Reasons why travelling with your team is a great idea.
Office activities, these days, are not limited to the four walls of concrete buildings. Many companies are taking a holistic approach toward team-building activities, mainly travelling.
Who doesn’t like to travel? Even the person with motion sickness wishes to travel to absorb a new experience. A journey is an effective team-building activity in many ways!
You can see the dynamics change. The silent person from the team becomes the GPS. The introvert becomes an extrovert, and the head of the group begins to listen to what everyone has to say! Jokes apart, you will learn the strengths and weaknesses of each other, which in turn helps you later in the corporate setup!
Here are a few advantages of travel excursions with the team,
Team building
Whether the team’s planning to travel for fun, work, or both, one thing will surely improve – a sense of belonging. The most common concern any teammate has is whether they are the right fit for the team.
Though you hear all good from your manager in one-to-one sessions or have a quick chat with a colleague – it is never enough. Trips change the perspective of everyone involved. And, as every person has one responsibility, it is only over time people realise how important they are to the team!
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The creative side
Teams spend most of their lives sitting in the corporate jungle. They barely get time for a break and interact with each other. A trip plays an absolute ice-breaker to get to know each other well. Apart from work, the team needs to learn about each other to perform well with their tasks.
They will learn to respect each other’s opinions and get accustomed to everyone’s work ethics. It leads to maximum efficiency with productivity. Working in a relaxed environment aids them to be more creative towards their solutions and approaches.
While having fun at work is evident, you should also learn some dos and donts.
What constitutes appropriate travel?
These terms frequently lead to misunderstandings since some people spell them with one L and others with two. Depending on who your audience is, you should either travel or not. The preferred spelling in the United States is traveling. In the UK and the Commonwealth, the word “traveling” is more commonly spelled that way.
Dos
- The boundaries are crucial when having fun at work with colleagues.
- If you are uncomfortable with conversations or actions – do let them know. So they won’t repeat it in the future.
- Maintaining professional boundaries should be an unwritten rule that everyone should be aware of.
- Focus on the one reason you are travelling. To improve productivity while also spending quality time with the team.
- Take the initiative to plan an activity but do not forget to take some ‘me’ time for yourself too!
Donts
- Don’t get too personal or attached to the colleague.
- It is just recreational time with the team to know each other better.
- Ruining it will only mean that awkwardness will continue even in the offices.
- Do not force your colleague to do an activity because it’s fun for you. Remember, consent and boundaries are very critical.
Final thoughts
The whole point of travelling with the team is to figure out how to look out for each other. Because when you learn to do that in the most random places, the team is more likely to behave the same when they’re together at the office.
