The best team building activities are those that get your team out of the office and collaborating on something exciting together. Escape rooms do just that! Everyone works to achieve the same goal: escape. Escape rooms are the perfect mix of fun and effective, which makes them the ultimate team building activity.
Top 11 Reasons For Escape Room Team Building
1. Find strengths and weaknesses
The most valuable thing that team building can reveal is the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals on your team and those of your team as a whole. You don’t want to get into crunch time on a project and discover that your team is horrible at communication, or wait until it’s time to present your big presentation to realize that you don’t have a team leader. Team building allows each member of your team to discover his or her own unique strengths and utilize them in a fun and safe environment.
Escape rooms are perfect corporate team building activities because they get everyone on the team working together towards a common goal. The only difference between your team at an escape game room and your team at the office is that the goal might be stealing a priceless work of art instead of crushing that 3 pm deadline. If your team needs to improve its communication, an escape room will allow them to work out the kinks by solving fun, interactive puzzles.
2. Learn to communicate
Communication is key to any successful team. Whether you are getting through a Monday morning meeting or helping to prepare a big presentation, making sure that everyone is on the same page is extremely important. You don’t want to be duplicating someone else’s work or spending significant time going down a path that will not be productive for your team. Escape games help you develop vital communication skills in a high-intensity, low-stakes environment that is not make or break for your bottom line. Teams must work together not only to find clues but also to figure out how they fit together across different puzzles. Just like in a work setting, communication is also a terrific time-saver in an escape room, as players need to avoid wasting time by redoing puzzles or retrying strategies that have already not worked for other team members. Ultimately, doing an escape room is a great way to find out how well (or poorly) your team communicates under pressure, and it also allows you to develop those skills.
3. Learn how to win (and lose) together
As a team in the workplace, the outcome of any project, presentation, or competition is shared. Sometimes you win the big contract, and sometimes your proposal is rejected by the committee. Win or lose, you did the work together and will face the consequences together. This lesson is valuable for teams to learn and internalize so that each person feels that they contribute to the larger mission of the team and that their work is important to the overall outcome. Team building at escape rooms is an experience that can quickly and effectively help your team feel like a team. The immersive worlds in escape rooms will heighten the urgency of your challenge, with the clock ticking down and everyone working towards your final goal. Most importantly, either everyone escapes or no one does–no one can succeed (or fail) alone.
4. Build trust
One of the most important parts of team building is the opportunity it affords your team to build trust quickly. Though the age-old activity for this is a standard trust fall, isn’t there a better way to build relationships? Will performing trust falls really tell you if you will be able to work efficiently and effectively with your coworkers? Maybe not. What you really need to be able to trust your teammates with is the work they contribute to your projects or your everyday office environment. Can you trust them to be capable and helpful? Can you trust them to be persistent and collaborative? These are questions you can’t answer with a trust fall, but you can answer in an escape room. After you’ve escaped a room with your team, you can have faith that Bob and Jill can successfully tackle any project together, since they worked so well together figuring out that puzzle that no one else understood. And Dave was great at encouraging your team and keeping everyone on task, so you will have no trouble following his lead at the office. The trust you build in an escape room is just the kind of trust you need.
5. Get to know each other better
According to Plato, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” The best way to get to know different aspects of your teammates is to see them in different environments. Seeing the same people in the same office setting every day allows you to get into a routine of how you act and what you talk about. Team building activities, however, push you out of your comfort zone and allow you to react to new challenges. Maybe you had no idea that James could speak Russian, but when he recognized those symbols in the spaceship, it really helped speed up your ability to solve that puzzle. Maybe you have never spoken more than five words to Katie from accounting, but then you worked together on a complicated puzzle, and you learn that she’s hilarious. And what about Kevin? He is usually so quiet, but as soon as you got into that room, he was dishing out orders left and right. Regardless of who shines and how, you will definitely come out of team building at an escape room with an all-new perspective on some of your team members.
6. Enhances on-the-spot problem-solving abilities
No one can fully prepare themselves for an escape room. Sure, players expect to solve a lot of puzzles, but they have no clue as to what kind of puzzles those are. Instead, escape rooms challenge players to develop their on-the-spot problem-solving skills, which they’ll take back with them to tackle challenges at the office.
7. Challenges creative thinking
If the team is used to things being done in a certain way, this is a good way to make them think out of the box, look from a different perspective, and use new problem-solving strategies.
8. Improves time management skills
Players are usually given an hour at most to solve the puzzles and get out of the room successfully. Due to the time constraint, players are motivated to make the most of the time they have and do their best to finish the game before time runs out.
9. Boosts camaraderie
Let’s face it, no escape room, whether it be onsite or virtual, can be solved by a single person all alone. Teamwork is of utmost importance. Everyone has a role to play. Win or lose, they all did their best working as a team. At the end of the day, they’ll find themselves basking in the spirit of teamwork.
10. There are in-person and virtual options
While in-person activities are always ideal to get your team off their computers, sometimes that’s not possible. Your employees may be dispersed in different cities or countries. Luckily, you can also do a virtual escape room together! Our Remote Adventures (https://theescapegame.com/remote-adventures/) let your team play our real, in-store escape rooms from anywhere in the world! That way, your team can still experience all the benefits of team building, despite being far apart.
11. Share memories and experiences
Team building gathers everyone outside of the office and creates memories for teammates to share that are not necessarily work-related. If the best memory you have with your coworkers is that one time that someone left an entire pizza unattended in the break room, you need to get out of the office and have fun with your team. We’re not saying you will all be best friends after team building at an escape game together, but we know you will have fun memories that you can fall back on in stressful times. Those memories will bring the team together and maybe even help set the tone for future team projects. When you are all rushing to finish a project, and tensions are high, it can help to look back and remember that you have already worked together successfully and had fun doing it. After all, if you can escape prison together, surely you can complete your monthly budget report on time!
What Happens At An Escape Room Office Outing
1. Everyone is excited about getting a break from work.
2. Anticipation - what if we don’t escape?
3. It’s game time! The team works together to find clues and solve puzzles.
4. The excitement is palpable - the positive energy just keeps growing as everyone gets into the groove of things!
5. Success! Nothing’s greater than the feeling of sweet victory when the team unlocks that final door and celebrates solving an escape room together. It’s high-fives and hugs all around!
6. Everyone is counting down the days until the next escape room office outing!
Another great team building option - A “Pitch” activity!
If you’re looking for a team building exercise that will help coworkers practice presentation skills and flex their creative muscles, a “Pitch” or “Shark Tank” type activity might be perfect for you! This fun event can be hosted on your video conferencing software of choice and can accommodate both large teams and small group sizes.
What Is A Shark Tank Activity?
Like the TV show Shark Tank, groups invent a product to sell and pitch it to a panel of judges, aka The Sharks. The Sharks then decide which product they like the best and would like to invest in!
What Is “The Pitch”?
Unlike Shark Tank, in The Pitch, team members are assigned a specific issue to come up with a product or solution for. This could be helpful for groups who need a bit more direction or are struggling with ideation. Giving teams a specific prompt is also a good idea if you only have a limited amount of time for your team building activity.
How To Organize Your Activity
- Divide up your group into smaller teams. Depending on how large your group is, teams can rotate through being the judges, being the presenters, or being the audience.
- Allow teams time to think of a product. This section is ideal if you have a generous amount of time for your virtual team building activity. Otherwise, we recommend giving teams a specific prompt to make things go faster. Teams can also use breakout rooms in Zoom to talk through their ideas without other groups hearing!
- Time to present! Now the presenters pitch their ideas to the judges and audience. The judges then debate aloud whether they would like to invest in the idea. Don’t forget that this is supposed to be a fun activity centered on team collaboration, so it’s okay if your idea doesn’t get chosen.
Idea Prompts
Giving teams prompts can help your virtual team building event run more smoothly, be time-efficient, and have more direction. You can keep things lighthearted with healthy competition by having groups pitch funny products, or use the activity as an opportunity to brainstorm on solutions for your company!
Work-Related Prompts
- How can we best maximize the space in the office?
- Solutions to keep desks de-cluttered
- A way for the coffee pot to clean itself
- A new marketing strategy for the latest product release
- An invention to auto-reply to inbox messages
Light-Hearted Prompts
- A food product for even the pickiest eaters
- A solution to a runny nose
- A phone better than an iPhone or an Android
- A solution to cope when the wifi is down
- A solution that takes care of remembering passwords for you
What are you waiting for?
Escape room team-building activities really have a lot to offer their players. From improving existing skills to enhancing character, to boosting company morale, your team building will surely be fruitful if done in an escape room. The fun, as well as the possibilities in crafting an interesting escape room team-building session, is endless!
