Fun Ways To Spice Up Your Next Corporate Event

Company meetings have earned a notorious reputation for being boring and largely forgettable. The reason is simple: few are willing to think outside the box and take the kind of bold steps that are necessary to really make an impression and let employees have fun. Take your next outing to the next level with one of these creative and cost-effective ideas.

Sumo Suits

Encourage a little bit of friendly competition by involving pairs of co-workers in a friendly game of synthetic sumo. You can easily rent giant padded sumo suits, designed to be worn over virtually any clothing. Completely protected, your employees can then bounce around an arena until one is declared the winner.

Inflatable Jousting

This more competitive alternative to sumo suits offers you the opportunity to tap into your customer's competitive side. With these, you'll be fighting to actually unseat each other, and there's a much more defined win/loss structure than in something like sumo. Inflatable jousting can be a lot of fun, and like the suits it is completely safe because everything is padded and filled with air.

Unconventional Team Building

Traditional "team building" games and trust exercises have historically shown little ability to perform either function. Instead of relying on those, try something that will get your team working and thinking together without presenting the traditional kind of problems. One very good option is to have your employees solve an everyday problem that might confront your company, but mix together people from different departments or teams. Working with new people will provide fresh perspectives and encourage unity across the different sectors of your business.

Avoid Lectures - Use Demonstrations

Nothing is quite as boring as having someone talk at you with relatively little opportunity to interact. If you want your employees to learn about something new, present it in a way that lets them really get into it. The best way to manage that is by making something funny or something that really gets into their brain and makes them think. Demonstrations are great because they can combine these two elements alongside an opportunity to experience something hands-on. If your workers can try whatever it is they just learned and be guided by an expert, they're much more likely to remember it later on.

Make Sure To Build In Time For Fun

Even if the inflatable jousting described above seems like too much of a stretch for your next event, make sure it isn't all business. You want your team to come together as a team - that means they have to see each other as more than just people who do business together. They need to rely on each other, enjoy laughing with each other, and care about each other's success. That kind of caring grows more slowly when you're working on something that is strictly business related.