Mention ‘team building’ or ‘away days’, and most minds will be filled with images of cold meeting rooms, someone writing on a flipchart and ‘ice breakers’ involving post it notes.

But in a world where more and more people are working remotely, spend hours at a desk with earphones plugged in, or where your teams may be split over several sites, it’s easy to see why it’s an essential part of your business toolkit.

Research carried out across nine European countries by Hattrick’s client Tarkett on its project, The Great Indoors concerning workplace health and wellbeing highlighted key areas of concern for workers. The UK being the most frustrated workforce in Europe, despite the majority of UK employees currently being based in open plan offices (58%), they are the least likely of all regions to work collaboratively (10%).

That lack of team sentiment is carried on through the research. Almost 60% of UK office workers have highly negative associations with their place of work. Whereas this idea of ‘feeling like a number’ or ‘relieved just to get through the day’ is much lower in Europe, at 48%.

It’s pretty tough reading, and this unhappiness doesn’t just impact the morale of your team. It impacts their physical and mental health, and that in turn affects productivity.  And if your staff don’t feel like they’re part of a team, they’re unlikely to work like one.

As a manager, or business owner, you want your company to feel like one big team. Teamwork is essential to our day to day lives, and research consistently suggests that collaborative team-based work leads to improvements in company performance. A better performing team is both more efficient, and produces higher quality work. For teams to work well, they must be nurtured, supported, and developed.

A happy team works better together, have a more positive outlook and are invested in the company. It’s an investment from you, leading to investment from them. It really isn’t just like another day at the office – as Hattrick found out for themselves when they came on one of our bespoke team building events. Featuring a Thai themed menu, the team cooked their own three course meal, which they enjoyed eating together afterwards. The cookery session gave them time to bond together over the preparation, as well as the resulting meal – but they also took time to learn a recipe that they can recreate at home. You can try the recipes for yourself here. 

Our events offer flexibility. They can be for a few hours, or all day, or even longer as we have conference facilities on site. You could concentrate on collaboration, or maybe you want to get a little competition going – working in smaller groups.

And it doesn’t have to be all about the kitchen. You can get them brewing the perfect cuppa for the office, or get creative with a cocktail mixology session.

Whatever you and your team want to achieve, we can help you reach your goal.