s/o Ice Breakers....Team Building??

[Deleted]

So, I work for company A that 2 years ago bought out company B and we have been "harmonizing" ever since then. My department is pretty much split between 2 offices about 2 hours apart from each other, one office is former company B employees and the other office, where I sit, are former company A employees. We are trying to become more of a Team instead of company A vs company B and our department manager wants to maybe do some team building activities. Other than Happy Hours, any suggestions that people won't hate? None of us are particularly young, age range from 42-62, so probably nothing like mountain climbing or trust falls LOL

[wanderlustmom]

Maybe an escape room or a cooking class?

[momin2013]

The best team building thing I ever went to was a cooking class, where we got samples of each course, along with wine pairings.

[gummybear]

Make sure it involves bathing suits! Everyone loves that.

Seriously though, what is the budget? Could you rent a suite at a baseball game? Go bowling?

[noodleoo]

I plan a teambuilding event every year for my department. We have a small group (about 10-12 people), but here are a few things we've done:

* cooking class at a local farm (this one was a hit)
* go kart racing (also a hit)
* minigolf, lunch and ice cream (one stop ice cream dairy that includes a bunch of activities)
* escape room

Other things we've talked about and will probably do in the future:
* some type of sporting event (baseball game if we can get tickets)
* beer brewing. There is a place nearby that holds classes and corporate events.
* Paint Nite. I did this at another job and really enjoyed it. Included wine/beer and snacks.
* sunset harbor cruise

I'm following as I need some new ideas!

[kath16]

[kath16]

(What about one of those painting classes?)

[luckyno7]

We’ve done painting class with alcohol, afternoon on a chartered boat cruise, picnic.

Charity events are always great too, we gone and packed food, depending on the size of your group we’ve sponsored a family at Christmas and took the day off to shop. If your group is larger you can split up to find items or sponsor more than 1 family.

If you want to stay more professional our group is super competitive have a day where some is meetings and some is creative.

For us, if people aren’t familiar with what others do you can have someone who’s comfortable talk about their role or a big project happening, things happening in the future, we’ve done some development, personal and professional. Then in between we’ve done team building activities. We’ve also gotten some growth activities from HR. You can tie in to having a session where small groups are formed to find ways to work together more (or something similar). We’ve also had senior leadership come in and talk for a bit. Come up with a company problem and form small groups to discuss what a possible solution could be.

Some group building activities:

We’ve done where you take materials (straw, tape, toothpicks, string, etc) and you have to work as a group to get the tallest structure.

Blow up and tape balloons together...similar concept try to get it as tall as possible. I think we also had straws to use with this one.

Puzzles...like you have a million triangles and they have to form a square...fastest team wins.

get in a groups and answer trivia questions...this one was really fun because you got know a persons personality just based in what answers they knew!

If you do a full day you can probably get 3-4 activities in. I would highly recommend assigning groups. Moving people to different tables.

[W.T.Faulkner]

We drink. A lot.

[TR]

Maybe like a Saw time situation where you lock everyone in a room with a zombie or something and make someone swallow the key.

[HRH Queen Dick I]

The 8th and 9th circles of hell.

[cville]

I actually don't hate ALL forced office fun, but I'd fake near fatal capscapscaps-brother style strep before I'd do an escape room with anyone, much less coworkers. Do not ever lock me in a room.

[tiki]

I generally dread team building events as akin to torture, but I did this once and it was actually pretty fun: guideinc.org/2016/04/20/team-building-activity-lego-structure-copy/

Edit: I think this is the exact version we did: Toastmasters Team-building Workshop: Lego Man  None of that secretly leaving a piece out stuff from the previous link. 

[miso]

I vote for Anything During Regular Business Hours.

Because I hate giving up my free time for stuff like this.

That really creates the most resentment.

[countthestars]

Bowling during the work day
Volunteering together during the work day

[mrs.jacinthe]

My office has done bowling, whitewater rafting, river floats (yes, it involved bathing suits, but most people just wore t-shirts and shorts over), Top Golf, and a charity walk/fundraiser. All of these were well-attended, but people still talk about bowling and Top Golf regularly.

[cville]

Apr 5, 2018 17:53:43 GMT -5 miso said:

I vote for Anything During Regular Business Hours.

Because I hate giving up my free time for stuff like this.

That really creates the most resentment.

PREACH.