For the past 10 years, I've been working intimately with thousands of decision-makers, HR managers, event professionals, marketing professionals, sales professionals, consultants and business owners to build stronger relationships through events.
I have seen every single virtual team building activity there is to see out there, and here are some lessons I've learnt that I'd like to share with you.
It's been over 10 years since I ran my first team building activity, and while it wasn't a complete disaster, I knew something had to change. Back in the days, team building was all about collaboration, working together from start to finish, completing a group task in 2 hours and celebrating the win together as a team.
It worked for a while, but after a few years, I realised a pattern forming. HR managers started to tell me that their registration rates were low, or that many participants didn't look forward to the upcoming team building sessions.
Something was missing...
I looked back at all the feedback forms we received from our participants and noticed a distinct pattern. Everyone wanted to know which team was the BEST or stood out the MOST.
And that got me thinking...
To run a successful team building session, you need to increase the enthusiasm and the participation rate. And to do that most effectively, there was a simple solution.
Incorporate the element of competition into your activities.
That was an epiphany for me. I changed how our team building activities were designed, and everything changed. Attendees started looking forward to the next team building sessions, and during the sessions, we saw a 20X improvement in participation. We designed activities that require every single member of each team to contribute. Otherwise, the entire team fails.
I admit, there was a little bit of guilt-tripping going on whenever we came across an individual who "takes the back seat" during our sessions. But the guilt-trips worked and the end results were more attendees, improved participation rates, and extremely positive feedback.
Fast forward to 2020... when the world - as we knew it - changed for good...
When COVID-19 first stopped our world in its tracks, and everybody started working from home, team building was the last thing on anyone's mind. Keeping everybody safe, and keeping the business functioning was the only priority.
But many experts identified substantial social and psychological problems that were just brewing at home and at work when the way we work changed.
Working from home was initially a good thing, we enjoyed it because we saved travel time and expenses. We could get up a little later, run some errands in the middle of the day, and reply to emails while we're out of the house. This worked for a little while, but soon enough, we started to realise that working from home made more negative than positive impacts on our minds.
We never stop working.
We feel disconnected from our colleagues.
We don't know what our managers and bosses expect, because it's always changing.
We start having individualistic thoughts, because who knows when the next retrenchment exercise will be.
We get suspicious of our co-workers, wondering if they're working as hard (or as much) as we are.
And the list goes on...
Forward-thinking HR managers begin to realise that even though we cannot run face-to-face team building sessions, team building is still an effective solution to many of these problems.
But most of the virtual team building activities out there are either too basic, boring or not engaging at all.
So in January 2020, I set out to create the most engaging, fun, and customisation team building activity for our clients.
Since 2012, I have run thousands of team building events and have advised thousands of HR managers on building stronger teams through events.
Virtual Hunt was designed from scratch and includes everything you need for a fun, inclusive and engaging team building activity. Virtual Hunt is a truly interactive virtual team building solution that is guaranteed to generate lots of laughter. I included group missions and individual tasks, so nobody gets left behind. This game comes with fully customisable missions, and it is an excellent way for you to build a message into your game.
In Virtual Hunt, the world becomes your playground!