I am starting the year with my favourite blog topic: experience & art based employee engagement programs at the workplace! Judging by the increase in these programs over the last two decades I feel that it will only get more and more important as pressure keeps mounting in our corporate lives. But don’t you worry, if you need help with making sense out of all those clickbait team building activities that promise the best team engagement strategies, we are right here at your service. 

By now, you know team building engagements at the workplace (just like exercise and your fitness goals) are best served regularly and over a period of time. We’re in January 2025 and you have already made your resolutions for the year. Let THIS year be different where you fully achieve all you have set out to because of planned, persistent and sustained efforts towards the same. That means: don’t leave this corporate team building drum circle for the last minute where you expect all your year-long HR goals of group cohesiveness, communication strategies, leadership and empathy to be met in one 60 minute session. That’s unfair. And if any service is agreeing to provide you the same, that’s total rubbish!

Just like any relationship takes time, effort and sustained mindfulness, workforce engagement is no different. Just that here you (as an HR head) are in a relationship with your entire workforce. If you think about it, it is tricky but can be very rewarding when done right. Needless to say you can please everyone but what you can do is cast a wide net and cover all your bases. This means

  • You keep a clear and open channel of communication for your workforce to be able to reach out to you in case of need
  • You keep an open mind when listening to the content of issues or feedback that comes up
  • You look for and hold space for solutions to emerge more than diagnose the problem from your map of the world. 
  • You keep moving forward.

Keeping these points in mind, let’s look at some of the best experiential, arts based team engagement activities in the workplace according to me

  1. Dance Jams: Regular and ongoing creative movement / dance sessions: These could be weekly, fortnightly or even monthly. Imagine a dedicated space around the cafeteria at a time that is maybe post lunch, or around coffee time where your employees gather around a trained facilitator who leads them through a short 15-20 minute cathartic movement session. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Believe it or not this activity is different when led by a dancer. The idea of movement to lead to a sense of release and rejuvenation is served best by a trained facilitator. 
  2. Drum Your Stress Away!: Regular group drumming sessions or drum circles (again, led by a trained drum circle facilitator) at the start of your day can help heighten your focus and goal-orientedness. Doing these sessions a the end of a long day can help lead to a sense of release and stress-reduction
  3. Just Breathe…: Being aware of one’s breath through yoga based asanas and pranayama based exercises can go a long way towards building one’s sense of health and wellbeing. What better way to start your day than checking in with your physical bodies and then putting your best foot forward?
  4. I’m a poet and I know it!: Creative writing, drama and story circles are a unique and creative way to look at one’s own stressors, issues and problems from a different perspective. Sometimes it is this playful, artistic and dissociated outlook that can help us find a solution naturally. 
  5. A hearty space for art…: Where words fail, art prevails… Using colour, paints, crayons to create art in a non judgemental and open space has shown wonderful effects in the area of self expression, problem solving, group cohesion and catharsis. Our trained art therapy practitioners are best suited to guide you and your group through this process to bring out the best in your workforce by facilitating regular sessions where they can express pent up emotional content. 

To sum it all up, there are a lot of team building activities out there. Pick ones that best suit your needs. Pick them and stick with them over a period of time. Don’t expect sustainable magic to happen over one-off sessions. If you need help with any of these steps, we’re happy and ready to help. When will we work with you next?

#ComeDrumBeOne #WassaWassa
Come. Drum. Be One. 
Varun Venkit
Team Taal Inc.