encourage your teams to find their soul mate. Instead, you can organize a date night to have your employees network with their co-workers across the organization and build teams to get simple tasks done. At the end of it, you can also pick some projects to run as passion projects for your employees.
- Sew it up: This is ideal for either teams in the early stages or conflict-ridden teams. The name of this activity might sound like it’s only meant for fashion enthusiasts. But no, you can tweak it to be anything. It can be a fashion related game wherein your teams can choose to do small sewing projects, or it can be something like beautifying your office together.
- Tipsy Tequila: People often feel that having a game night with drinks will bring out the hidden selves from the closets. You can host a fun game in which each of your team members asks questions to other members about memorable events. Each time someone answers a question right, they get a shot! It helps in recollecting all good memories and introspecting over bad ones. Overall, it brings people closer than ever by putting the most vulnerable side of everyone out there.
- The snack challenge: This has been inspired from the early days of Netflix. The idea here is to bring a unique snack to work everyday for their team members. The snack shouldn’t be something that will be gone too soon or will be too unhealthy. It has to be unique, healthy, yet something that your team will take some time to get used to. This works great if you have an ethnically diverse team. Otherwise too it can work great if you can just keep the rules limited to unique and healthy snacks.
- Stranger Ride: Not all games have to be just for fun. How about adding some of your organizational ethics and values into these activities to keep the culture alive? You can organize activities like helping the community strangers on an evening and doing small tasks together for the community. These not only build your culture but also your brand within the community.
- Yoga with pets: You must have seen some cool videos on Instagram on Yoga with goats or Yoga with pets. These are more meant for mental health than physical. You can try this approach for your next team building activity. It can be fun yet very soothing for everyone’s mental health. However, do not force everyone to participate in these. Some people may not be comfortable with pets. Be accommodating of their requests.
- Geeks in the gym: And we do not want fitness freaks to be left out. Also, employee health is extremely important for a highly productive organization. So, an activity in the gym is a must. And you can level it up with some fun activities like quizzes during workout or identifying the fitness experts in your teams to train the others. This not only helps everyone get on track with fitness schedules but also recognizes skills of your employees beyond work.
There can be many more unique out of the box activities that can be inspired from regular party games or kids’ games. All you need to be mindful of is your team’s preferences. Every team is different and not all activities are enjoyable for everyone. Ensure that you rely on past experiences and feedback before organizing the next event. Involve your team in the planning process and make them look forward to the day. Lastly, most of these unique ideas can also be executed virtually. Tweak them as needed for your teams.
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