Problem with traditional team-building
Team-building days, motivation occasions, summer picnics, and Christmas parties – these are all established happenings in any office. They are, while usually being super fun, starting to feel kind of old-fashioned and been-there-done-that type of events. You come up with a fun exercise, go to a nice place, get some drinks and expect your staff to bond.
The result? The staff sees the exercises boring, enjoys the drinks more, and leaves to a bar or home early. Next Monday nobody talks about the party anymore, and everyone moves on with their lives.
Our solution
Our events are never boring, of course, but this year we decided to step out of the box and skip our summer and Christmas parties. Instead, we flew the whole office to Copenhagen for a weekend.
Nothing could have worked better than a vacation abroad
After an extremely busy spring, nothing could have worked better than everyone taking a little vacation abroad, having fun with the rest. The program was extremely loose and voluntary, and people weren’t expected to do anything, but to have fun and let loose. Nobody had to think of work, and there was no office after-party or motivational talks from the management.
The result? People got to know Copenhagen on their own terms, unwind and relax a bit after a rough spring, creating deeper bonds with their teammates, and most of all creating proper memories with them.
By sending the whole team to another country, we managed to create experiences that people will actually talk about for a while. And that’s the problem with the traditional office parties: there’s none of that next morning dismantle of who did what and where, who was the one dancing their ass off in the nightlife, who got #nosleeptonight and who was the one getting lost and not finding their way to the hotel.
Sure, the organising part seems a teeny tiny bit painful and costly. Putting together a weekend trip for 37 people is not a piece of cake. You just have to plan ahead and think about the worst case scenarios to be prepared for everything. Also, by being creative, you can come up with a fun program without using any budget: we organized a voluntary Amazing Race type of competition, letting everyone explore Copenhagen.
Luckily, the worst accident during our trip was the sunburns due to the perfect weather on Saturday (sunshine and Finnish skin in May don’t really go together). The emergency kit wasn’t needed, and even though we did get three bail out of jail -permissions from our CEO, none of them was used. All in all, a very successful trip, and even the organisers got to take it easy and bust a move every once in a while.
Do it, I dare you
So if you're stuck with the traditional bowling and dinner combos, when it comes to team building, I would strongly recommend taking it to the next level.
If not abroad, take your team to another city in your country
If not abroad, take your team to another city in your country – just spend the weekend somewhere else to take everyone's thoughts off work. I can guarantee it’ll be worth it and you can manage to create the good kind of memories and legendary quotes to be used at the office for a long time to come! To find out more about our Copenhagen getaway, I recommend checking out Instagram and Twitter with the hashtag #Ftour14. In the meantime, we’ll start planning our next trip – and naturally, it’ll be better, more fun, and more awesome!
Ps. Check out the epic video clip of our trip on Youtube.
