Your employees are one of your biggest assets – that's a fact. Their ability to work together and communicate efficiently can help streamline your business and increase your bottom line. As such, team building can be an excellent way of bringing everyone together, solve conflicts, and improve the company’s internal synergy.
Just consider for a second the benefits of team building activities:
- Team members spend time together outside of the work environment;
- Improves communication skills (especially the communication across teams) and teamwork environment;
- Improves employee morale;
- The work environment can become more pleasant for employees.
Not that we like throwing dated stereotypes around, but a technical writer jumping with excitement when he learns about group activities is probably a rare sight. They can be a pretty introverted bunch, and forcing them to participate in a team-building exercise they don’t enjoy won’t do your company much good – quite the opposite.
So what kind of team building exercises should you prepare for your technical writing department? We have a few suggestions!
Board Games
Board Games are a nice way to spend a relaxing evening without much fuss. It’s the perfect activity for those who aren’t as proficient at outdoor exercises and prefer flexing their other muscle – their brain. Not to mention, the right game can bring your teams closer together.
Choose a game that will enable your writers to work together to win. That way, they will improve their communication and teamwork skills.
PC or Console Tournaments
A touch of friendly competition is always a good idea and an excellent way to help your technical writers learn how to overcome new challenges. Make sure to brand this idea as a video game tournament and not a team building exercise as this concept can have a negative connotation for some.
Split your techies into teams and have them compete in multiple rounds. Make sure that no one is left out and all members of the group take part in the process. Offer some incentives, such as a voucher to give them a reason to try their best.
Treasure Hunts
Yes, it’s an outdoor activity, but even an introverted technical writer might find treasure hunts appealing. Focus on giving them riddles that they need to solve at each step of the games, and provide some mild physical challenges like dancing or jumping on one leg to get the next hint.
Treasure hunts can be a fun activity for your employees. Because participants need to work together to reach the same goal, they will unknowingly work on their communication and collaboration skills. This may be especially helpful for new team members who are just integrating into the team, here are some more tips on how to help them adapt - Helping New Team Member Adapt.
It's All About Having Fun
The technical writing team has to work with other members of the company to do their job, so it pays to engage them in exercises that create a stronger bond between people. No matter what sort of activity you choose, the most important thing is that everyone has fun. That way, next time they face a challenge while creating the knowledge base or are lost while using the help authoring tools, they don’t hesitate to ask for help from other departments.
Good Luck with your technical writing!
ClickHelp Team
Technical Writing & Online Documentation Tools