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Team-building Games To Play at The Office

Office productivity

You can use your ESCREO walls for more than just planning and doodling. Team building games and exercises are a wonderful way to entertain and educate your team. There are many games out there that can help you build a relationship with your employees, improve communication, encourage sharing and problem-solving.

We’ve gathered some of our five favorite games to play in the office. But do check out the full article and see our bonus games. We promise you’ll love them!

Blind Drawing: Laugh Out Loud and Emphasize on Clear Communication

This fun game inspires creativity and encourages communication while helping the team members unwind after a busy workday. All you need is an ESCREO surface, a marker, and a little bit of imagination.

Players: Teams of 2-6 players who take rounds on drawing and explaining.
Duration: 1-2 minutes per round.

What makes this game great?

Blind Drawing is a simple and entertaining game that will help your team members understand the importance of clear communication while giving instructions and performing even the simplest day-to-day office activities.

How do you play Blind Drawing?

  1. Assign the roles of the players. Place the two players back-to-back so they don’t see each other. Let one of them use the ESCREO whiteboard surface to draw and give the other one a picture to describe.
  2. The other team members should think of and provide interesting photos that the competing team should draw. One explains one draws, while the rest and laugh.  Then, the players take turns on drawing and explaining each round.
  3. At the finale, the teams compare their drawings and pick a winner. While winning is great, this game aims mainly at providing nice entertainment, inspire creativity, and emphasize the importance of clear communication.

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Shark Tank: Practice Sales Skills and Entrepreneurship

Shark Tank is a team building game that’s based on Mark Burnet’s the reality TV show that premiered on ABC Family on 09 September 2009. The show presents newly aspiring entrepreneurs who pitch their original business ideas to a panel of investors, called the “sharks”, who then choose ideas in which they’d like to invest.

Players: Up to 24 people. 2-6 people per team.
Duration: 90 minutes

What’s makes this game great?

Your teammates will get the opportunity to develop their own business ideas, create presentations and pitch them. This will help them develop their sales and presentation skills, collaborate, and develop an entrepreneurial mindset. Another group of members will play the role of the investors and get to make important decisions based on the idea’s prospect success, profitability rate, competition, and more.

How do you play Shark Tank?

  1. Divide the participant into teams and ask them to develop a unique product. Then use the ESCREO walls in the office to create a unique pitch that includes brand name, slogan, business plan, marketing strategy, predicted finances, competition, etc.
  2. Choose a team of players who get to play as shark investors. They might be senior staff members or even trainees. Use the available ESCREO surfaces, like desks and meeting tables, to take notes on different questions and help evaluate the pitch.
  3. The team that gets the greatest funding wins. You can also create small prizes for the best product idea, best strategy, etc.

Disaster Squad: Plan Ahead For Future Company Disasters

Disaster Squad is a great ice-breaker, encourages critical thinking and helps businesses foresee and manage future disasters. It’s a game where lessons are more important than actually winning. A game that inspires critical thinking and creativity. A game that pushes team members to think outside the box while trying to solve the next big disaster.

Players: Teams with 4-10 people.
Duration: 5 minutes per round.

What makes this game great?

This team building game can help you boost creativity and exercise a number of skills under mild pressure. Most importantly, this game will help businesses create action plans for future disasters.

How do you play Disaster Squad?

  1. Every team has to think of five imaginative disasters that have a possibility of occurring in the future. The disasters may be anything from a cyber attack or a flood, for example, to a market collapse or competition raise.
  2. After coming up with the disasters, each team will get a disaster that the competing team has created. Teams can use their ESCREO dry-erase walls and surfaces to create plans of action for the company.
  3. The team with the best plans of action wins the game.

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The Winner / Loser Game: Encourage a Positive Mindset

After you’ve broken the ice and helped team members to get to know each other better, it’s time for the Winner / Loser game. This game takes a deeper look at problem-solving on an emotional level and gets to help others gain a positive mindset.

Players: Teams of two
Duration: 3 minutes per round

What makes this game great?

The Winner / Loser game will help your teammates to get an in-depth side opinion on real-life problems. It doesn’t matter if the problem is of a personal matter, like a relationship or financial issue, or a professional manner, like an inability to meet deadlines or failure to sell a product. The main focus of the game is to teach the importance of having a positive mindset and show players different way paths to solving everyday problems.

How do you play the Winner / Loser game?

  1. Let everybody pick a number and remember it. Write the numbers on the ESCREO board and let each player choose one number from the ones on the board.
  2. Allow players to play in groups of two or more. One of the players should share a real problem they currently have while the other should listen and provide advice on solving the problem.
  3. Finally, end the team building exercise by emphasizing on the importance of having a positive mindset and looking at a problem from all angles.

Bonus team building games

Hangman

Who doesn’t love wordplay? Hangman is a classic game to play at the office. All you need is an ESCREO whiteboard surface, a marker and you’re set to go.

What’s this movie?

Yet another classic game that will help your teammates unwind. Players pick their favorite movies and explain them to the rest using only gestures.

The Memory Wall

Encourage employees to write fun work-related memories on the ESCREO whiteboard surface. Then read them out loud and laugh along.

Make it funnier with ESCREO whiteboard paints

Your team building games can be even funnier if you can write on the wall. And here’s a hint: ESCREO whiteboard paints can turn out to be the best solution. You may wonder why but the answer is simple: you can draw, erase and re-write again the amount of times you wish. Just make sure you give it a couple of days to dry before writing on it. You can choose between our classic whiteboard paint, clear whiteboard paint and magnetic whiteboard paint.