Team Building Ideas for Washington DC
1.) Big Escape Rooms
Start the new year off by testing your problem solving skills at Big Escape Rooms! What exactly is an escape room? It’s a themed, interactive environment where your group will encounter brain teasers, ciphers, logic puzzles, and more while attempting to escape in the allotted time. You’ll first be greeted by your game host, who will drop helpful hints as you go through your escape room experience. They are allowed to give you a limited number of hints to help you escape before your time runs out. Be sure to use hints carefully! You will want to examine everything in the room to make sure you didn’t miss something in the room – so you do not end up wasting a hint!
Want to save humanity from a zombie apocalypse? Or help the archaeologists find the location of the legendary hidden treasure and artifacts? You can do that at Big Escape rooms! Your team will be stronger than ever after an experience at Big Escape Rooms!
2) Office Happy Hour
Some of the best team-building activities for work are also the simplest. Case-in-point: the office happy hour. It doesn’t take much to get your employees involved. Just a place to gather and some food and drink. Then turn your team loose and watch them bond. Here are a few ways to start this fun tradition: Leave the office early or gather after work hours and treat your team to a round of drinks at your favorite watering hole. Hire a portable bar and bartender and organize an office happy hour right where you work. Institute a wine or whiskey tasting one afternoon. Choose one drink, let everyone try it, and then go around the room and describe what they liked and disliked. All of these ideas are a great way for your team members to relax, unwind, and get to know one another better.
3) Brainstorming Sessions
Employee brainstorming session Brainstorming sessions are a great team-building activity for work because they help focus your employees’ minds on drawing together to solve problems in the business. Here’s how it works. As leader of the session, pick two or more problems that need to be solved, gather everyone together, and allow everyone to throw out ideas. Make sure to stress that there are no bad ideas and point out that many of the best ideas have been built on the back of what, at first, seemed like a crazy notion. Also, make it a point to keep things positive — no ridiculing or criticizing ideas. You want to create a safe space for employees to get creative.
4) Murder Mystery
The murder mystery (or any variation on this common theme) is a fun team-building activity for work that builds camaraderie and gives your employees a break from the stress of work. Some variations are longer than others (so plan accordingly), but the basic premise of the game is that the teams must work together to question suspects, find clues, and, eventually, solve the murder or mystery.
5) Job Swap
Letting your employees work in another department every once in a while goes a long way toward building team unity and cohesiveness. Every job comes with its own set of challenges. But your employees might overlook these challenges when they view the job from the outside. It’s an effective team-building activity and learning experience for employees to get a look at other jobs from the inside out.
6) Then And Now
This one takes a bit of preparation, but the results are well worth the effort. Ask employees to bring in baby pictures. Once you’ve collected all the pictures, post them on a wall somewhere, gather everyone around, and challenge employees to match the baby picture with the team member. The game can be played as teams or as individuals, and answers can be oral or written. For an added bit of fun, institute penalties for wrong guesses or set a maximum number of guesses per turn. You can even invent your own variations, so get creative and mix things up. One example is to find baby pictures of famous people and have your team members name the star.
7) Continue The Story
Prior to this game, write a few lines of a story at the top of a piece of paper. Write a different set of lines on another piece of paper. Repeat for as many pieces of paper as there are team members. If the size of the group is not restrictive, produce a piece of paper for every other employee or every third employee. Attach each piece of paper to a clipboard for easy writing, and then gather everyone together in a circle. Make sure everyone has a pen. Distribute the clipboards around the circle. Set a time limit (i.e., 30 seconds) and a sentence limit (i.e., 2), and then instruct team members to continue the story at the top of the page in whatever manner they see fit. Once the time has expired or the sentence limit has been reached, employees pass the clipboards to the next person in line and the time starts again. When the clipboards return to the starting point, read each story out loud and vote on the best.
8) Office Olympics
If you want to reward your team for reaching a goal or give them an opportunity to de-stress after completing a difficult project, organize an office Olympics. It takes a bit of planning and preparation, but few things can bring a team together like a healthy dose of competition. Here are some event ideas: Typing test Separate the beans Balloon triathlon (blow them up, keep them aloft, pop them) Crossword puzzle Jumbo Jenga Tie and untie You can even play video games or leave the office completely for a round of Laser Tag if you’re feeling particularly ambitious.
9) Beach Ball Questions
This team-building activity for work is a fun and easy way to help team members learn about their colleagues and stay current with each other’s goals and activities. Write random questions on a brightly colored beach ball. Questions can be simple (“What is your dog’s name?”, “What is your favorite food?”) or complex (“What are your weekly goals for the next month?”, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”), but a mix of both makes for a less taxing game. Form a circle facing the center and toss the ball from person to person in a random order. After 10 seconds or so, say, “Stop.” The person holding the ball has to answer the question closest to his or her right pinky. Once they’ve answered the question, toss the ball again and repeat the process.
