Planning a successful team building event involves more than choosing an activity that looks entertaining. While having fun is an important part of bringing people together, the best corporate team building events are designed with a clear purpose, an appropriate level of challenge and outcomes that can benefit the team long after the event has finished.
Whether you’re organising a company away day, conference, leadership development programme or employee celebration, the right event can help develop valuable workplace skills while creating memorable experiences.
So, what makes a team building event genuinely successful?
Here are seven factors to consider.
1. Start With a Clear Objective
Before choosing an activity, establish what you want the event to achieve.
Are you looking to:
- Improve employee engagement?
- Encourage creative thinking?
- Improve decision-making?
- Strengthen relationships between departments?
- Develop problem-solving skills?
- Reward employees?
- Support a wider business objective?
There is no single definition of a successful team building event because every organisation has different priorities.
For example, a business looking to develop strategic thinking might benefit from a mentally demanding challenge, while an organisation planning a summer celebration may prioritise entertainment and social interaction.
Starting with the objective allows you to choose an event based on what your team actually needs.
2.Choose the Right Level of Challenge
A good team building event should challenge participants without making them feel overwhelmed.
The ideal level of difficulty encourages people to think differently, make decisions and step outside their normal roles while still giving them a realistic chance of succeeding.
This can involve different types of challenge.
A puzzle-based activity may test critical thinking and reasoning. A construction challenge might require planning and resource management. A competitive event can develop decision-making and adaptability, particularly when teams have to respond to changing circumstances.
The key is finding an activity that encourages people to stretch their abilities without creating unnecessary frustration.
3.Make Sure Everyone Can Contribute
A successful team building event shouldn’t rely on one type of personality or skill.
Teams are made up of people with different strengths. Some may naturally take leadership roles, while others are better at analysing information, generating ideas, organising resources or spotting details.
The best activities create opportunities for these different strengths to become valuable.
For example, one participant might excel at strategic planning while another is brilliant at creative problem-solving. Someone else might naturally manage the team’s time or resources.
An effective event allows all of these contributions to matter.
This is particularly important for larger corporate team building events, where creating an inclusive experience can be more challenging.
4.Develop More Than One Soft Skill
The strongest team building activities rarely focus on just one workplace skill.
Instead, they create situations where participants have to use a combination of abilities.
Depending on the activity, these could include:
- Leadership
- Creativity
- Resource management
- Decision-making
- Strategic thinking
- Problem-solving
- Adaptability
- Planning
- Delegation
- Critical thinking
- Risk management
- Confidence
For example, an activity may begin with a planning stage before introducing a time limit or changing the available resources.
Suddenly, the team has to adapt.
This creates a much richer learning experience because participants aren’t simply practising one skill in isolation. They’re seeing how different behaviours interact when they are under pressure.
5.Use Experienced Facilitation
Even a great activity can have limited impact without effective facilitation.
A facilitator does more than explain the rules. They help create the right environment, keep participants engaged, manage the pace of the event and ensure everyone understands the challenge.
Experienced facilitators can also observe how teams behave.
Who naturally takes the lead?
Who looks for a different solution?
Who keeps track of time?
Who manages resources?
Who encourages others to contribute?
These observations can provide valuable insight into team dynamics.
Good facilitation ensures the event remains enjoyable while also creating opportunities for participants to learn from the experience.
6.Give Participants an Opportunity to Reflect
One of the biggest differences between a fun activity and a meaningful team building event is what happens after the challenge.
Participants might have spent an hour solving puzzles, building something or competing against another team. But what can they take from that experience?
Reflection helps make the connection between the activity and the workplace.
For example:
Did your team plan before acting?
How did you decide who was responsible for each task?
What happened when your original strategy stopped working?
How did you prioritise limited resources?
Did everyone have an opportunity to contribute?
These questions encourage participants to consider how their behaviours during the activity might relate to situations they encounter at work.
This is one of the principles behind EML’s Team Building Plus approach, which adds facilitated reflection and workplace relevance around a traditional team building event.
7.Consider the Business Impact
Ultimately, businesses invest in team building for a reason.
While employee enjoyment and engagement are important, organisations increasingly want to understand the wider value of their investment.
Could the event help teams make better decisions?
Could it encourage stronger leadership?
Could it improve planning?
Could it reveal strengths or development areas?
Could it help employees approach problems differently?
This is why EML considers Business Impact when assessing its events.
Rather than assuming every activity should have the same outcome, EML’s scoring matrix looks at five different attributes:
- Teamwork – How much the activity tests communication, collaboration and high-performing team behaviours.
- Mental – The level of reasoning, problem-solving and intellectual challenge.
- Physical – The level of physical activity required.
- Entertainment – How suitable the event is for social and celebratory purposes.
- Business Impact – How realistically the activity can contribute to improved workplace performance.
The result is a more considered approach to selecting a corporate team building event.
Why Bespoke Team Building Can Make a Difference
Sometimes the most effective event isn’t an off-the-shelf activity.
A bespoke team building event can be designed around a particular organisation, industry, business challenge or development objective.
This gives participants a more relevant experience and allows the activity to reflect the situations they encounter in their working lives.
For example, EML’s bespoke Turbine Trouble event was created specifically for Nordex, a turbine manufacturer, with a focus on health and safety. Rather than simply selecting an existing activity, EML developed a challenge around the client’s industry and objectives.
This is where team building can move beyond a generic company away day and become a purposeful development experience.
Creating Team Building Experiences With Purpose
At EML, we believe that effective corporate team building events should offer more than an opportunity to step away from the office.
They should create challenges that encourage people to think, adapt, make decisions and discover what they’re capable of.
From competitive events and outdoor adventures to creative challenges and bespoke experiences, our activities can be selected and tailored around your team’s objectives.
And with our scoring matrix and Team Building Plus approach, we can help organisations look beyond the activity itself and consider what the experience could actually achieve.
Because the best team building event isn’t simply the one your team enjoys.
It’s the one that gives them something valuable to take back to work.
With over two decades in corporate team building, I’m Co-founder and Lead Facilitator at EML Team Building. We help organisations strengthen collaboration through innovative, engaging, and outcome-driven experiences.
Since 2000, I’ve worked with 6,000+ teams from globally recognised organisations—including American Express, Deloitte, and Danone—designing and delivering tailored events that build trust, improve communication, and elevate performance.
I believe in collaboration that works—sessions designed to be business-relevant, energising, and immediately useful back at the desk.
