People don’t always like everyone they work with – and a weekend of white-water rafting and rock climbing together isn’t going to change that.
If anything, taking your team away for the day or out after hours might even entrench certain hostilities.
Nevertheless, giving your staff a day out shows people that you value them and can improve morale. And of course it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling to see your staff beaming as they emerge battered and bruised from a day of paintballing.
Even better, you get to enjoy yourself on the company’s money without feeling guilty.
Here are five of the most popular team-building activities, along with their benefits and pitfalls.
Paintballing
Courtesy of Federico Harald Ganss
The alpha males absolutely love this one, seeing it as a means to sort the men from the boys, the wheat from the chaff, and various other hackneyed phrases.
It’s curious that such a painful sport – the paintballs actually cause bruising – should be seen as such a popular way of building bonds between colleagues.
Perhaps it acts as a release valve for accumulated anger. Or perhaps it’s simply the case that the majority of bosses are still male, and that boys love war.
Benefits
- A good test of leadership skills perhaps? A litmus test of who is brave enough to do the difficult jobs?
- Quiet Dave from admin, who does a decoy charge into no-mans land without fearing for his own safety, might just be brave enough to take up the cold-calling position after all. Or Janet from marketing, who sits in the bunker and coordinates her colleagues into a deadly pincer movement around the enemy, might be management material.
Pitfalls
- Painful. Very painful, by all accounts. Might sow the seeds of office enmity.
Go-karting
Again, the alpha males take this one seriously. The prospect of a trophy at the end of it should fire everyone up and have them hurtling round the track like – perhaps not quite Lewis Hamilton, but at least like someone who’s late for work. And still a bit drunk from the night before.
Benefits
- There’s nothing like the competitive element to get people going. And even those left trailing will enjoy negotiating bends and careering down the straights.
- Particularly good for London businesses, as few of your employees will drive to work or even have a car, thus making the experience even more novel.
- Worsening congestion and escalating costs have drained the fun out of driving, meaning go-karting offers a great outlet for those who enjoy driving.
Pitfalls
- The competitive element: where there’s a loser, there’s bitterness, recriminations and lasting resentment – when the loser is male at any rate. Expect arguments to rage in the office for weeks regarding whether victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat because of an ingenious manoeuvre or because someone was cynically cut up.
Bowling
Courtesy of Tulay Palaz
The subject of many a great movie (the Big Lebowski, Kingpin and, er, Bowling for Columbine) bowling is also a great afternoon out for businesses.
Benefits
- The wheels of social engagement can be oiled by beer during bowling, though I refer you the disadvantages for the obvious flipsides to this benefit.
- It’s indoors, meaning the success of your company’s day out isn’t subject to the caprice of the British weather.
- It’s a great leveller, where otherwise crap bowlers put in a one-off great performance and ordinarily competent bowlers have a nightmare. A great social idea therefore for deflating the egos of alpha males.
Pitfalls
- The slight of frame can struggle to even get the balls the whole way down the lane.
Theme parks
The loop the loop, the corkscrew, the log flume, the pirate ship, the amusement arcade… it’s a veritable bonanza of thrills and spills at theme parks. And the rides get ever more elaborate, higher, faster, scarier.
Benefits
- The sheer breadth of things to do should usually keep everyone happy.
- You can laugh at the alpha males who turn out to be scared of heights and are emasculated by the experience.
Pitfalls
- There are always those averse – nay, horrified – by the prospect of being swung, thrown and catapulted around, hundreds of feet in the air, so theme parks aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Thankfully there are usually plenty of things to do on the terra firma, such as games where you throw hoops over stumps or balls into baskets. On average it takes 30 attempts, at £1 a go, to win a £10 teddy bear. Bargain.
- Queuing. A not-so-great British tradition, queuing is a big problem at theme parks. For the sake of two minutes of adrenalin-fuelled action you often have to queue for about 45 minutes. And queuing is as boring as the ride exhilarating, so it’s not a great trade-off.
The pub
OK, not a very original idea. But then again neither is laughing when someone falls over, and that never gets boring.
The pub is the great social hub of British culture, where the gentry leave their top hats at the door and mingle, as if on even social standing, with the proletariat.
That class dissolves at the door of the pub is said by its more quixotic exponents to be among its chief charms. Others would, more prosaically, say it’s a warm place to sit down and get drunk. In truth, the latter group probably go the pub a lot more than the former.
Benefits
- The tongue loosens. Newcomers to the company find their feet socially and existing bonds are strengthened.
Pitfalls
- The tongue loosens. Simmering tensions can explode after four pints of Stella. The employee notorious for inappropriate comments becomes decidedly more inappropriate. The secretly smitten make a foolish play for the object of their desire.
- Not really a good idea for a day trip – or if it is, it will get messy. And if arrange for between Monday and Thursday, then expect productivity to nosedive the following day.
