Bonding experiences

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Companies find adding a little fun to team building improves productivity

Teamwork is essential to workplaces that depend on collaboration for success.

Sometimes, though, companies realize their employees need to escape the office to foster that team bonding. Workers need an outlet to recharge their batteries, refresh their creative juices and reconnect with colleagues. That means finding spaces that offer opportunities for team building.

Escape Room NWI in Schererville gives teams an hour to figure out how to escape from a room of various themes.

In Northwest Indiana, businesses that offer chances to build relationships range from basic physical activities like axe throwing and bowling to more complex team building environments with immersive experiences — space and military simulations and escape rooms.

Rex Richards, president of the Valpo Chamber, sees the value in team building based on his experience in running seven chambers in three states. He said it encourages communication and breaks down silos between departments. It allows employees to get to know each other outside the office, while developing a culture of communication and collaboration within the organization.

“You really can communicate when you’re outside of the office, at a staff retreat, a social gathering, a breakfast, a lunch where people can just sit across the table and talk and share things that are going on in their departments,” he said.

Physical activity

The idea for the Lucky Hatchet in Granger started when Brandon Rector was stationed in the Air Force in Florida. While his two friends visited him there, they visited an axe-throwing venue.

“When I got out, we thought it would be a good idea just to open one up,” he said.

Rector said axes are thrown using the same stance as tossing darts. He said it attracts people of all ages. Clients have included auto care centers and Notre Dame University professors.

“It’s just a different way for people to relax and de-stress,” he said.

If axe-throwing is not the way your team rolls, perhaps bowling is up your alley. Inman’s Bowling & Recreation Center in Valparaiso offers 32 lanes that can easily accommodate as many as 160 people.

Bowlers can enjoy variations on the game, such as “nine pin no tap,” in which a bowler who knocks down nine pins on the first roll gets credit for a strike.

Inman’s also offers a banquet room that holds as many as 150 people. Groups can enjoy an early morning breakfast, hold a meeting and cap it off with a bowling session.

“The main thing is just coming out and having a good time,” General Manager Shaun Ciesielski said.

Immersive fun

Companies wishing to take a deeper dive into a more immersive environment visit places like Team Combat in Merrillville.

Team Combat Group Photo — Team Combat in Merrillville specializes in mission-based laser tag games.

Team Combat specializes in mission-based laser tag games.

“The missions are easily translatable into real life business situations,” said Team Combat President Jack Swets.

Two teams with up to 15 people on a side are pitted against each other. The players on each team receive a mission that gives them a problem for them to solve.

“They have to decide how they should best execute the mission,” Swets said.

Success depends on communication, teamwork and strategy.

Combat takes place on a 7,000-square-foot battlefield set up like a village with buildings and elevated areas called sniper towers, as well as some streets and alleys.

Missions include “Defuse the Bomb,” in which teams are split into attackers to defuse the bomb and defenders who attempt to stop them; “VIP Escort,” in which defenders protect the VIP from attackers; and “Control Point,” in which teams compete to control the point longer.

The taggers are based on an M4 assault rifle, with a similar weight and balance. It’s all metal with a holographic sight on top. The “laser” is actually an infrared light similar to what comes out of a TV remote to change a channel.

“It definitely fosters teamwork and communication, and there’s a lot of running,” Swets said. “When a player is tagged out, they run back to the base, step in front of a kiosk and then re-spawn.”

Another venue offering immersion while testing the limits of collaboration is Escape Room NWI in Schererville.

Mark Ireland, president and owner, said teams have an hour to figure out the puzzles and solve the clues in the game that allows them to escape from the room.

There are no “stars” here; players must collaborate as they strive for success. One can’t solve the puzzles all by themselves. This makes it a natural for team building.

“We always tell people when they come in there that it’s important that you absolutely work together, share the things with each other that you find, because if you don’t do that, it’s going to be just about impossible,” he said.

In the game “The Vampire,” the title character is trapped in a dungeon. At sunset, a creature will be hungry. In the hour before sunset, participants must escape to avoid being placed on the menu.

Another game is “The Rock,” in which a prison inmate escapes. Word has spread that the inmate has left mysterious clues about his method. In the meantime, a scheduling error has left the cell block unguarded. Players, who are also imprisoned in the cell block, have an hour to figure out how the prisoner escaped, so they, too, can escape before the guards return.

“I think people just generally have a good time with it,” Ireland said. “It’s pretty rare that people don’t walk out of the game smiling,” Ireland said.

On a mission

Looking for an experience that is truly out of this world? Look no further than the Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana in Hammond.

The center offers the experience of space exploration, with missions to the moon and Mars.

Executive Director Lara Bates said there are two simulators on site. Each are built with a briefing room to let players know what to expect.

Participants are assigned different teams specifically focused on such areas as communication, navigation, engineering and biology. They are then broken into two groups. One group goes into mission control, which is filled with computers and technology. The other half goes into the spacecraft.

“So, while mission control is managing the mission from the flight all the way to landing, basically guiding the spaceship and directing them on their jobs, in the spacecraft is where most of the hands-on labs are taking place,” she said.

In the spacecraft, they are completing tasks and gathering data to be analyzed in mission control.

“It’s a lot of fun, but it requires team building, communication, problem solving, critical thinking,” she said.

During the corporate team-building missions, one person might be on the navigation team in mission control and another navigation specialist in the spacecraft. They communicate via headset or instant messenger to complete goals in the separate locations.

“It is a fully immersive, hands-on experience,” she said.

Corporate clients include local industry leaders, who are called educational partners.

Recently, a team of engineers from Cleveland-Cliffs, a steel manufacturer, participated in a “Lunar Quest Mission” at the Challenger Learning Center.

Caroline Martin, who manages a mentoring program for the company with a Burns Harbor location, said Cleveland-Cliffs conducts a quarterly team building activity.

The team took part in a simulation of a rover landing on the moon. Activities included looking for lava tubes used in setting up a base.

“Everybody had to work together to make sure everything worked,” she said. “Everybody had a role, and that required some interaction between the control room and the spacecraft.”

The activity required some quick thinking. At one point, the team had to react when oxygen started to run out.

“There was definitely some good engagement with one another and team building,” Martin said.

One of the goals of the company’s team building exercises is to build the communication and collaboration skills of its future leaders. They also provide an opportunity for employees in a large company to meet other employees.

Bates said some of the staff from the city of Hammond has taken part in team building, too.

“We have people from all backgrounds,” she said. “What we say here is that science is in everyday life, and we try to bring that to life and spark curiosity and ignite that sense of having fun and learning at the same time.”

All work together toward a common goal, whether it is to land craft on the surface of the moon or to find signs of life or water on Mars.

“Everything is collaborative,” Bates said. “We have to work together as a team, just as NASA has to work together.”

The highest priority is to keep the crew safe. Emergencies may indeed arise in the course of the mission, and all have to work together to solve, for instance, an oxygen system error on the spacecraft.

Happiness factor

When Richards ran a chamber in Sarasota, Florida, he said, he would have quarterly gatherings on the beach.

“It’s amazing how that brought people together and developed communication,” he said.

Happiness is one factor that makes people more productive at work, according to several studies. Both show that workers are 12% more productive when they are happy.

“Under scientifically controlled conditions, making workers happier really pays off,” said Professor Andrew Oswald in a 2015 study at the University of Warwick in the UK. The research included companies like Google. More recently, “Management Science” published a study that came up with similar findings.

Richards agrees that happiness is worth investing in.

“I have always found, if employees are happy, they are much more productive,” he said. “When people are fighting amongst different departments, they’re not being productive. They’re wasting time.” •

Steve Zalusky
Steve Zalusky is a newspaper journalist from suburban Chicago who covers municipal government and dabbles in writing about sports, libraries, old movies and jazz.
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