“Team-bonding” activities probably sound about as much fun as changing toner in your office printer — but they don’t have to be corny or anxiety-provoking. These out-of-the-box activities will make you wish every day at work felt this wonderful.
Cooking Challenges
If you get excited about any mention of free food in your office (even stale onion bagels from yesterday’s meeting), then you’ll be ecstatic about a corporate cooking class. TeamBonding, which organizes executive and corporate team-building activities, offers fun options like the Food Truck Challenge, which encourages teams to create their own fast food, market their product, and have the other groups rate what they made.
There are also Murder Mystery Dinners, which can accommodate groups from 12 to 500 people.
Escape Games
Many major cities offer Escape the Room or other similar games (Nashville has The Escape Game) that bring your team together to solve a mystery. In Escape the Room players solve a series of puzzles (that get harder with each one you solve) to earn their way out of the locked room. You and your coworkers only have 60 minutes, so quick thinking and collaboration are a must.
Trivia Events
Many restaurants and bars host trivia nights, and corporate trivia is also available through team-building companies such as TrivWorks. The company also has a trivia/karaoke combo, so after a rousing game of trivia, TrivWorks will set up a karaoke party with over 20,000 songs on tap.
Time to start practicing your best Joan Jett rendition.
Community Service
Whether you’re volunteering at a soup kitchen, organizing a food drive, or volunteering at an animal shelter, community activities are bound to bond your team. And who doesn’t have fun helping people and animals in need? Community service will bring out the best side of your team and show that your company cares.
Egg Drop Challenge
This one will bring you back to your grade-school days. Virtual Workspace suggests hosting an office egg drop challenge (perhaps not at your office, since this one is messy).
For the event, split your office into teams and have them work together to come up with the best solution for keeping the egg intact.
Scavenger Hunt
We also love this idea from When I Work: a scavenger hunt in or out of the office. It can be themed if you want and have riddles, too. The point is that each team works together to gather as many items as possible and win the game.
And the more fun the prizes, the better (perhaps vouchers for free vacation days or lunch on the house)!