Easy Office-Based Team Building Ideas #11

Last time on Easy Office-Based Team Building Ideas, we looked at fitting your team building into packed schedules by utilising your lunch hour. But there's another way to strengthen bonds and boost motivation without taking up masses of precious work time, by using a technique we call the Long-Term Team Build.

The idea behind the Long-Term Team Build is that one person puts a simple, fun activity in place that then pops up in very short bursts over the course of many weeks, months or even years!

The beauty of this idea is that once the seed has been planted, it takes care of itself and needs little further organising or planning; you don't even need to make sure that everyone is available to take part at any particular time. Furthermore, this style of team build results in frequent, short bursts of motivation, maintaining the good vibes for a longer period.

Our Top Three Long-Term Team Builds

The Sweepstake

If the Monday blues are an ongoing issue for your team, then a sweepstake could be a great idea for kicking off the week. Take any popular event happening over the weekend, such as sports games and TV talent shows, and turn it into a weekly motivation booster. At the beginning of a sports season or talent show series, have people pick names of teams or contestants from a hat. If their team or contestant is kicked out of the tournament over the weekend, they have to bring in a small treat, such as a tin of biscuits, the following week. The person who picks the winner wins a prize! (Be sure to pick something that has enough teams/contestants for at least one per employee - if you have any left over toss a coin or ask people to complete forfeits for the honour of getting to pick two!)

Our favourite sweepstake is based around The Great British Bake Off - we had one client who told us how they really took this idea to town. The treats the losers brought in each week had to be based around that week's Bake Off theme - cakes, desserts, biscuits, and so on, and they even made masks of 'their' contestants to wear each week!

Office Bingo

The concept of Office Bingo couldn't be simpler - everyone gets a bingo card like the one above, and when something happens to fit one of the squares, they cross it off! It works best on a 'first come first served basis' - so the moment there's a delivery, for example, only one person can declare that they are crossing off a square - no one else can have it. The first person to get a line wins a small prize, and to keep the momentum going you may want to consider another prize for a 'full house'.

You can either make your own, print off our version here, or do a Google image search for 'office bingo' for more ideas.

Photo Tag

Another simple yet effective idea, Photo Tag will have you looking at your office in a whole new light! To begin the game, take a photo of some obscure part of your office - the corner of a window frame, the light fitting in the boardroom - and email it to the rest of the office. Everyone gets one guess at where the photo was taken, and the winner has to take the next week's photo. If no one guesses correctly, the person who took the photo has to take another go, with the game getting more difficult - but also much funnier - as the weeks go on and there are fewer places to choose from.

If you need something more than our quick refreshers, check out our amazing, professional team building events on our website, or call 0845 006 06 06 for a chat with our lovely sales team.