Team Building Trends for 2025: Reconnecting teams in a Digital-Detached World
As organisations navigate a rapidly evolving workplace landscape with fast evolving tech, in-person team building remains a cornerstone of fostering genuine collaboration, innovation, and morale.
With the desire of many to shift away from too many virtual interactions and a strong desire to reconnect in-person, many classic old-school team building formats are experiencing a renaissance.
Innovative experiential team-building activities designed to get employees off their devices and reengaged with each other in meaningful ways will be the trend for 2025. Sabre’s approach to team building aligns with the broader trend of prioritising quality in-person interactions over quantity. A few well-tageted events a year may be all that is needed.
Disconnecting from the virtual and reconnecting in-person for some old-school team building themes will be the formula for building better working relationships and teams.
The Move Beyond Virtual
The pandemic-era surge in remote work and virtual interactions made platforms like Zoom indispensable. However, this reliance on screens also underscored the human need for authentic, face-to-face connections. As we approach 2025, a growing trend among organisations is the shift back to in-person team-building activities, where the focus is on revitalising interpersonal dynamics and creating memorable shared experiences.
As a leader in in experiential learning, Sabre has seen a marked increase in demand for activities that bring teams together in real-world settings that thematically were created in the late 80’s or early 90’s such as our Quest and Rollerball formats. The programmes we see increasing demand for emphasize stepping away from digital distractions, and tech-based team games, to more hands-on low tech games encouraging participants to actually engage with their surroundings and more importantly, one another.
Reconnecting Through Experiential Learning
Experiential learning has become a buzzword in team building, and for good reason. Activities that engage participants physically and emotionally tend to leave lasting impressions and foster deeper connections. Sabre’s offerings are tailored to achieve precisely that and can serve as a ‘Trojan Horse’ for deeper insights that enhance workplace performance. The use of the Belbin Model and its reports for example to give people lasting follow-through back at work.
Sabre’s "Creative Construction" challenges tap into problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity by having teams work together to design and build structures out of unconventional materials such as our Kon Tiki Boat Building, or Picture Perfect murals. These activities not only encourage innovation but also foster a sense of physical accomplishment and camaraderie.
Other standout activity formats are our "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR) initiatives, where teams work on projects that contribute to community well-being, such as Team Toy Story or Street Survivors for the homeless. Hands-on formats that help others. These activities are powerful tools for building unity while aligning with an organisation’s values that resonate with younger Gen Z employees.
The Desire to Disconnect
A notable trend driving the resurgence of in-person activities is the growing desire to disconnect from technology. Employees, especially those now accustomed to remote work, are craving opportunities to set aside their devices and engage in real-world human interactions. The social systems of the human brain need in-person engagements to form quality working relationships. Virtual alone fails to engender genuine team dynamics.
Sabre’s programs are explicitly designed to create environments where digital distractions are minimised or fully removed, allowing participants to focus fully on the task at hand and more importantly the contributions of the people around them. Various inter-personal behaviours come to life and workmates can see strengths, attributes and humour that are often absent from virtual interactions.
For instance, scenarios that will place teams in novel outdoor settings where they must collaborate to overcome challenges, are not only fun and engaging but also reinforce in real time essential team behaviours like communication, trust, and leadership. These behaviours and skills that are harder to cultivate in virtual environments.
Building for the Future
As organisations continue to adapt to hybrid work models, the emphasis on in-person team cohesion has never been more critical. Too much virtual interaction can rob the human brain of its ability to build the required inter-personal chemistry from which working relationships and innovation need to build from.
Companies are realising that investing in meaningful experiences fosters loyalty, boosts morale, and enhances productivity. By all means use virtual formats, but staging several strategically placed in-person team builds each year will be mission-critical to building teams and retaining talent.
Looking ahead to 2025, the future of team building lies in striking a balance between leveraging the conveniences of our digital tools and nurturing the irreplaceable value of face-to-face connections. Sabre Corporate Development’s innovative activities exemplify how organisations can achieve this balance, ensuring their teams are not just connected but genuinely bonded.
To find out more contact us: T – 1300 731 381 E – Admin@SabreHQ.com
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