Training is one of the ways businesses help improve the performance of individual employees. However, the pandemic has made it hard for companies to set up team-building exercises. But with enough creativity, training today can be as fun as it was years ago.

Team building has been known to improve employee performance over time. It can develop high-performing teams when given attention, which can easily double the productivity of a given company. But many believe that team building is a business expense that companies can’t afford right now, given how set-ups of activities have taken a different route during the pandemic.

Many team-building companies have shifted to digital platforms to train employees. However, the results of these exercises are still unclear, and many companies are now on the fence about the effectiveness of team-building programs. Experts believe that one of the main reasons for this is that team building is not as stimulating as before.

Fun as a Factor in Team Building

How fun a team-building activity plays a significant role in how effective it would be in communicating the program’s message. The human brain learns from stimulation, and if an activity isn’t stimulating enough, most people end up not paying much attention to it.

Traditional team-building programs used to be so stimulating simply because there’s a lot of physical movement going around. Furthermore, there is employee interaction which is essential for team communication. All of these leads to an interesting team-building program and one that teams will discuss for days to come.

All of these lack in the team-building setting we have today. Stimulation and employee interaction are reduced because most participants are behind a computer screen. Moreover, only one person can talk at a time for the sake of clarity during conference calls. This can hinder how teams communicate with one another.

However, the most important thing is the activities, and currently, digital team-building activities are boring. So how can you make your team-building program fun and exciting? One way to do this is by investing in virtual reality.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality used to be a technology stuck in the video gaming industry. However, it’s expanding to many industries today, such as marketing. But one of its most significant expansions is into the team-building space.

Many team-building companies have seen the great opportunity to be had in virtual reality. There had been companies capitalizing on this year before the pandemic had even hit. Strategies such as education XR or extended reality have been making ripples, but nothing as big as they are now. Currently, extended reality programs backed by VR are the norm for companies making their training sessions entertaining and fun.

One of the biggest advantages of VR training is that it plays well with social distancing protocols but still gives the same stimulation and employee interaction the same way. This is because VR is one of the most immersive programs out there right now. Anyone who has tried VR will tell you that it feels like the real thing, making it one of the best platforms to hold team-building exercises.

Gaming in Training

Another explored topic in training is gaming. Gaming stimulates the brain better than any activity out there. It’s interesting because of the dynamics around it and the organic competition it makes among players.

Gamification is becoming a trend in the team-building industry, as more and more activities are turning into games nowadays. However, the same fundamentals can still be applied in a virtual setting. Simple games that work around dice and participation can make a difference. Strategy games such as board games can also be a great way to gamify a training session.

Debriefing and Reactions

Ultimately, a training session can’t be effective and fun if people don’t internalize the session. One way to do this is by asking about reactions from employees and debriefing them about the activity.

Everyone reacts to an activity, whether it be good or bad. If no one reacts to your activity, that’s a bad sign, but that also means you have a lot of room for improvement.

Debriefing plays a bigger role in integrating the activity into employee productivity because this is where you’re going to hear employees’ creativity around the room. Simple games can become a team-building exercise when people find a way to learn something from it, and this is why debriefing is so important and fun during team-building sessions.

Fun plays a big role in training, and how you get fun out of training depends on the platform you utilize, how you gamify a mundane task, and the reactions and learning employees get from it. It’s all about engaging them because once they are engaged, they are having fun. So apply these things in your next team-building program and see how it works out for your company.