The Best Internal Team Building Exercises You Can Organise

nternal team building exercises are fun, free and a great way to help people bond. The advantages are that you don't have to leave the office, people are comfortable in their environment and they don't eat into working hours in the way external exercises do. From past experience, I've come up with the three most effective team building exercises you can carry out in your workplace.

The first is the compliment circle. It sounds a bit sugary, but it works and boosts people's confidence. Gather everyone together and have them give one piece of positive feedback to the person seated to their right. Give people a couple of minutes to think, but let them know it could be as simple as “You have the best taste in cakes, thanks for bringing some in yesterday”.

Secondly, have a "lunch and learn". Pair your team up and have them teach each other the basics of a skill over lunch – coding, the rules of darts, knitting. Whatever they pick. If you host multiple sessions and match different people up each time, they learn more about each other and might discover new interests.

Thirdly, the ideas session, and this can be workplace-based or just for fun. Come up with a problem and have people think of five solutions – first one to five wins, then start the process over again. This gets people to think on their feet and also reveals something about other people's thought processes.

Internal team building brings people together and helps take them out of the routine day-to-day. Plan well to get the most from your session.