In today’s business world, team building is a vital element of any organization because it helps to create an efficient workforce.
Teamwork can have a wide range of benefits. Whether you are working as a team towards a common goal or just being happy with friends, team building activities will help attain your objectives and keep morale high at most times.
Here are some 5 minute long games that can quickly, yet incrementally bond your team over time.
Share today’s news
One of the simplest team building activities to get your team together. Quite simply, this game allows team members to engage with their colleagues via the sharing of world events — creating a forum for important discussions.
This can forge strong bonds as viewpoints are exchanged. Even when a disagreement occurs, employees can take this opportunity to hone their EQ in respect and mutual understanding.
Chant a silly jingle together
Jingles may seem cheesy to the average executive, but they can be more refreshing than it seems!
In Japan, it is common for executives to do cheers before they start the day’s work. Many employees report feeling motivated and energised after a jingle session, which can last just 5 minutes.
This can forge camaraderie and loyalty to the company, especially when the jingle’s emphasis has a larger than life meaning towards it.
Swedish story
This is a fun creative game where an executive is tasked to share a story using the words given by his colleagues. Such team building games could be scaled up to include several competing departments, culminating in an organisation-wide competition with prizes.
At the team level, however, this can be a quick and fun game to get your executive’s creative juice flowing.
Office pen pals
One of the best team building activities involves making your employees into real friends. Such team building exercises are especially beneficial for large companies.
As you know, many friendships have been cultivated from childhood when kids were encouraged to play with their classmates having different backgrounds and interests.
This can be replicated in your organisation by designating pen pals from two departments who would traditionally — never interact at all! This will also allow other team members who are introverted to exercise socialisation.
This small yet thoughtful gesture will bring your employees closer while improving cross-departmental understanding and diversity awareness.
Charades
This is one of the most common yet timeless team building activities that can be used anytime. It doesn’t have to take long either, as 5 minutes is usually enough for one to two rounds. It is recommended that every day a different team member would take the acting role.
The game is simple: one person acts out a phrase or word, and the other members have to guess what it is. You can use an app to generate a random phrase or word.
It is strikingly simple, yet incredibly fun to apply. It would not surprise us if your game ends up exceeding 5 minutes!
Word association
This is a fun and simple game that would encourage your employees to embrace the power of language in expressing ideas and facilitating communication.
The rules: two participants compete in this activity, where one starts with a word and the other follows with another word that must be related — in accordance with some predetermined criteria (e.g., theme or subject).
This is an incredibly fun game that can be done in just 5 minutes. Employees will find it refreshing and engaging while encouraging creativity in their thinking process.
Takeaways
These are just some of the many 5 minute team building activities companies can adopt to strengthen camaraderie in their workforce without taking too much time.
Since 100% participation is not necessary, employees who feel like they don’t have the time during the day to bond over these games may still find it refreshing in the evening when they go home.
The purpose of these games is to improve communication in the workplace and ultimately increase productivity. This would be an especially important advantage for companies who value teamwork, where employees affect each other’s productivity on their own.
