Escape Rooms for Team Building

A corporate training in a conference room, or a luncheon, can only go so far in helping to build cohesion within your group. Cliques can easily form, people will be afraid to engage with other members who are higher on the organization hierarchy, and it’s easy to pull out your cell phone to check messages when all of the attention is focused on the people most engaged in the activity. It makes it hard for managers to get an accurate assessment of their members. It is not conducive to helping shyer members to contribute, so it’s easier for them to be overlooked. Even worse: these luncheons can cost companies hundreds or thousands of dollars!

But hosting a team building event at an escape room is a far more beneficial, fun, and revealing way to create and develop bonds within the group. And they help managers learn more about their team. The return on investment is also greater because escape rooms are usually much less expensive than traditional forms of corporate training or team-building workshops. A retreat to Amaze Room Escapes also includes accommodations to hold lunch and a place to have members discuss and reflect on their experience in the rooms.

What To Expect

At Amaze Room Escapes we have three themed rooms that can be combined to hold up to 26 people. Because a group any larger would detract from the experience, we have two options for setting up the rooms. You can either split your group into two and see which one can finish the fastest, or you can use 2-3 rooms and create healthy competition between the groups. Afterward, we provide you with a space for debriefing and reflection. This is a great time for team members to share their experiences and discuss the lessons they’ve learned.

Now that you understand how the day will go, here are some of the qualitative outcomes you can expect from your experience at Amaze Room Escapes.

Identifies Strengths and Weaknesses

Team members will encounter fresh and unforeseen challenges and problems to solve in the escape room. Because the rooms are outside of the context of a typical team environment, such as a workplace, team members won’t be able to rely on typical answers. Unfortunately, after attending a few corporate trainings, a lot of them begin to sound the same or have the same lesson objectives, but wrapped in slightly different language. There are so many workshops where all one has to do is remember what SMART goals are, or say the words “synergy” or “integrity” at the right time, and that will count toward their participation in the workshop. That does not happen in escape rooms. First of all, there is no time to rely on people waiting their turn to contribute or be called on by a facilitator like they do in corporate workshops. Escape rooms also help limit attention-seekers’ ability to outshine too much, since all activities require the group to work together. Because of that, managers can get a more accurate assessment of how team members approach new and complex problems, work with others, and their willingness to promote the group’s success.

There is a lot of delegation in the rooms as tasks are divided up to ensure escaping before the clock runs out. This helps managers to see how individuals handle stress, their willingness to ask questions, to be vulnerable in front of the group when they’re uncertain, and how team members treat each other. By the end of the experience, the observer(s) and the participants will have a better understanding of the group’s dynamics.

More than likely everyone on your team has a different job that requires different skills. In an escape room, they can exercise skills they aren’t normally called upon to use. Oftentimes, there is at least one person who surprises the group with their hidden talents, and that can lead to more confidence in that person and for the person themselves. An experience in an escape room can help you identify assets within your own team members you were not even aware you had.

Identify Issues Within The Team

Another advantage to hosting a team building exercise at Amaze Room Escapes is that it provides managers an opportunity to identify challenges within the group. If there is a particular problem person who enjoys creating discord among the group, then you will have measurable observations that you can use to provide feedback to the individual.

Some issues are not intentional or due to a poor attitude. Some people may really struggle with working with a large group or will have difficulty with solving some of the problems at the same pace as everyone else. This may shed light on how these team members works best, and where they are best placed to thrive.

Some people may not take the rooms seriously, so they will give a lackluster performance, joke around, and maybe even try to come off as know-it-alls. Others sometimes like to criticize the work of others, thinking that this is a valid contribution to the success of the group. Managers can identify these people with problematic and negative views, and address them.

Improves Communication

There are puzzles and riddles to solve, and only so much time in the rooms. Escape rooms encourage people to contribute solutions and share ideas in order for the group to finish before time runs out. Team members must also practice listening to each other in order to accurately and helpfully contribute to the group. Again, in these rooms, it doesn’t matter who is higher up on the team’s hierarchy, so everyone will be encouraged to speak up.

Our rooms also encourage face-to-face interaction and problem-solving. Employees spend much of their time checking email or communicating via phone or text message with others. An experience at Amaze Room Escape can foster a sense of cohesion between team members who work in separate buildings or floors and can even build important internal relationships.

This experience can also teach managers what ineffective communication methods members use, which can be useful to understand in order to provide them feedback.

Engages Members

In the last few years, the field of education has seen a major shift towards play education, based on successful models of implementing well-known curriculums developed by top therapists. More and more research is revealing how human beings learn more effectively, and how to encourage cooperation among members of a group. Using games to learn, such as the kind of strategy games played at Amaze Room Escapes, will sharpen skills.

Improves Creativity

The world is changing faster than ever. The status quo is always slipping into something new. Companies that hire thinkers are getting ahead. An escape room is intentionally tricky, so members have to challenge their ways of thinking, and use problem-solving techniques they wouldn’t have thought of had the circumstances not warranted them. Team members learn how to think outside the box and accept new ideas without prejudice or judgment.

If you are considering giving your employees the challenge of their corporate lifetimes,Book your team’s session at our Raleigh location today!