We all know the huge impact that the remote work environment has on our teams.  Yes, working from home provided many benefits, but overall collaboration and communication fell significantly within most teams. This resulted in the formation of silos, breaking down of trust, stifling of creativity, and

numerous other group dynamic challenges. Now that teams are meeting once again, we need to remedy this.

In March of 2020, team building as we knew it pretty much stopped overnight. After a brief period of “what do we do now,” team building turned virtual. Although virtual was a good stop-gap, it did not, and cannot, replace in-person team building. We had a few start and stop periods of in-person

meetings in the fall of 2021, but it was not until spring 2022 that we really saw a return to in-person meetings. With this came the return to in-person team building, which went from 0-100 in a matter of days.

Teams need to re-learn how to work effectively together again. We are starting to see a strong increase in requests for training workshops to help teams regain their strength.  Communication, as always, is a struggle. When relationships are held back through remote 

work, trust will naturally decrease and this impacts communication in a negative way. Teams need to learn about each other through training workshops, and to look at the skills that make them effective communicators. This allows them to collaborate, make decisions and overcome challenges and changes effectively.

We’ve noticed that teams have – and rightly so – recognized the importance of investing in relational (re)connection; hence, the massive demand for team building. Team building programs tend to be in the 90-minute range, they are fun, engaging, energizing, and focused 

on relationship development. We suspect that the impact that these programs have on team relationships is one of the main reasons why we’ve had so many teams asking for team building programs.

As people, one of the primary ways that we build relationships with one another is by learning to have fun together. Without a doubt, this applies to work relationships as well. Leaders are increasingly realizing that intentional, well-facilitated, and fun experiences are the best 

way for breaking the ice. This is where team building programs shine.  Team building programs generally get people out of the meeting room and connecting in a fun and guided fashion. The goal of the team building program is to help people re-connect, to foster positive team interactions, 

to energize the team, and make them feel part of a team once again.