Having fun together is a way you and your employees can see each other in a different light, laying the groundwork for a strong team bond. Indeed, team building activities are becoming a more common part of the modern workplace year after year. Team building is critical to building the interpersonal relationships that support effective communication, planning, and accountability in the workplace. When done properly, they also improve employee morale and workplace satisfaction.

If you’re looking for ways to support your workplace, teambuilding is a great way to get results. It can foster the type of genuine connections that humans crave and make for better communication and collaboration all around. Networking, socializing and just getting to know your coworkers better makes for a more functional and engaged working environment. It also plants the seeds of effective teamwork, which boosts overall team performance.

Teambuilding is a great way to build communication and encourage better ways of working together. It also helps build a positive company culture, which carries with it important long-term benefits. However, there are a number of potential pitfalls to certain teambuilding approaches – particularly the traditional after-work happy hour.

When COVID-19 sent everyone home from the office, we witnessed the rise of a new phenomenon: the virtual happy hour. However, everyone’s relationship with alcohol is different. Many people become more social when they consume alcohol. Others, however, have complex – and sometimes even abusive – relationships with alcohol. 

Adding alcohol to the building of professional relationships can make for a toxic situation. Even among those who are not prone to alcohol abuse, people who drink at happy hours are at risk of making poor decisions. Impaired judgment can result in people making comments or engage in behavior that they regret in the cold light of day the next morning. This can make for an awkward situation at best, and at worst actually threaten a professional reputation. 

Fortunately, there are countless alternatives to the traditional happy hour that are even more effective at building teams. Consider alternatives that involve competition, team spirit, fun, and creative thought. Collaboration in circumstances that foster creativity and innovation are far more effective than hanging around and chatting at a bar.

The potential benefits of effective teambuilding are astronomical. But how can you help foster teamwork, show your employees appreciation, and build communication channels without falling into the common pitfalls of poor teambuilding activities? The answer lies where you would least suspect – or perhaps, with the most likely suspect.

Murder mystery games are an entire genre of party games in which one player is secretly playing a “murderer” who has “killed” another participant in the game. Depending on how the game is designed, the murderer may be aware that they are the killer, or it can be as much of a surprise to them as to the rest of the participants in the game. As the participants build out the theory of the murder, they may suffer from a loss in their numbers as the “murderer” claims more victims. Or, alternatively, there may be a single “death” acted out at the beginning of the game followed by an investigation by the other players.

Murder mystery games are generally played with a small to medium-sized group of people, which makes them ideal for teambuilding experiences. But what would a murder mystery teambuilding activity look like at your workplace?

As a genre of entertainment, murder mystery games have been around for generations. The most well-known murder mystery game, “Clue,” was released in 1948. In this game, players are assigned aliases and one player is randomly assigned to be the “killer.” They are also assigned a location of the crime and a murder weapon. Neither the killer nor any of the other players are aware of the circumstances of the crime, but they must use deductive reasoning to come to a conclusion. 

The traditional approach has been built out substantially since the 1940s, particularly in the world of virtual events. Today, virtual murder mystery games are among the hottest up-and-coming trends in teambuilding for distributed workforces. Since starting as an interactive theater ensemble in New York City over a decade ago, Live in Theater is now bringing the distributed workforce together with team building retreats that really work for everyone – particularly those who may be fans of murder mysteries.  

Let our skilled actors take you and your colleagues on a murder mystery experience that they will never forget. Live in Theater is an in award-winning troupe of actors that was formed well before the pandemic, and now we are bringing virtual theatrical experiences into the lives of everyone. Experience Live in Theater for yourself, and request a quote for your next teambuilding activity. Your employees will never stop talking about it, and this is just the type of experience that makes for an unbeatable team.