Many teams across the world haven’t seen each other face-to-face in months.

This lack of communication and face-to-face interaction can leave teams feeling disjointed and out of sync, which is why team building days are more important now than ever.

Covid Considerations

In this ‘new world’, there are many things to take into considerartion when organising team building days.

There are 3 main things we recommend you to take into consideration:

• Make sure employees are 2m apart (or 1m with masks)
  
  
• Include activities that everyone will be comfortable doing (don’t make the main activity going out for a meal as some people may be nervous about going out in public)
  
  
• Provide employees with masks, hand sanitiser and disinfectant wipes

What Are Team Building Days and Why Do We Need Them?

Team building days are when an organisation or team comes together to improve workplace culture. Team building days are designed to foster better communication and collaboration among teams.

They can also be useful for:

• Increasing Motivation
  Discussing team vision and goals can be extremely motivating for employees as it shows them exactly what they’re working towards.
  
  
• Aligning Employees to the Strategy
  Explaining how the organisation plans to move towards its goals gives employees a wider perspective of the goals and plans of the business
  
  
• Announcing and Planning Future Events
  Team days are a great opportunity to announce any upcoming events and plan future team days.

How to Hold a Team Day Your Employees Will Appreciate

When planning a team day, there are a lot of factors that need to be considered in order for the day to run smoothly and please everyone. 

This can be difficult and overwhelming so here is a simple 7-step guide to help you plan a successful team day:

• Decide the goal
  The first step is to decide what outcome you want from this session?
  Do you want to improve collaboration?
  Announce a change in goals?
  
  
• List considerations
  The next step is to create a list of things you need to consider when planning the team day, such as:
  Covid-safety
  Physical abilities of your employees
  Employees’ likes and dislikes
  
  
• List ideas
  Create a list of ideas for activities – click here for a 22 ideas for team building activities that can easily be made covid-safe
  
  
• Consult colleagues
  This step is optional, but it can be a good idea to run your ideas past a few colleagues to get their opinion on the activities you have planned
  
  
• Plan activities
  Then, create a final plan for the day that details timings, activities, and any information about catering
  
  
• Create a calendar event
  It’s best practice to create a calendar event and invite attendees at least a month prior so they can keep their calendar free.
  
  
• Send out agenda
  We recommend sending out the agenda around 2 weeks before the event. The agenda should structure the day without giving away the details – this will keep employees engaged and excited

Even though COVID-19 has changed so many things in the world of business, team days are still important and should still be held as long as they can be done in a covid-safe way.

If you have a fully remote team and would like to hold a team day, click here for a great article about remote team building.

The main thing to bear in mind is that team days should highlight the important of collaboration and should be relaxed, engaging and motivating; employees should get to the end of the day with a desire and drive to succeed.

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself” Henry Ford