How to Make Team Building at the Office

Don’t worry, there is a way to organize cheap simple and effective team building right in your office. Team building activities and games are supposed to be not only educational, but also enjoyable. Here is how you can do it:

Think of an Interesting Activities

Team building at the office doesn’t necessarily mean that you and your colleagues have to make party at the office. You can figure our many more creative options and team building means doing something together as a team. You can get plenty interesting ideas on Internet – role-playing games, puzzles, quizzes etc.. The important thing is to make people do something together. You can divide in teams and play some game with words and associations. After while stop and make new teams to make everyone interact equally with each other.

Another wonderful idea is to make karaoke evening at the office – all you need is to get a microphone – there are free karaoke simulators on-line. Or make a workshop or brainstorming meeting. Employee motivation increases commonly with such activities.

Get Some Treats

If you can afford it is a good idea to hire some local catering company to provide you with delicious and energizing food for your team building gathering. No matter how tight your budget is it won’t cost you a fortune to buy at least some tea, coffee and sweets or cookies. Another thing you can do is to ask everyone to bring something they have cooked at home – like we do at housewarming parties. In my opinion this is the best option. And one more thing – don’t bring alcohol. After all you need to bond your team, not to get them drunk. This never ends well.

Organize Office Space for the Team Building

If your company is a small, new start-up you probably your office isn’t very roomy. But there is way to increase the space – move the desks next to the walls and put the chairs in circles. You can make a long table from the desks and put the food and beverages on it.

Tidy up After the Team Building

After your gathering is over ask your team to help you tidy up and clean the office. This actually is a bonus team building activity – nothing brings people together as easy simple physical work such as cleaning. Distribute the task amongst your employees and leave the office in perfect order. Unfortunately sometimes when you gather a lot of people an incident can happen – spilled food or beverage on your office’s carpet. Don’t get angry, or at least don’t show it to your employees. Try to remove to soak it carefully with a cloth. If stain occurs – don’t bother. Let your team building continue. You can always call some local cleaning company to deal with the spot later.

Arranging the Best Party Catering

Party food is one of the main factors to get right when planning an event. In your own home, you can usually get away with cooking yourself, or, failing that, do a round of shopping for snacks at the local supermarket. For bigger events or office parties, though, you’ll need help to get your party food right. But even if you’ve chosen professional party catering for your event it’s best to know what makes good party food, so you know what to ask for. Specialising in party catering Sydney and gourmet menu planning for other special events, we know what it takes to help you organise a successful and memorable experience.

Here are a few things to consider when arranging party food:

• The right amount of party food for the number of people

Often, party caterers will try to make you order more food than you think you need and you may think they are doing it to make more money off you. While this may be the case, party catering businesses do have a lot more experience at gauging the right amount of food. It’s always better to have a little bit too much party food than a bit too little (especially if the event is business related), so erring on the side of caution is advised.

• The right type of party food for the occasion

Sandwiches? Finger buffet? Sit down meal? Different events require different types of party food. Good party catering companies will be able to talk you through the options and show you pictures of table settings you can choose from. A buffet is a popular choice for many events, as it allows guests to choose their own dishes by sight and at their own pace. For serious or somber events, it’s important to avoid using party food that may be overly messy or complicated to eat. This is especially true for finger buffets where guests will be eating with their hands. You don’t want a load of embarrassed guests on your hands, all struggling to reach the napkins in time!

• Party food for special dietary requirements

If any of your guests are likely to have any special dietary requirements, it’s important to let your party catering company know in advance. Vegetarian options are pretty much standard nowadays, but increasingly so are gluten and sugar free options, as awareness of various food intolerances and food related medical conditions are on the rise.

• Party catering you can afford

The food you serve at your party is only one aspect of the whole event, so don’t stretch your budget too thin trying to achieve the perfect menu. Serving the right amount of party food to keep everyone happy is the most important thing, so if your budget is limited, discuss your options with your party catering advisor to see what options you have to make things achievable for you.

• Party catering you can trust

Perhaps the most important factor in choosing party catering is booking a company which is reliable and will provide good food. If you can’t get any recommendations from friends about good providers of party catering look for experience, testimonial reviews and comments, and check out photographs of the food on their website.

Taking note of these guidelines will help you provide delicious, memorable party food, suitable for the occasion and sure to impress your guests.

Surfing Life’s Big Waves

Surf contest is still getting all the more popular as we speak. I got an invoice from my lawyer a couple of days back – for what exactly I’m not sure, as his services didn’t really match the bill! He said he was sending out invoices to a as many people as he could think of, to “keep the wolf from the door in these challenging times”.

Challenging times they may well be. We’re all faced with difficult economic circumstances at present, we are all regularly faced with the ups and downs of normal everyday business and personal relationships and we are frequently confronted by the trials and tribulations of work, career and business. However the only real challenge we face is the challenge within. “How will I react in the face of so much negative stuff coming at me?” as one client put it to me last week. “It’s very hard to stay centred in the midst of all that’s going on around me – it’s like I’m in the eye of a storm” said another. “How am I supposed to stay focused when my personal life is falling to pieces around me?” another client asked me a couple of years ago.

These external challenges are just life’s “big waves” – and like all big waves, they keep coming at you. Life is like the Volvo Round-the-World yacht race. If you’ve decided to participate – and I hope that you have, you know that there are going to be lots of big waves. Armed with this understanding, you go about preparing yourself to make sure that you’re adequately equipped to deal with them. As a result of your preparations – and putting what you’ve prepared into practice when it matters, you’re able to ride those big waves. So it is with the ups and downs of everyday life. You know for a fact, because you see it all around you, that life is full of these big waves – these peaks and troughs. So, just like the yachtsman or yachtswoman, you need to have adequately prepared yourself to ensure that you’re appropriately equipped to ride those waves. However, I’m not talking about being prepared in some vague sense – I’m not simply talking about being on your guard. You will need more than the simple Boy Scout attitude! I’m talking about developing the kind of clarity of mind and mental focus that will enable you take real action in facing up to what life throws at you – rather than crawling back into the normal cocoon of snap reactive behaviour that normally makes matters even worse than you think they already are.

And, on the basis that life is lived moment to moment, you’re going to have to be up to the task, moment to moment. That means that, before you set sail every morning, you need to have your mind tuned in to the here and now – not focused on the day ahead, the day ahead will present itself one moment at a time – one peak, one trough at a time. This means that whilst you’re drinking your breakfast coffee, that’s what you’re doing – inhaling the aroma, tasting the bitterness, feeling the warmth of the mug in your hand, watching the steam curl of the liquid’s surface, feeling the warm liquid run down your throat, listening to the sound of you swallowing. Through preparing yourself before the day gets going you will be appropriately equipped to put the same level of five-sensory, presence of mind, mental focus into play during the course of the day – not matter how choppy the seas around you become.

The point is, you need to focus your mind every morning, to turn yourself on to the reality of the here and now, to be present, to have presence in the here and now. At the very least you should ensure that you take each opportunity that your routine of normal morning chores presents you with. The problem is, if you start the day mindlessly, you’ll continue mindlessly and all manner of challenge will swamp you. If you start the day focused – and remember to check whether or not you’re still focused during the day, you’ll be a totally different person and your day – and your life – will be totally different. Even from drinking your coffee mindfully! Of course, you could go that bit further and do a little meditating – that wouldn’t just make you a great yachtsman or woman, it would make you master and commander.

But, at the end of the day – or, in fact, at the beginning of each day, if you don’t bother to take a few minutes to get yourself up to speed first thing in the morning, basically you will have decided to participate in life’s round-the-world yacht race in a rubber dinghy. If you get drowned, you’ll only have yourself to blame.

Copyright (c) 2010 Willie Horton

Willie Horton enables his clients live their dream – since he launched his acclaimed Personal Development Seminars in 1996. His clients include major corporations: Pfizer, Deloitte, Nestle, Wyeth, KPMG, G4S & Allergan. An Irishman, he lives in the French Alps and travels the world as a much sought after speaker and mentor. In 2008 he launched Gurdy.Net home to his Online Personal Development Seminars, Change Your Life & No More Stress

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