Top Five tips for Team Building!
Team Building的心得及五大貼士

As an event organizer, you must first figure out the planning and purpose of Team Building so that the participants can get someone out of it in the end. You have to be careful not to step on any toes, especially if your boss uses this as part of a performance assessment. The applause of your colleagues and the evaluation of your boss may really have a chance to influence your career. Here are some quick tips from many years of experience!

Tip 1: Choose the Venue Wisely:

First of all, you must consider the location of the company. If all the colleagues are from the same office it’ll be no problem, but some companies have different offices or branches, and the colleagues are from different places. A convenient location will help increase attendance rates for the event as many people would prefer not to attend if it’s somewhere far and inconvenient. Of course, you can always call a coach for your whole team to head to the venue, but that’ll be another factor you have to consider in the long run. After most of the activities are over, we usually have dinner together, and transportation arrangements are also a headache, so if there is a wide variety of eateries near the Team Building venue it will definately be one less problem to worry about.

Tip 2: Number of Participants

I strongly recommend that the team activity should be within 60 people. First, if there are too many people,crowd control may become a serious problem. Since corporate training or team training requires everyone to work as a team, it’ll be harder to do so if the group is too large. If the number of participants really exceeds the recommended number then the organizer may choose to do the event in batches. Firstly, if the group is smaller the bonding experience will be more effective. Secondly, a smaller group will be relatively easier to manage, and will also reduce the chance of “incidents” to happen. Also, some companies will welcome employees to bring family members or significant others to participate in team building. Therefore, it is necessary to know whether there are children joining to control the number of attendees.

Tip 3: Language Considerations at the Event

Hong Kong, being an international hub, will now most certainly have companies with employees consisting of multiple backgrounds and nationalities. If you pick an activity, you have to make sure that language barriers will not be an issue, for example: the venue manager or his staff is not fluent in English, then you or another colleague must take the role of the translator which will be an added element in the already complicated process, so I highly recommend finding a venue that has bilingual or trilingual  Some locations in Hong Kong may only provide Cantonese trainers or hosts so this may be very unengaging for foreign colleagues. It’s advised to do a site visit and confirm that there is no problem with bilingual communication. Many venues usually respond that they have English speaking staff, but it’s not until the day of the event that the English level of staff or facilitators at the venue are not what they expect. Therefore, it’s best to have a site visit with the venue’s staff directly to ensure that nothing goes wrong.

Tip 4: Event Time Management

Many companies organize full-day activities, but generally speaking, these reactions are not very satisfactory, because most colleagues want to relax. If you cram the day full of different events then some attendees might burnout and become even more tired than at work. On a side note, I have seen that some companies have added a sales report meeting after the team building event, where each salesperson has to report their own numbers. Maybe they are trying to impress the boss, but at times like this it’s very easy to step on toes, so make sure you don’t use too much time at the event by bringing up work related stuff. A good Team Building should be within two to three hours during office. It is best to hold it after lunch time to make everyone feel more relaxed. You might even leave work early after dinner or have a meal together. Remember! After all, the main point is to make everyone happy in order to give a moral boost to improve their performance.

Tip 5: Reflection and Feedback

All Team Building activities have a similar purpose, which is for everyone to work together to confront adversity, find solutions, solve difficulties, complete tasks, achieve success, and understand the future direction of the company. Therefore, it is best for everyone to conduct a post-match review after the end of the event. Of course, it is more ideal to have a professional training instructor to lead the whole event if possible as their feedback may be a bit more objective being from a 3rd party and wont pull their punches when critiquing the performance. You can use some easy methods to check the status of each team member, so that you can better understand your strengths and weaknesses, then complement each other and improve work efficiency because in the long run this is what the boss wants. Also, make sure to take photos and record some happy moments!

Finally, I would like to remind you of the importance of Budget! I have seen spending thousands to tens of thousands. In fact, I personally think that you must first plan what the budget of each colleague is. Generally speaking, about $ 300 to $ 500, there are already very good options. Obviously, if you can help your boss save some money while having a great event this would be the best of both worlds Having said that, I hope that the above can help everyone pay attention to when planning a Team Building activities. Good luck and have fun!

Team Building的心得及五大貼士

作為活動搞手的你，真的要審慎考慮一下如何可以舉辦一場好的團體訓練活動，先弄清楚Team Building 的規劃及目的，才能讓公司上上下下盡興而歸。特別是當你的上司把這份差使，作為評核你辦事能力的表現一環。同事的掌聲及上司的評價真的有機會影響你的仕途。歸納多年的經驗，得出以下心得。

貼士1: 活動場地選擇

首先要考慮一下公司所在位置，輕鬆的話所有同事都是來自同一個地方，可是有些企業有不同辦公室或分店，同事都來自不同地方，車程有長有短，確實需時，故此最好選擇一些地理位置較為方便，方便來也方便走。大部份活動完結之後，通常也會一起進行聚餐，交通安排也是一個頭痛點，所以如果Team Building活動場地附近有不同類型的餐飲這是一個非常好的選擇，例如銅鑼灣、旺角、中環、尖沙咀等等。

貼士2: 活動參與人數

我極度強烈建議團隊活動最好在60人之內。第一，人數太多的話場面控制會非常混亂，既然企業培訓或者團隊訓練是要大家打成一片，所以無謂製造麻煩。若然公司人數真的超過這個數量，建議可以分批進行，一來小組形式往往感受比較深、效果比較好；二來你作為搞手管理也相對容易，減少「出事」機會。第二，有些企業會歡迎員工帶領家屬或者攜眷出席團隊訓練，故此要了解清楚有沒有小朋友（根據個人經驗，絕大多數都會有），所以選擇活動的時候最好是一些歡迎親子的，不血腥、不暴力、不恐怖、不驚嚇，也不要過於體力勞動，務求做到皆大歡喜，人人開心。

貼士3: 活動語言考慮

現在大部份會舉行Team Building的企業都一定有些外籍同事，如果選擇的活動上，言語溝通相應困難，例如：場地負責人或者其員工不諳英語，那麼就要勞煩你自己本人充當翻譯，故此我極力建議找一些真的可以「雙語廣播」甚至乎三文兩語的場地負責。這個你一定要做一個site visit （實地考察）並確認雙語溝通沒有問題才可以。因為筆者曾經聽過很HR訴苦，場地回覆一般都是說英語沒問題，可是到活動當天才發覺場地裏的職員或導師英語水平真的令人感覺雞皮疙瘩。故此實地考察最好是有場地負責人直接見面，確保萬無一失。

貼士4: 活動時間管理

曾經見識過有不少公司舉辦全日Team Building活動，一般來說這些反應都不是很受落，原因是大部份同事都想輕鬆一下。我曾經見過有些公司完了活動之後，還加插了一個銷售報告會議，要求每個銷售人員滙報一下自己的數字，可能搞手以為可以取悅老闆，誰不知卻開罪了大部份同事，所以我認為活動質素及時間要好好管理。一場好的Team Building 應該在兩至三小時之內，既不膩也不缺。最好選擇在午飯時間之後舉行，讓大家心情輕鬆一點，玩完之後甚至乎可以提早下班，或者一同聚餐吃喝玩樂。切記！老闆都是想上下員工開開心心打成一片，最後把業績提升。

貼士5: 活動賽後檢討

所有Team Building的活動都有一個目的，就是要大家上下一心共同對抗逆境、尋求解決方法、破解難關、完成任務、取得成功、了解公司的未來方向。故此活動完結之後最好是有一個局外人的身份為大家作一個賽後檢討，當然具有專業培訓導師認證更加理想，這個崗位正好可以為大家發聲，用一些輕鬆的方法來檢視一下每位隊員的表現，從而可以讓大家更加了解各位的長短，然後互補不足，提高工作效率，記住這才是老闆想要的，故此不是完了就算，是需要有些質量的東西帶走的，最後還要來一張大合照，記錄開心時刻！

說到這裏，希望以上的可以幫忙大家在選擇不同類型Team Building的活動時候有什麼值得注意的地方，或是該做與不該做的。最後希望提醒一點，也是頗為重要的一點，就是 Budget (預算)！一般我見過花費幾千至幾萬都有，其實我個人認為你首先要計劃每位同事預算是多少，一般來說大約$300至$500，已經可以有很不錯的選擇，這個是我的經驗之談，希望大家受用。