Welcome to the new age workplace revolution, where the need to invest in mental health has never been more imminent!
According to the Calm’s survey for Business* conducted in October 2021, of 3,000 full-time employees in the US aged 18- to 54-year-old, 97% of respondents say employers should be working to improve the mental health of their employees, while 76% of workers say they consider mental health benefits as critical when evaluating new jobs.
Even if your organization does not have mental health benefits in its policy, you can still create meaningful experiences for your team and employees to support them so that they feel connected and heard in this hyper-connected yet isolated world. And what is the best way to create such experiences? Team Building!
Team building is a powerful tool for promoting mental health and wellbeing. You can bring back the learning zeal in the most playful yet holistic way by trying corporate team-building activities for your employees.
Here are the top reasons for including mental health and well-being activities in your organization.
One of the primary goals that organizations can achieve by conducting mental health and workplace wellness activities is that they can help your team relax, unwind, and reduce stress, thus leading to well-being.
When your employees participate in games and team building activities, it fosters teamwork, rapport building, and enhanced collaboration among employees. By integrating wellbeing activities into your workplace you create an environment where the coworkers get to know each other more closely, thus strengthening their relationship and enhancing the workplace culture. Whether they are dancing together or having a casual conversation about life, it all eventually leads to bringing them closer to each other.
A lot of team building activities also involve solving puzzles, and challenges or putting the team members in a simulation game where they have to solve a problem. Through strategic thinking, and brainstorming employees’ problem-solving skills can improve significantly. It also promotes creative thinking and the ability to cope with a difficult situation.
By playing games that promote mental health and taking short breaks for such workplace wellness activities your employees’ productivity can boost multifold. It is kind of a mental refreshment for the employees. It helps to reduce burnout, improves focus, and increases overall productivity of your teams.
The various mental health and employee well-being activities help your teams to relax and enjoy. This creates a positive and supportive work culture thus fostering a workplace culture where employees feel appreciated and valued.
One of the most important skills needed for employees’ future success is collaboration skills. Mental health and employee wellbeing activities help employees develop collaboration skills, as it gives them the space to work together in new ways. Wellbeing-focused team-building exercises allow team members to get to know each other on a deeper level than they would otherwise. This fosters a more meaningful sense of community and connection.
Team building activities require employees to be together and communicate with each other. This enhances their ability to communicate effectively, listen actively, and collaborate with colleagues. Corporate team-building activities aimed at mental health promote healthy communication among teams and employees.
Mental health activities often promote healthy coping mechanisms, like mindfulness, self-care, and emotional expression. Such employee well-being practices and team-building activities are beneficial in managing workplace stress and building long-term positive coping mechanisms.
Employees get to build resilience as they go through the various steps while playing games and doing team-building activities. It also builds adaptability and perseverance which are essential qualities in the workplace.
Mental health activities are a great way to uplift employees’ spirits and increase their morale. By participating in fun and engaging activities teams build a positive attitude towards work, thus leading to higher motivation levels and increased morale.
Employee well-being activities promote energy levels as they tend to break the monotonous work day. They help people to move around, think differently, and indulge in casual or energetic activities. If you have just done a round of yoga or a guided meditation or have just indulged in some high-energy Zumba, there are minimal chances to feel sleepy or tired. Through such activities, your mind takes a break as you use it for activities other than work.
When you incorporate team-building activities that promote employee well-being, it gives a message to your team that the organization emphasizes their well-being. This is a valuable step in breaking the taboo or biases associated with mental health and encourages open discussion in the organization.
When days are tough or stressful, such team-building activities that promote mental health and well-being add a relaxing and calming effect to the day. Employees have something to look forward to and anchor themselves in a better way to deal with overwhelming situations.
Do you know that team building could be a powerful tool for promoting mental health and well-being? Historically speaking, humans have learned the best through games and stories ever since, however, as we reach adulthood, learning through playing gets diminished or even gets dismissed completely. When you decide to bring back this fun learning element into your workplace, the objectives become seamless to achieve. To promote mental health and well-being in the workplace, team-building activities are the best way to nurture them.
Let us into 12 fantastic team-building activities that not only strengthen bonds but also boost mental health and employee wellbeing.
It lets you break the ice through team building. It’s an easy way to start or end the week with a casual breakfast get-together. Your team gets to connect more closely, indulge in some light-hearted banter, and reduce stress.
Getting people together for meals helps them to be in their most casual and true behavior with each other. People bond over food the most as they indulge in their favorite items, have a hearty meal, and share casual conversation being more open and light-hearted. It takes away the work stress, enhances the team’s communication, and creates team bonding in the most natural way as the team members get to know each other more closely.
By introducing workshops and webinars on mental health topics, you can educate and break the stigma around it and any challenges that your employees might be going through. Your team can also get guidance from professionals to learn coping strategies, and stress relief techniques. This helps to build resilience in your team members and make them self-aware thus making them equipped for future challenges.
Group meditations are a simple and cost-friendly way of promoting mental health in the workplace. When your team meditates in a group, they can enhance their sense of community, strengthen resilience, and develop overall well-being to overcome work and life challenges with more awareness.
This mental health game is suitable for both, office as well as remote work environments. Quizzes allow people to learn, have fun, and also bring in a competitive edge. It introduces mental health topics to your team members that they might never have paid attention to and allows them to name their struggles more clearly as they become more aware now.
It is a crucial aspect since our society undermines and labels many mental health conditions while being completely ignorant about them.
Another great way to include team building is through volunteering. It gives your team a chance to work towards a greater good for someone else. Your volunteering activities could be at work like planting trees or cleaning up the society oe neighbourhood, or you could collaborate with an NGO to volunteer.
Workplace volunteering activities foster a sense of community and purpose. It provides employees with opportunities for social connection and fulfillment and also helps to develop a sense of gratitude and empathy.
A very powerful and effortless team-building activity that promotes mental health and well-being at the workplace is through art and creative expression. It allows your team members to get in touch with their emotions, be expressive, and have fun at the same time. The creative expression could range from painting, DIY craft, theatrical acting, singing, dancing, poetry contests, or photography.
It is one of the best ways for stress relief, increases cognitive functions, and develops a sense of identity and purpose. You can promote team bonding, innovation, and employee engagement through creative expression activities.
It is one team-building activity that could even be conducted easily with remote teams. As part of this employee engagement activity, your employees get to read and discuss books together, offering them a structured yet informal platform for social interaction and intellectual stimulation. This not only helps to reduce stress but is a great benefit to mental health as it fosters a sense of community, enhances cognitive function, and provides a healthy outlet for relaxation and self-reflection.
What more powerful way to inculcate mental health through a storytelling session? It is one of the oldest and most potent ways to build teams, cognition, and employee wellbeing as participants take turns to indulge in sharing or listening to stories. This activity builds empathy, understanding, and creativity among your team members. It is also a great way to promote deeper connections within your team and discover the hidden talents of your employees.
Thinking of corporate team building? An outbound adventure activity has to make it to your list! Navigating rough terrain together or climbing up a rock wall is what adventure and team bonding dreams are made of. Such outdoor activities not only set your adrenaline rush but are fabulous initiatives to boost team morale and enhance team spirit.
Such outbound corporate team-building activities push employees out of their comfort zone and encourage them to rely on each other thus enhancing the team’s overall engagement and trust. The natural surroundings help to reduce stress and improve mental health.
One of the easiest ways to indulge in some quick team-building exercises is through fitness activities. What better way to amp up your team’s physical and mental well-being than the fitness factor? When your team does a physical activity their team bonding is enhanced and they experience not just fun but benefits too. Yoga, Zumba, or even a mini obstacle course could be some activities that could be easily conducted. It enhances the team’s fitness levels as well as helps to relax and destress oneself.
If you are looking forward to developing some real camaraderie among your team members then give them an activity that helps them to work as a team and derive the delicious results of it in a literal sense! Yes, we are talking about conducting a cooking session together as a team. Who knows some soulful banter over a souffle or a camaraderie over creme brulee might lead to stronger connections among employees? Cooking isn’t just therapeutic, it demands cooperation, creativity, and concentration in equal measures. Your team would experience alleviated stress and a sense of achievement like never before.
Gratitude is where your real mental well-being begins. It is considered one of the most potent tools for enhancing your mental well-being. The gratitude circle is a fun and interesting team-building activity that reinforces a positive work environment. For this activity, you can gather your team in a circle and each person gives a compliment to the person next to them. It is a great way to boost self-esteem and create a supportive work culture where kindness and appreciation are practiced.
By integrating these 12 team-building activities you can make an impact in your organization to improve mental health and employee wellbeing. They work as great stress busters and promote relaxation, creativity, and connection. Through these corporate team-building activities you strengthen your teams and nurture their mental and emotional health as well.
Whether you conduct these activities weekly or monthly, the idea is to promote and host a well-being team-building activity so that you embrace and support mental health-related issues that your team might be facing. About two-thirds of employees have clinically measurable mental health symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to SilverCloud Health’s 2021 Employee Mental Health and Wellbeing Checkup, which surveyed over 2,000 employed U.S. adults in July 2021.
By taking such initiatives you not only show empathy but also recognize the importance of prioritizing mental health and well-being that directly impacts productivity and business success. It also fosters employee engagement and open communication among your team members, giving them resources and support thus valuing their mental health over work. Mental health issues have mostly been considered taboo to address and by conducting team initiatives to address them you set a benchmark for an empathetic and open culture in your workplace.
Investing in your team’s well-being and mental health is one of the best business decisions you can make, as the teams that grow together thrive together!
*Calm for Business research was fielded among n = 3,000 18-54-year-old full-time employees in the US during 10/17-10/24 and is nationally representative with quotas across age, gender, race, ethnicity, and region.
