Team building is an important time investment for both management and employees of link building agencies. It fosters unity, creates trust, camaraderie, boosts morale, opens up communication and strengthens collaboration. A successful team building exercise translates to an effective activity that will generate engaged employees.
Geocaching Activities for Team Building
There are many team building exercises and activities that you can do from games to outdoor sports. The main thing to remember is not to force activities on your staff. It has to be an activity that is enjoyable to create good vibes among employees which in turn will benefit the business or the company. It can also be something unique that will encourage participants to come together and out of their comfort zones.
One of the activities that is interesting and thrilling to do is geocaching. It is, in fact, similar to a scavenging hunt, with the added feature of using GPS coordinates. Geocaching provides a wonderful opportunity to spend a day outdoors with colleagues and at the same time, do something exciting. It fosters team work to reach a common goal. The activity also stimulates the mind and creativity by adding riddles and puzzles.
How to Set-Up a Geocaching Adventure
Defining your geocaching area is one of the first things you have to do. You might limit yourself to the office and the surrounding neighborhood as your adventure space. Consider reaching out to your coworkers to see how far they are willing to travel. Going away for a day to a nature park or camp area is also an option. Next, you have to create small groups as teams. If the office cannot provide GPS devices, there are apps that can be downloaded to smartphones. Setting a time limit to complete the activity should also be done. Usually, allocating 2-3 hours should be enough to find the caches that you will hide.
When choosing your caches, try to simplify things such as avoiding hiding items that are so tiny, it will be difficult to find them. Nothing should also be buried underground so that shovels are not needed for the hunt.
Teams need to have enough trinkets with them that can be traded once a geocache is tracked. The rule is when a geocache is located, the team signs the logbook and takes/replaces an item inside the container. You can also include messages inside the geocaches that you want your staff to read as food for thought or puzzles/riddles to make the search more exciting.
Following-Up on the Experience
The issue with a lot of team building exercises is that there is no follow-up (Which as we know, is extremely important when building links). Employees go back to the office as if nothing happened. To ensure continuity, reward teams with group prizes such as a pizza lunch or several rounds of drinks at a pub. Being in a casual and relaxed environment encourages further bonding among staff that will not only let them get to know each other better but strengthen the sense of belonging and working together as a team.