- Why Indoor Team Building is the Solution to Keeping Employees Engaged
Over recent years the corporate event space has changed, we are seeing a demand for interactive and engaging content on the rise, whether this be at an internal conference or meeting or as part of a wider company team building event. Hybrid working patterns and cold dark months are believed to be a catalyst for dips in employee engagement across UK workplaces in 2026. 34% of UK workers became less engaged this year alone according to a report by the Royal Voluntary Services.
So how do we increase employee engagement through indoor team building?
It is important to remember that when planning an engaging indoor team building event you must match your organisation’s goals to the activity you choose. Sounds simple right? However most internal event planners do not have the knowledge, time or experience to deliver on this, and who can blame them as most take on event planning as a secondary responsibility to their primary role. This explains why most seek help from a reputable indoor team building company such as Bright Vision Events.
Our event management experts are here to help and have pulled together a guide for UK organisations on how best to match your indoor team building ideas to your organisational goals.
2. Common Organisational Goals that Indoor Team Building Can Help You Achieve
UK wide organisations seek indoor team building activities for a range of common organisational goals, whether it be to improve cross-functional teams, communication between departments or leadership skills. There are many ways you can bring these aims to the forefront of your conference or team away day, to ensure you gain better returns from your investment in the event itself and see long-term, lasting benefits for your team and the company you work for.
In a nutshell here is a few examples of the common goals organisations set for their corporate events and the best indoor team building formats for those goals:
| Organisational Goal | Recommended Indoor Team Building Format |
| Better team communication | Problem-solving activity |
| Building trust in the team | Collaborative, shared challenge |
| Boosting creativity | Creative workshops |
| Enhancing wellbeing | Calming, creative or light physical activity based |
| Morale or Reward | Social, free-participation activities |
| Improving professional skills | Strategy based tasks |
| Re-connecting teams | Inclusive, easy going and lighthearted team games |
Here are the steps you need to take as an event planner to ensure you pick the right goal to begin with.
3. Step 1: Be Clear on the Goal for your Indoor Team Building Event
Setting clear goals for team building and corporate events from the beginning ensures that you get the best outcomes for your team and your organisation as opposed to ticking a box. Therefore, when the leadership team asks what the returns are you can match the outcomes to the goal and justify further indoor team building activities going forward.
Ask yourselves and management the following questions to get an idea of what your goal may be:
What is the problem we are trying to solve?
What does success look like for the company and its employees?
Do we need a reward or development team building activity?
How will we measure success?
What is our group size?
Do we have more introverts or extroverts in the team?
Does the team have any accessibility and mobility needs?
Does the team have any dietary and cultural factors we need to consider?
Do we need to include remote or hybrid employees?
What is our age range and fitness levels in the team?
What is our budget?
Don’t forget to use data when deciding what the issues are you need to resolve with indoor team building. Use feedback from things such as appraisals, KPI and financial metrics and net promoter scores.
4. Step 2: Match the Goal to the Format
Matching the goal to the format. Now this is where we come in. On a briefing call the team at Bright Vision Events will ask you for estimated delegate numbers, preferred venue and location (if you have one) and your goals for the event as well as getting to know a little bit about your team.
From there we go ahead and find a choice of indoor team building activities bespoke to your brief. This blog is designed to equip you with some ideas on which indoor team building activities you may wish to discuss which can speed up the process for you.
If you are not quite ready to speak to us here are a list of ideas for indoor team building activities matched to common goals we see our corporate clients set for their events:
5. Indoor Team Building Ideas to Improve Communication
As mentioned above, to improve communication within the team your best option is to choose a problem-solving based indoor team building activity. Popular options we offer include:
The Labyrinth, a series of 30 minute mildly physical and intellectual challenges for groups of 10 – 250 people. This indoor team building game is inspired by popular TV game shows Crystal Maze and Krypton Factor and lasts between 2 – 4 hours. Comprising both tabletop and floor activities and challenges this fast-paced and fun team building activity can be tailored to most venues.
Outside the Box is another favourite with clients, as an easy to set up tabletop format requires teams to work together and communicate effectively to solve puzzles within the box. Each puzzle supports a variety of skills within your team consisting of creative, practical and mental challenges.
6. Indoor Team Building Ideas to Support Leadership Skills
If you are holding a leadership away day your best option is to go for a decision making indoor team building activity such as:
Rogue Agent, an inquisitive team building activity that requires teams to work together to find the mole agent within their MI5 team, with the country at stake. Sounds familiar right? This decision based challenge will exercise leadership teams ability to come to a justified conclusion and read fellow team members behaviour and performance.
Faithless is another test of the leadership team’s ability to judge character, observe what’s happening around them and ultimately how it affects the common goal they are trying to reach. Inspired by the TV hit Traitors it requires teams to complete a series of themed challenges all whilst trying to suss out who among them is sabotaging the team’s success. This is a highly fun way to exercise all important leadership skills.
7. Indoor Team Building Ideas to Boost Creativity
Do you require more creativity in your organisation? Maybe more innovation or idea generation? We have indoor team building activities that are tailored around boosting creativity within your team, such as:
Masterpiece Creation, a 2 hour long team building activity for groups of 10 – 250 whereby people must memorise an image set by the organisation and re-create it into one giant masterpiece that you can take back to the office to reinforce the symbol it shows. This highly creative team challenge is one that you can use to present important company messages, such as your values, your goals or your strategy in a visual and memorable way.
Clay Making Workshop is a calming and hands on and creative workshop for groups of 6 to 90 people, lasting 120 minutes, which allows teams to work on something they can take home, learning a new skill and conversing at their own pace. Clay making is widely known to bring wellness benefits for those taking part.
8. Indoor Team Building Ideas to Improve Employee Wellbeing
Employee wellbeing has become a huge consideration within organisations across the UK. It is now widely recognised that doing things to improve employee wellbeing can have many other benefits such as employee satisfaction, retention and productivity. We offer a variety of indoor team building activities that support employee wellbeing such as:
Similar to Clay Making, our Chocolate Making team building activity also provides a calming and slow paced environment for teams to get creative and learn new skills. This is a great way to reward teams with a sweet treat they can take home for themselves or their families – boosting morale and providing a sense of achievement. This indoor format works best for groups of 10 – 150 people and lasts 1.5 to 3 hours.
Disco Yoga is a fun, short and energetic physical indoor team building activity that everyone can join in. It teaches you key techniques for reducing stress in the most fun way possible – making it less ‘cringe’ and more engaging for all involved. This format is also popular as an energiser at conferences, allowing you to break up the day and keep energy and positivity high. It can be applied to groups of all sizes whether it be a group of 20 or a group of 500 and typically can run between 30 to 60 minutes depending on your agenda.
9. Common Mistakes to Avoid when Choosing Your Indoor Team Building Activity
To summerise and further support you in choosing the right and most effective indoor team building activity for your next corporate event we have a quick fire check list below of the things to avoid during the planning process.
- Choosing for the loudest voices.
- Forcing competition on teams with tension.
- Picking an activity that excludes someone.
- No link between the activity and a work outcome.
- Skipping the debrief.
For further information, see our recently asked questions over on the indoor team building page here. Alternatively to start planning your next indoor team away day speak to our team for your free proposal.