Guidelines for Ensuring a Safe Team Building Experience

Team building day is supposed to be a day of fun, camaraderie, and learning. However, just because everyone is out of the workplace, it doesn't necessarily mean that your employees are completely safe from work-related accidents and injuries. Injuries can and do happen during team building activities. As the owner, supervisor, team leader, or HR manager, it is up to you to help prevent any unfortunate situations from ruining what should be a fun and exciting day at work.

Here are a few tips to consider to ensure everyone's safety during team building events.

1. Provide safe transportation

On team building day, it makes more sense to travel to the location together as a team than to go there individually. Not only can it help you save time and petrol, it also prevents the risk of someone getting lost. However, ensure that you work with a professional transport company to get your staff to and from the venue to prevent driving accidents.

2. Check the weather

If you're going to have an outdoor event and have team building in the Blue Mountains, for instance, ensure that you check the weather forecast before finalising the schedule. Whether you're doing the team building in the middle of winter or summer, you should advise everyone to dress appropriately for the event and bring items such as sunscreen for hot weather, or raincoats and warm clothing for cold conditions.

If some of your team members do not have the equipment or clothing for certain types of weather or situation, you should be able to provide the necessary gear to keep them safe and comfortable.

3. Ensure the activities you'll choose are health and age-appropriate

Don't select a team building activity simply because it seems cool or fun. It's also important to take into consideration the age and level of physical activity of your staff members when deciding the activities for your event, especially if your staff is composed of people of varying age and fitness levels. Otherwise, you are placing their health and safety at risk.

To solve this issue, you should ask everyone's opinions, medical needs, and other related information. Then, you can either find an activity that will work for every member of your team, or you can simply allow some of them to participate in alternative activities.

4. Always be prepared for emergencies

According to Murphy's Law, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. As such, it's best to be always prepared for emergencies. Before you start with any team building activities, you should brief your staff about taking safety precautions and go over the emergency plan with all of them. Also, make sure that you bring a well-stocked first aid kit with you and let your team members know that in any emergency, they can always call emergency services.