5 Team Building Activities for the Workplace

Team-building activities can be very useful for businesses. Today, we'll talk about some of the most effective ones.

Reviewed and approved by the psychologist Sergio De Dios González.

Written by Raquel Lemos Rodríguez

Last update: 21 December, 2022

Hiring managers tend to look for people who are good team players because they tend to be better and more effective employees. To that end, some useful team building activities can help evaluate the employees, improve working relationships, and appropriately assign responsibilities.

In these team building activities, people tend to show their true colors. You’ll see who has leadership qualities, who works efficiently, who’s more creative or logical… This is important because an effective team is made up of individuals with skills that complement each other and get the job done. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective and interesting team building activities.

1. The five ideas technique

The first team-building activity is designed to maximize creativity, which is obviously crucial for employees who work in marketing or fashion, among others. Here’s how it works.

Set a timer for five minutes. In that short amount of time, each team member has to write down and share five ideas with everyone else. They can be ridiculous, at first, but with the right focus you could end up with something fantastic. This is a really fun activity to do with coworkers.

2. Role-playing

This is a really common team-building activity in which employees pretend to be problem-solving as other people. Maybe one person plays the manager, the other person is the employee, etc. The important part of this activity is that it revolves around a specific problem.

That each person has unique abilities means that each role-play scenario will come up with different solutions. It’s a great way to get a fresh perspective on things that benefits the individuals as well as the group as a whole.

3. Brainstorming

Brainstorming is an exercise that businesses often use when teams are stuck and can’t move forward on a new project. You’ve probably participated in a brainstorming session at some point in your professional life. If not, you’ve at least heard of it. You can also use it to work on improving each team member’s performance, creativity, and self-esteem.

It’s a simple activity. Everyone shares their ideas about a specific subject or project. The team has to be open-minded and supportive during the process, even if the things people propose seem ridiculous. Each and every idea is valid and shouldn’t be underestimated. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use the ideas at the end. The open-ended nature of the activity encourages communication. It also improves the group’s confidence, and everyone who participates feels validated.

4. The unsatisfied client

This is a powerful activity, especially for the kind of businesses that provide a service to the public. It’s also great for team members because it helps them develop and improve their emotional management. At the same time, they’ll use their problem-solving skills to resolve a client issue.

This is also a role-play. But this time, one team member pretends to be an unsatisfied client. The other is the employee. It’s important to make sure that not everyone participates in the role-play because there should be observers. After the role-play is over, the observers analyze how the employee is managing their emotions and dealing with the conflict.

This activity helps each team member do their part to help everyone else learn how to deal with and manage difficult clients.

5. Under pressure

The fifth team-building activity involves solving some kind of puzzle as a group. The goal is to solve it as quickly as possible. That requires good communication and skilled organization to avoid wasting time.

This activity helps team members learn to manage stress in a way that doesn’t stymie the group as a whole but allows it to find a quick solution. This is an excellent strategy to help teams finish last-minute projects on time.

All of these activities encourage your employees’ talents to flourish. It’ll help them develop each team member’s abilities, as well as provide motivation and drive. Some studies argue that good teamwork is one of the ways that companies grow. After all, effective and happy teams aren’t just good for the business, they’re good for the team members.