Why Team Building Matters More in the Age of AI

We’re investing heavily in AI. Are we investing enough in our people?

As more of the working day happens through laptops, phones, video calls and AI tools, face-to-face time has become easier to overlook. At Dynamic Events, we see what happens when colleagues step away from their screens and have something to do together.

We’re Spending More of Our Working Lives on Screens

AI is moving quickly. Businesses are figuring out where it fits, what it can do and how their people can use it.

But AI is only part of a much bigger shift.

A lot of the working day was already happening through screens. Emails, Teams calls, Slack messages, presentations, shared documents. We can work with somebody every day without spending much actual time with them.

There are obvious advantages to that. We’re not arguing against technology.

But we do think it makes the time people spend together more important.

We run team building events every week, so we get to see the other side of it.

A group arrives and, naturally enough, people are checking their phones, talking to the colleagues they know and standing with the people they normally work with.

Then you give them something to do.

Twenty minutes later they’re arguing over an answer, laughing at another team’s attempt, trying to win, solving a problem or talking to somebody from a department they barely deal with.

Nobody has been told to put their phone away. They just aren’t looking at it.

That’s the part of team building we think is becoming more valuable.

Putting People in the Same Room Isn’t Enough

Companies spend a lot of money getting their people together.

It might be for a conference, company update, annual meeting or night away. But if the whole day is presentations followed by dinner and drinks, people can quite easily spend most of it with the colleagues they already know.

An activity changes that.

You mix the teams. You give them a problem to solve, something to create or something to compete over.

Suddenly, there’s a reason for people who don’t normally work together to start talking.

It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

We sometimes see enormous claims made about team building. One activity is apparently going to transform communication, improve retention, develop leaders and change company culture.

That’s not how we look at it.

Sometimes a good team building event is simply a couple of hours where your people aren’t answering emails or sitting in another meeting.

They’re talking to different people. They’re having a laugh. They’re competing. They’re doing something together.

There’s value in that.

People Still Want to Spend Time With Their Colleagues

This was one of the things that stood out to us in research from Wiley Workplace Intelligence.

Wiley surveyed 2,008 people, from individual contributors to executive leadership, about connection in an increasingly digital workplace.

The results were interesting.

78% said they feel connected to their coworkers.

At the same time, 73% said they enjoy team building activities, 64% enjoy connecting outside the office and 51% want to learn more about their coworkers through team building activities.

You can read the full Wiley Workplace Intelligence research on human connection in the digital age here.

What we like about those numbers is that they challenge the idea that team building is something you organise because there’s a problem.

Most of the people surveyed already felt connected to their coworkers.

They still wanted opportunities to spend time together.

Your team doesn’t need to be broken or disconnected to justify getting everyone together.

Sometimes it’s simply worth doing.

Give People Something to Do Together

There’s another reason we think an activity works differently from simply organising dinner or drinks.

At dinner, people will often sit beside the people they already know. At drinks, the same groups can form. During a presentation, most people are listening rather than interacting.

Give a group something to do and the dynamic changes.

It could be cracking codes, building something, navigating challenges around a venue, creating something together or trying to beat the other teams.

The activity gives people a reason to talk.

Nobody needs to be told to “connect” or “build relationships”. They’re concentrating on what they’re doing and the interaction happens around it.

We think that’s a much more natural way of getting people involved.

Don’t Overcomplicate It

Not every team building event needs a grand objective attached to it.

Sometimes there is a specific reason for getting people together. A company might want departments to mix, new colleagues to get to know each other, a competitive activity after a conference or a CSR experience as part of a company day.

In those cases, the activity should reflect what you’re trying to achieve.

But sometimes the brief really can be as simple as:

We want everyone to get away from their desks and have a good time together.

That’s a perfectly good reason too.

The important thing is choosing something that suits the people taking part.

A competitive group might love something like Code Breaker. A larger company group might suit The Big Picture, where different teams contribute to one larger result. Another group might be better outdoors, moving around a venue and taking on challenges.

There isn’t one activity that every team should do.

And there shouldn’t be.

Where Does AI Fit Into All of This?

We don’t think AI is the problem.

We use technology ourselves. Businesses are going to keep investing in it, and AI will become another normal part of working life.

That makes sense.

But while companies are spending serious time and money working out what technology can do for them, it’s worth putting some thought into the people using it too.

When you have everyone together, don’t automatically fill every hour with presentations.

Don’t assume dinner afterwards will do the job.

Give people some time where they actually have to interact.

Let them compete. Let them solve something. Let them make a mess of something and laugh about it. Let someone from finance end up on a team with someone from sales who they’ve only ever emailed.

That time doesn’t need to produce a measurable business outcome by 5pm.

Sometimes the point is simply that it happened.

Invest in Your People

The technology we use at work will keep changing.

AI will get better. New tools will arrive. More of the tasks we currently do ourselves will probably become automated.

But people are still people.

We see it at our events all the time.

People arrive with their phones in their hands.

Then the activity starts.

They talk. They laugh. They get involved.

In a working world increasingly fascinated by what technology can do for us, maybe we shouldn’t underestimate something as simple as spending proper time with the people we work with.

Invest in the technology.

But keep investing in your people too.

Explore our team building activities if you’re looking for a way to get your team away from their screens and doing something together.