In spite of running a series of successful escape room games, sometimes it's important to step back and look at the bigger picture. Today the world is divided up into “BC” for “before Covid” and “AC”, “After Covid.”In the former, the escape rooms were full of teams of players, enjoying the puzzles and clues, and all determined to beat the clock. But thanks to social distancing during Covid has meant that the rooms are now occupied by but a single gamesmaster, as people play virtual escape games online from their homes. Thanks to the culture of many people being forced to work from home, we found that there was an explosion of interest in team building exercises using escape room games.

Having seen many teams from a diverse section of industries taking part in these team building exercises via escape room games, we have to confess that in many cases we believe that the basic problems which the team building is meant to solve are actually inherent within the management and upwards. Using a controlled exercise to make employees work together and support each other, seems to be in many cases a redundant exercise. In truth, there's no real need to put employees into a manufactured and totally fantastic environment or scenario in order to encourage them to work better together.

Creating a Culture of Trust Through Team-Building

The Office Environment

Individual office space and in particular, the cubicle, seems to be with us for a very long time. When you keep your employees in little boxes, then it's obvious that teamwork is going to suffer. That's why it's important to have a collaborative space whereby the employees have the opportunity to relax. That's not to say that private space doesn't have its own merits. Sometimes employees need somewhere quiet to get on with difficult assignments which require them to concentrate and work independently. Often the shared space can be filled with distractions. But within these two opposites there lies a great solution, if only management would think about it.

It doesn't take much for a company to offer the best of the both worlds. Many researchers have found that the quality of teamwork improves considerably when there is a common space. Somewhere workers can eat, chat, and socialise together. 

Employee Recognition

Many businesses and their managers make the mistake of rewarding individual employees for their work. By focusing on individual recognition, employees will only naturally begin to compete with each other. This will form a rivalry, which is exactly the opposite of the team approach or collaborative efforts by which a business will thrive. Internal rivalry can be very destructive as it pits people against each other. It also introduces tension into the working environment. 

We believe that it's important that the big picture is taken into consideration. Although every member of a team may be pulling their weight, it's still important that the whole department is rewarded, not just a single individual. 

Interactions With Management

From a business perspective everyone is a cog in the machine and is working towards the same result. That's why it's important that those of the top, their managers, directors and executives, must lead by example. Those of you who have leadership roles should make your efforts more visible. We suggest you do some of the grunt work as this proves you are not above anyone's station. Also be prepared to put in overtime if you ask others to do so. On the most basic level, please make the effort to learn everyone's name and greet them accordingly, in a friendly manner whenever you meet.

You'll find that your employees will react to you in an almost karmic manner, and reciprocate if they feel you are generally invested in them. At the end of the day, it all comes down to a good dose of empathy.  

Organizational Structure

No one department is able to work in a vacuum. For example, if there's a digital transformation going on then the IT Department should go out of its way to help other departments like data analysis and machine learning, and how to deal with any new technology. Any changes within a business structure will affect every department from marketing to HR. 

When there happens to be an overlap of projects between different departments, that's a great opportunity for team building. When you're managing in these departments, then ensure that you put the team leads in direct communication together on a regular basis. Make sure that the organisation's shared objectives are clearly stated and understood. We suggest that you invite all team leads and department heads to meet at least twice a week. This gives everyone the opportunity to discuss their major points as well as their initiatives and plans. It's at these meetings that people will discover they can work together. As a manager, your job is to put them together so they can communicate in a relaxed and non pressured environment.

Shared Mission

One of the beauties of using escape room games as a team building exercise is the fact that everyone is working towards a common goal. But you don't need to hire an escape room to know this. The business part of your job, and the reason why you're paid more than anybody else, is the fact that you have to create and share a company vision. You need to know your company's core mission statement. And how every single employee is going to contribute towards making that statement come true.

It's important that the company's guiding principles are always under discussion. Every company, as it grows, will be constantly evolving and changing. Sometimes, thanks to industry disruptors like new technology or new regulations, the changes can be quite drastic. One way to stay on top of all these things is if the leadership and managers are able to communicate these new changes and developments affect their employees.

How to Help Your Team Do Their Best Work

First and foremost, every business leader must support their team. That means removing barriers which would make life more difficult and also offering resources to aid decision-making. We've decided to take the major factors and make them into a series of bullet points below:

It's important that you ensure that your employees have all the resources necessary to be able to perform their job to the best of our abilities. This will include training and also the appropriate material assets, example computers and laptops which are capable of doing the job requirement.

Identify bottlenecks and attempt to remove them completely. Sometimes, within a large organisation, a single department will have a practice that delays all cross-functional processes. For better workflow, it's important to remove or modify these.

Please ensure that the office environment is both comfortable and easily accessible for the employees.

Always provide feedback on an ongoing basis. You should always endeavour that this is given in a positive and optimistic light.

Open Communication

If you're a manager, then you should always be soliciting feedback from your team. This is why it's important that all organisations have an open channel communication, especially between the employees and management. A recent Gallup poll shows that managers who are able to positively receive feedback on their own performance have demonstrated a 8.9% greater profitability.

Another factor to take into consideration are the mechanics by which an employee can improve input. Whether it's via email, over the phone, or face-to-face. You may well find that some employees are more comfortable communicating their ideas using one method over another. It's important that all the team's communication preferences are accommodated. As a side effect of this, by treating each individual as an asset in themselves, this will make them feel appreciated, whilst reinforcing your team building efforts.

Paul Z Zak was recently writing for the Harvard Business Review. He was looking at the critical role of trust in teamwork. He wrote, “Two decades of research shows that leaders can boost performance by understanding exactly why we do (or don’t) trust the people we work with.” Trusting each other, Zak says, “activates brain systems that motivate teamwork, which, in the best case, makes work feel like play.”

The main thing about trust is that it takes time to build. Yet this trust can be  undone in just a couple of sentences. If you're a team leader or in a management position, then part of your job is to improve the employees retention and engagement. Since the Covid pandemic, and with many employees working from home, there has been a huge increase in people leaving office jobs. They want more out of life for themselves. Those who want to retain the best employees will need to work much harder at offering a more enticing and stimulating work environment. That’s not done with white-water rafting. Or an escape room game. It starts in the office itself, with empathy and a genuine interest in those who are responsible for powering the business forwards. In other words, all the employees.