Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, The Blue-Green Game (35-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introduction and Objective: The Blue-Green Game is a team-building activity designed to highlight the significance of Win-Win thinking and effective teamwork. In many organizations, achieving a Win-Win situation where everyone benefits can be tough due to a lack of trust, communication, [read more]
Four Ways to Team Build During the Office Christmas Party
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It’s that time of year once again where the holidays are upon us and it’s time for that year-end office Christmas party. Office Christmas parties are notorious for giving employees a chance to relax after a year of hard work, celebrate the season, and look forward to the year ahead. While this is all wonderful and accurate, as an employer the office Christmas party can also provide a chance for employees to take part in helpful team building exercises.
Here’s a look at four ways you can use the yearly office Christmas party as the perfect setting for team-building activities. Heading into the new year as a strong, positive, and cohesive team will certainly help to ensure it’s a successful year.
Set Employees Off on an Office Treasure Hunt
If your office Christmas parties tend to be a bit bland and not much in terms of excitement, then it may be that you need better icebreaker activities. One of the best ways to get employees to loosen up is to have them work as a team and share an experience together such as an office treasure hunt, to provide them with a fun team building experience.
You can pre-select teams of employees that should be made up of people from different departments. This gives people a chance to mingle with others who they don’t normally chat with on a daily basis. Give them a list of items they must find and send them on their way on a treasure hunt. Now to give this team-building activity a little more in terms of polish, you can make it a GPS-based treasure hunt. If you’re using GPS devices then there is no reason the treasure hunt can’t leave the office.
You’ll find plenty of resources that can help you put together a list of items, or you can always outsource the scavenger hunt to a party planning company.
Experience a Winter Driving Adventure as a Team
Because you and your employees spend a lot of time in the office throughout the year it can be really special to have a party that takes place outside of the office. It helps to make it more special for employees, and can even make them feel a bit more relaxed since it doesn’t feel like work. You can rent a tour bus to take everyone on a tour of the city at night, exploring all the beautiful Christmas lights and holiday displays.
Tis the Season to Enjoy Cooking Up Goodies
The office Christmas party no doubt will include tasty food and beverages but rather than just having it catered why not take part in the cooking as a group? You can turn the office Christmas party into a professional cooking class complete with chefs who will lead the cooking lessons and demonstrations. Everyone will be taking part in the preparation and then the treats can be enjoyed by all. This again forces employees to work together as a group in order to create something incredible.
Put On the Charitable Hat as a Group
In the spirit of giving, you may choose to turn the office Christmas party team-building activity into one that has a charitable cause. Why not put together a couple of bikes to donate to kids charities, put together toys, or even create gift baskets all wrapped by hand. This is the kind of activity that not only brings employees together as a team, but makes everyone feel great about what they’re doing.
Team Building at Its Finest
The office Christmas party truly offers a chance for team building at its finest as it not on features the team building aspect, but it gives people a chance to feel good about what they’re doing and get into the holiday spirit together.
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About Shane Avron
Shane Avron is a freelance writer, specializing in business, general management, enterprise software, and digital technologies. In addition to Flevy, Shane's articles have appeared in Huffington Post, Forbes Magazine, among other business journals.
