One of the advantages of an office scavenger hunt is its focus on problem-solving, logic, and teamwork. Your office scavenger hunt doesn’t need to remain restricted to your workplace.
Through clever inclusion of your outdoor environment, your employees can enjoy a positive team-building experience without the worry of physical restrictions within your workplace. Here are a few ways you can use the outdoors to make your scavenger hunt unique:
Make Use Of Your Immediate Work Environment
Scavenger hunts require very little space to be fun. It’s often an exciting puzzle to make use of your immediate surroundings. While not every company has access to a large outdoor environment, you can utilize your available space to make things memorable.
Take advantage of the everyday sights and sounds that your employees experience on a regular basis. Some of these surroundings may include:
- If everyone in the office is familiar with the trees growing just outside your office, you could conceal a clue there.
- If your office is situated near an intersection, you might create a clue based on the name of the intersecting streets.
- For workplaces that sit next to restaurants or popular eateries, hint at the smells and tastes that might be found there.
- If space is truly limited, consider devising clues from the views outside your office windows. It might surprise you how observant your fellow employees can become.
Expand Your Activity to Nearby Locales
Your activities don’t have to be limited to the office. If employees are interested in going on a field trip, you can travel somewhere nearby. Discover nearby points of interest to include in your scavenger hunt questions. You could include locations such as:
- Nearby public parks or walking trails
- Public shopping centers and stores
- Event venues and other gathering places
- Public locations like libraries, schools, and universities
- Local popular tourist attractions
- City or state markers and monuments
Contact the owners of some public and private locations before migrating an entire office for a scavenger hunt. If you can obtain permission, holding a scavenger hunt in a brand-new location is a great way to make your activity unforgettable.
Include Natural and Historical Knowledge
No matter where you live or work, the natural world is full of information and knowledge you can include in your scavenger hunt. Even if your travel time or required physical effort is restricted, it is a great idea to incorporate common knowledge about your town, city, or state. Look up information about everything around your workplace, such as:
- Local flora and fauna
- Natural land or water formations, including their size and historical significance
- Local history and stories
- Stories behind the names of local streets, parks, or public buildings
Unless such trivia is particularly difficult to find, don’t be afraid to include information you might think is too obscure. It might surprise you to learn how much your employees and co-workers already know. Learning and sharing information about the place you live is a great way to build rapport and trust.
Use Technology To Bring Nature Back With You
Unlike a treasure hunt that often utilizes physical objects and prizes, office scavenger hunts can be more about hunting concepts and ideas. Scavenger hunt lists are sometimes written as riddles. They often require a bit of abstract thinking to come up with solutions.
Nearly everyone working in an office today has a smartphone. Instead of searching for things, have your employees and co-workers search for sights and sounds that they can record. This makes it possible for groups to team up and spread out during the hunt. When everyone returns, it can be a lot of fun to compare captured images and videos, especially if someone finds an odd solution to one of your hunt clues.
Benefits of Outdoor Team Building Activities
Engaging in outdoor team-building activities can provide a variety of benefits for individuals and organizations alike. Here are some of the benefits that come from participating in such activities:
1. Improving communication: Outdoor team-building activities require participants to communicate and work together to achieve a common goal. This can help team members develop their communication skills and establish better relationships with one another.
2. Building trust: Team building activities often involve trust exercises that require participants to rely on one another to complete a task. This can help build trust between team members and improve overall teamwork.
3. Enhancing problem-solving skills: Outdoor activities often require participants to think on their feet and solve problems quickly. This can help team members develop their problem-solving skills and become more innovative in their work.
4. Boosting creativity: Outdoor team-building activities often involve thinking outside the box and coming up with creative solutions to challenges. This can inspire team members to be more creative in their work and come up with new ideas.
5. Reducing stress: Outdoor activities can provide a change of scenery and a break from the office environment, which can help reduce stress levels and increase productivity.
6. Improving physical health: Many outdoor team-building activities involve physical exercises, such as hiking or team sports. This can help team members improve their physical health and well-being, which can have a positive impact on their work performance.
7. Increasing morale: Engaging in fun and challenging outdoor activities can boost team morale and create a more positive work environment.
Overall, outdoor team-building activities can provide numerous benefits for individuals and organizations alike.
By improving communication, building trust, enhancing problem-solving skills, boosting creativity, reducing stress, improving physical health, and increasing morale, these activities can help teams work more effectively and achieve greater success.
Try a Fun Outdoor Office Scavenger Hunt
An outdoor office scavenger hunt doesn’t need to be stressful or physically taxing. You also don’t have to travel to a distant location to enjoy your scavenger hunt. The whole goal of team building is to strengthen relationships between your fellow co-workers and employees.
This can be done in locations close to where you work every day. Keep this in mind when you create your next team-building activity, and take advantage of the beautiful world around us.
