Who doesn’t love Beach Day? Beach Day is a day where businesses decide to engage their employees in beach adjacent fun. It’s a time to take a break. A time to breathe. A time to strengthen the bonds between your teams. Don’t be shocked! Even though you want to help your team destress, you can also improve their skills. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. There is such a thing as having fun and learning at the same time.
For your staff, an effective Beach Day can accomplish many things. Two of the most valuable to you are likely a reduction in cases of burnout and improved team efficiency. Sounds great right? To accomplish these goals, make sure you use the 7 best beach games for adult team building.
Beach Volleyball
I’m biased, but beach volleyball is the best way to play volleyball. I’m partial to landing in the sand instead of a cold hard floor. For your team, playing beach volleyball is a great way to hone communication skills while having fun. There’s no need to be a professional volleyball player. No one needs to have high school or college experience. All they need to master is keeping the ball off the ground.
Once you determine teams, you can just let the process flow naturally. Teams will make their own decisions about strategy and technique. They are likely to decide whether they want democratic decision-making or to defer to a team captain. They’ll need to come up with a system of calling their movements so that they don’t collide with each other. And they’ll learn how to support one another in successful moves and mistakes. Who knew beach volleyball could teach all of that? If you have a large group participating in Beach Day, make sure you encourage waiting teams to act as cheerleaders. This keeps everyone engaged and improves morale.
Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are an amazing way to encourage team building. I like them because they offer teams the opportunity to think differently about solving problems. I also enjoy the idea of having teams go on adventures. It’s the premise of so many reality shows. One thing that will be important for holding a successful scavenger hunt, is early preparation.
You’ll need to purchase items for the teams to find. You’ll need to create moderately difficult clues pertaining to the items you intend for the teams to find. And then you’ll need to have monitors to make sure no one is cheating. It could be a lot. Hopefully, you can employ the help of others to make the scavenger hunt successful. Some skills that will be demonstrated during this activity include:
● Creativity
● Abstract Thinking
● Clear Communication
● Amplifying All Voices
If you want to make sure your clues contain variety, add some math problems. That’ll get a different part of the team excited about the activity.
Beachball Relay
A beachball relay is an activity that will get even the least competitive people engaged. That’s because it is an extremely silly activity that doesn’t depend on athleticism. I think that making space for activities that give everyone a chance to win is a valuable endeavor. So, let’s get into what a beachball relay actually is. This activity requires you to divide your employees into teams.
The teams will have one person at a time go through a predetermined route. It could be just going straight, making a turn, and then returning to the start. The trick is that the route will be traveled by an individual holding a beachball between their legs. You can get creative and have them hold something else as well. For example, they can wear glasses on the top of their heads to make the route more difficult. If they drop the glasses then they have to start over. You get the relay going and have each member of each team follow the route. The first team to get all of their players through the route wins.
From my experience, I can say that people really get amped up about a relay. It is a typical team-building activity. The activity will encourage good communication. It will require teams to cheer each other on. And it will require some strategy as they’ll need to get their relay order correct.
Tug of War
Tug of War is a game that needs no introduction. It has been played for a very long time. Why? Because it’s easy to play, it’s fun, and it’s a huge team builder. I remember going to a company picnic where we played Tug of War against different teams. When my team went undefeated in Tug of War that year, we talked about it until the next picnic. It gave us a sense of pride. We felt like champions. In addition to that feeling, we also learned something. We learned who had a competitive spirit. We learned who was willing to sacrifice themselves for the team (we often played in mud). We learned who could lead.
Those things became important during the struggles we had during work projects. We knew who we could depend on. On the beach Tug of War is a lot of fun. You get to eliminate the whole mud issue. You also get to use different items to tug. Obviously, you could use a rope. But you could also use towels for small groups. Or even blankets. This game is also good for whoever is in charge of coordinating because it doesn’t require much preparation.
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Squirt Ball Race
A Squirt Ball Race is a unique team-building activity. It requires some preparation, but I think it’ll really engage younger teams. A Squirt Ball Race is a race that encompasses teams using squirt guns to get a beachball through a predetermined route. The distance the beachball must go is up to you. However, making the route longer is a better idea if your teams are large.
If you have a large team, you’ll be able to engage more players if the route is longer. This can happen in a variety of ways. For example, if the route is
long you’ll need more water to get the beachball to its destination. More people will need squirt guns. More people will need to transition to the water
to fill up their squirt guns. For smaller teams, make the route shorter. Either way, it’ll be hard to find employees who hate squirt guns.
Beach Comber Puzzle
A Beach Comber Puzzle activity is similar to a scavenger hunt. Except you don’t have to do the work of creating clues. Instead, it’ll just be about your employees’ ability to find puzzle pieces hidden in the sand. Once the teams find the pieces, they’ll have to work together to solve the puzzle. This type of game will again showcase the skills of a lot of different types of employees. It will give people the opportunity to demonstrate their leadership skills. It will encourage those who may be less vocal to speak up.
You’ll see your shy employees yelling if they find a puzzle piece! This activity can be made more difficult in a couple of ways. You can pick a more difficult puzzle to complete. It will likely include more pieces. This will extend the time it takes to find them. You can also make it more difficult by hiding the pieces in more difficult spots. Overall, I like this activity for teams that need to work together to solve difficult problems in the office. I think it will help them to better understand the skills of their teammates. It’s also an analytical game that will be useful for diverse teams.
Sand Sculpting
This activity is not a traditional competition. It doesn’t include a race, a hunt, or a puzzle. But that doesn’t make it any less fun. Sand Sculpting in this activity means building something out of sand. Similar to a sandcastle. But it could be anything. The teams will decide what they want to create.
The rules are that you must divide the employees into teams. The teams will be given a designated amount of time to sculpt their sand into something they choose. In the end, a group of judges will select the best sculpture. I like this activity because it encourages creativity. Many teams forget about the importance of creativity in the workplace. In addition, it gives the group an opportunity to work together towards a common goal. Creating something out of nothing.
This activity requires little to no preparation on your part. You could supply buckets for the teams to carry water. You could also include sand shovels to make the task easier.
I hope you will decide to use Beach Day as a way to improve your teams. As you can see, you can have fun and build skills. Try out one or all 7 of these beach games for team-building. Then see how well your teams perform.
Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or medical advice. Please consult a legal expert or medical professional to address your specific needs.