5 Best Outdoor Team Building Activities

1. Scavenger Hunt

There is a lot to be said for a scavenger hunt. It gets people out of the office and moving, but doesn’t require a lot of athleticism. You can take advantage of local points of interest. If you’re in a city, you can make one of the stops a noted bakery. It generally calls on everyone to help decode the clues, which reinforces team building and critical thinking skills. If you’re very devoted, you can design it yourself. Otherwise, you can hire a planning service.

2. Cooking Challenges

The extraordinary popularity of celebrity chefs and the Food Network has made cooking cool. You can leverage that popularity by setting up a cooking challenge like the Great Bar B Que Challenge. People get to practice working together to deliver a product on a timetable without the looming threat of disappointing a client. This is one challenge where you’re better off hiring a company that specializes. They’ll have the right connections to secure the food. They can oversee cooking to make sure everything is safe to eat. They can also provide judges and prizes.

3. Egg Drop

There is a chance you did a version of this back in middle or high school. The game is simple. An egg will drop from a fixed height. The challenge? Construct something that will catch the egg and keep it from cracking open on impact. You provide boxes and various kinds of packing materials. Everyone gets a window of time to make their boxes and the egg dropping begins.

4. Volunteer for a Charity Event

You can also volunteer to help organize and run a charity event. Local animal shelters, children’s health care services, and libraries can almost always benefit from a helping hand. They’re also generally non-controversial charities that everyone can get behind. Since these events typically run on weekends, be kind to your employees. Let them work the event in shorter shifts so they get home to their families.

5. Blindfolded Navigation

This outdoor team building activity is a bit like trust falls without all of the blind panic. You set up teams of three people. This accomplishes the best if you group people who might not normally work together, like one person each from accounting, HR, and Sales. One person gets blindfolded. They lead the group toward the destination, while the other two provide ongoing guidance. The group with the best time gets a prize.

Team building doesn’t have to be an eye-rolling, sigh-inducing act of managerial torture. By choosing outdoor team building activities, you spare your employees from the exact exercises they hate. They get to have a little fun and your organization reaps the benefits of successful team building.