Team building events are they a waste of time?
18/04/2012
A recent survey by Vodafone UK and YouGov found that many office workers feel that team building exercises do little to improve team communication and dynamics.
The poll of over a 1,000 individuals found that a more than 50% thought traditional team building events were a waste of time and a dysfunctional work environment could be better helped by more social based interaction.
The least popular team activities included extreme sports and trust exercises, such as wearing a blindfold and falling backwards to be caught by co-workers. Many felt better relationships could be fostered by going out for a drink or meal.
Some 54% of workers found their experiences of team building events had completely put them off the whole idea.
There is no doubt that the right team building event can bring great working benefits for teams, however, this research clearly shows that the traditional methods are not always the best.
Fun team building based around a social atmosphere seems to be the most popular and beneficial approach. This is something companies like Venturi’s Table have been promoting for several years.
Venturi’s Table created the UK’s first Corporate Cooking Centre based in London, custom-built to provide fun team building cooking experiences for groups of business professionals.
Cooking is a great team building activity that really brings people together from a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets. Cooking team events are relaxing and fun developing stronger working relationships not through stressful or intensive exercises, but through natural social interaction.
There are also many natural parallels between cooking a meal as a group and bringing to fruition a successful team project. Both require the effective combination of different elements through team work in order to create the best possible outcome. This is why the cooking team building experience moves so seamlessly from the kitchen to the workplace.
For more information or to book a fun team building cooking event visit http://www.venturis-table.com
