22 Benefits of a Scavenger Hunt for Team Building

Team building may sound like a fluffy activity to some, but when you purposefully strengthen your group, “team building is the most important investment you can make for your people,” according to Brian Scudamore on Forbes.com.

When you see all the benefits from team building combined into a single list, it’s simply staggering. To start, here are 16 benefits that apply to team building in general:

1.   Build trust and respect
2.   Boost productivity
3.   Strengthen company culture
4.   Increase employee engagement and retention
5.   Forge stronger bonds
6.   Prevent future conflicts
7.   Reduce errors and increase quality
8.   Better problem solving
9.   Increase communication and cooperation
10.   Enhance collaboration
11.   Boost job satisfaction
12.   Increase motivation and output
13.   Foster personal growth
14.   Reduce stress and burnout
15.   Enhance creativity and innovation
16.   Increase company profits

While some of these benefits appear to matter most to businesses (such as “increase company profits”), almost all apply to any group of people that could perform better with greater teamwork.

So, we know team building is exceptionally worthwhile. These 16 benefits listed above apply to any well-designed team building activity.

However, there are 6 additional valuable benefits worth explaining in more detail that you also get when you choose a scavenger hunt.

1. Strengthen bonds between cross-functional teams

Scavenger hunts are a creative way to bring cross-functional team members together in a competitive shared experience that may or may not have anything to do with work.  

Working together on a scavenger hunt helps strengthen teamwork when natural communication and collaboration is weak, or when the group acts more like a collection of isolated individuals than a cohesive team. 

“It’s these kinds of moments…that help people break out of their shells and think of themselves as part of the team. “ – Entrepreneur 

You have probably heard the saying Together Everyone Achieves More (T.E.A.M.). In today’s world that has never been more true. From marketing to sales to supply chain to engineering, your organization’s long-term success relies on these cross-functional teams working together to solve hard problems. 

So, whether your team is made of strangers or long-time colleagues, put them onto a scavenger hunt team, and they will spend an hour or two building mutual trust as they have fun working towards a common goal.

2. Make it easier for people to know more people on their team

Who do people already know on their team? Mostly, it’s the employees in their department, especially people who sit by them. Beyond that, it’s the people who they interact with often as part of their job.

With a team building activity like a scavenger hunt, you can create teams of people who don’t know each other yet. And as Will Rogers said, “Strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet.” When the scavenger hunt is over, the friendships have only just begun.

Those new ties can create surprising new alliances between usually disconnected employees that lead to unexpected collaboration and innovation.

3. Help your team learn more about their teammates

When players are on the same team working towards a common goal, they gain a deeper understanding of each other. They see how teammates handle pressure, solve problems, exhibit creativity, and express themselves.

They can learn more about them as people too. One advantage of a scavenger hunt is that you can design challenges and activities where players gain points for sharing answers about themselves.  One very easy game to incorporate is Two Truths and a Lie.

4. Reward your team for a job well done with a fun game

You don’t have to choose to host a scavenger hunt just because you want the increased productivity, communication, and trust that comes with it. You may just want to give your team some on-the-clock fun time in recognition of their recent strong efforts or for a notable success. They’ll enjoy themselves, and recognize that you care about them, in a memorable fashion.

Oh, by the way – you’ll likely still get increased productivity, communication, and trust anyhow!

6. Increase retention from stronger friendships and common success

Experienced managers know that when a new employee makes a good friend at work, they are more likely to stay.

Research bears this out. According to a study by Future Workplace, “Those with few friends said they felt lonely either very often or always and disengaged in their work. Almost two-thirds said they would be more inclined to stay at their company longer if they had more friends.”

Scavenger hunts offer so many different ways for your people to discover the positive traits of their team members. During scavenger hunts, people can find out that their fellow employees have common interests, interesting backgrounds, appealing skills, and a sense of humor. 

Plus the experience of solving a unique challenge together creates new bonds that can endure.

Scavenger Hunts are a fun, versatile, and proven activity for promoting team building among your employees and other groups. Your people will have a great time, learn more about each other, and become a more trusting and productive team.

We hope you’ve found ideas and inspiration from this article with the wide variety of challenge ideas you can incorporate into your game to achieve the specific goals you want.